Shanghai GP3 120 film It's back?

[John Wiegerink]

Do you or anyone else know why Shanghai as a film producer is not selling it to the major retailers or why the major retailers are not stocking it?

pentaxuser[/QUOTE]
I have wondered the same thing, but it's probably because our retailers would jack the price up and us few B&W shooters would go to Taobao or even eBay to get the best deal. I'm going to try and figure out how to order on Taobao as $2.80 + shipping is certainly in my price range for a darn good film. I've shot a few rolls of the latest batches and have no complaints at all. I wish a place like Robert's Cameras out of Indianapolis, IN would stock it since they are now becoming a big film distributor. JohnW

 

[Agulliver]

It's a fair assumption that the Shanghai film factory doesn't have a distributor for Europe or the USA. Ergo the film emerging in Western eBay auctions is in dribs and drabs.

 

[wblynch]

Then Ultrafine or Freestyle should step up. Especially now that Freestyle has to charge full Foma prices on its Arista EDU films.

 

[John Wiegerink]

Then Ultrafine or Freestyle should step up. Especially now that Freestyle has to charge full Foma prices on its Arista EDU films.

Actually, Ultrafine/Photo Warehouse liquidated Shanghai's old wrapper GP3 film that had to have the absolute worst number bleed through of any film ever. So maybe Photo Warehouse might be able to work out a deal to sell the new GP3 and I think it would be advantages for both of them as long as they kept the price reasonable. JohnW

 

[howardpan]

This was posted on Large Format Photography recently.

http://www.largeformatphotography.i...-Shanghai-Film-Available-from-ecbuyonline2008

The seller offers $3.20/roll plus shipping. The seller also lists on eBay directly at a higher price of $5-6/roll but inclusive of shipping. It cost me about $25 recently to ship around 10 rolls of film via EMS (express mail service) to the United States from Taiwan. I think small sellers cannot effectively serve the US market.

 

[destroya]

with the sale this weekend for memorial day, 10% off everything at ultrafine's store, the cost of the Xtreme film in 120 is about $3.30 per roll. shipping will be a lot cheaper than shipping from asia. I like the x100 film a lot and at that price its a great deal. They do this twice a year, so I usually order 30 rolls of 120 and 3 35mm bulk rolls, which are like $33 each. this makes it the cheapest good quality film out there.

sale link

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/10-off-site-wide-memorial-day-weekend-sale.160005/

 

[John Wiegerink]

with the sale this weekend for memorial day, 10% off everything at ultrafine's store, the cost of the Xtreme film in 120 is about $3.30 per roll. shipping will be a lot cheaper than shipping from asia. I like the x100 film a lot and at that price its a great deal. They do this twice a year, so I usually order 30 rolls of 120 and 3 35mm bulk rolls, which are like $33 each. this makes it the cheapest good quality film out there.

sale link

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/10-off-site-wide-memorial-day-weekend-sale.160005/

I've been busy all day and than made a trip up to my cottage so I hadn't checked my email. I just did and Photo Warehouse sent me the 10% off special notice also. I still have about a half bulk roll of 35mm left, but will order another. I don't use much 35mm anymore, but as far as the xtreme 120? Well, I'll be getting 15 rolls. I have used a lot of both and find it a very good film for the price. I don't use Rodinal hardly at all, but do with the 120 xtreme. 1hr semi-stand in 1:100 Rodinal and the film sings. Of course it's fine in the other two developers I use also and they are Pyrocat-HDC and Xtol-R. I think some of the folks that turn their nose up at films like Ultrafine Xtreme and GP3 haven't given them a good try or maybe they haven't tried them at all. If it's the later then they shouldn't comment negatively or even positively for that matter. JohnW

 

[destroya]

I've been busy all day and than made a trip up to my cottage so I hadn't checked my email. I just did and Photo Warehouse sent me the 10% off special notice also. I still have about a half bulk roll of 35mm left, but will order another. I don't use much 35mm anymore, but as far as the xtreme 120? Well, I'll be getting 15 rolls. I have used a lot of both and find it a very good film for the price. I don't use Rodinal hardly at all, but do with the 120 xtreme. 1hr semi-stand in 1:100 Rodinal and the film sings. Of course it's fine in the other two developers I use also and they are Pyrocat-HDC and Xtol-R. I think some of the folks that turn their nose up at films like Ultrafine Xtreme and GP3 haven't given them a good try or maybe they haven't tried them at all. If it's the later then they shouldn't comment negatively or even positively for that matter. JohnW

what times and EI are you using for X100 and rodinal? I get great results with pyro-m, but willing to try a roll with rodinal.

john

 

[John Wiegerink]

what times and EI are you using for X100 and rodinal? I get great results with pyro-m, but willing to try a roll with rodinal.

john

I used 1+100 Rodinal and it is actually an old original bottle of Rodinal I've had since the dinosaurs went extinct. Anyway, here is how I used it. One roll of 120 in a two reel stainless steel tank, set water temp at 65F, 2 minute pre-rinse then dump, add developer to fill tank, agitate for 30 sec, let stand for 20 minutes then do two slow flips of the tank, let stand another 20 minutes then two more slow flips, let stand 20 more minutes and then dump, water rinse as stop and fix in homemade TF2 fixer. I have not used this on 35mm only 120. I first tried this at full-stand 1 hr @ 68F and had some light bromide drag in sky areas so switched to semi-stand and a little cooler developing temp to compensate. I get pretty darn good open shadows, very little if any blown highlights and really small grain for Rodinal. Now, this seems to work for me as far as Rodinal goes, but I use Xtol-R more since I can rate the film at 100, get really good tonal range and fine grain to boot. For Pyrocat-HDC I rate it at 64, but really only use it when the lighting range is extreme so as to hold highlights in check. With Rodinal semi-stand I have to rate it at 64 also and sometimes I actually think 50 would be better. All-in-all the semi-stand Rodinal seems far less finicky, delivers very nice easy to wet print negatives or scan for that matter and is pretty much fool proof. So, takes your pick. JohnW

 

[John Wiegerink]

destroya,
I've made a terrible blunder in the reply to your question above. The procedure is for when I used Shanghai GP3 and I have never used semi-stand with Xtreme 100. The developers I use for Xtreme 100 are Pyrocat-HDC and Xtol-R. More Xtol-R than Pyrocat-HDC. I apologize and should have read your question a little more slowly. Of course this scheme might just be fine with Ultrafine Xtreme also, but I haven't tried it myself. At least my old memory says I haven't anyway? JohnW

 

[destroya]

destroya,
I've made a terrible blunder in the reply to your question above. The procedure is for when I used Shanghai GP3 and I have never used semi-stand with Xtreme 100. The developers I use for Xtreme 100 are Pyrocat-HDC and Xtol-R. More Xtol-R than Pyrocat-HDC. I apologize and should have read your question a little more slowly. Of course this scheme might just be fine with Ultrafine Xtreme also, but I haven't tried it myself. At least my old memory says I haven't anyway? JohnW

no worries, thanks for the reply

 

[John Wiegerink]

no worries, thanks for the reply

Well, at least I gave you something to try when or if you should get a roll or two of GP3.. JohnW

 

[alanrockwood]

I wonder if anyone has actually received their order of a ten-pack of gp3 for about $10.

 

[John Wiegerink]

I wonder if anyone has actually received their order of a ten-pack of gp3 for about $10.

Maybe in their dreams! I would think if they had that they would be on here bragging about what a great deal they got. Since no one is, I think we can assume the sellers were scammers. I would imagine eBay/PayPal is getting a little sick of coughing up refunds by now. JohnW

 

[Kevin Harding]

I don't think that eBay or PayPal is worried about $60 or $100 in refunds.

Frankly, folks, if you want to order GP3 - which is a great film - find a more reliable seller or buy via Taobao.

 

[John Wiegerink]

I don't think that eBay or PayPal is worried about $60 or $100 in refunds.

Frankly, folks, if you want to order GP3 - which is a great film - find a more reliable seller or buy via Taobao.

Well, it might just be a tad bit more than $60 to $100.00, but it's not just about a monetary refund. It's the hassle they have to go through to try and make thinks right. It takes time and people to do the job. I think eBay has got a handle on the problem for now. I did the search on the auction for Shanghai GP3 and all the sellers selling it now have pretty high feedback numbers and there are no more zero (0) feedback sellers. I then went to the completed auctions for GP3 and saw there were more than a couple of zero (0) feedback scammers that had sold GP3 at those "to good to be true" prices. Hopefully the problem is solved for now. JohnW

 

[wblynch]

I bought two items, from two different Ebay users. One was a two-pack of GP3 4x5/25 sheets for $9.99. The other was the 10 rolls of GP3 120 for $9.79.

In the end Ebay notified me that the users were banned and after waiting a good long while, I turned it in to resolution for refunds.

But the 'funny' part is both Ebay users turned out to be the same person in China. So evidently he was popping up new user id's as quickly as ebay was popping them off.

 

[John Wiegerink]

I bought two items, from two different Ebay users. One was a two-pack of GP3 4x5/25 sheets for $9.99. The other was the 10 rolls of GP3 120 for $9.79.

In the end Ebay notified me that the users were banned and after waiting a good long while, I turned it in to resolution for refunds.

But the 'funny' part is both Ebay users turned out to be the same person in China. So evidently he was popping up new user id's as quickly as ebay was popping them off.

Bill,
Yup, that's how they work. I guess he was "making hay while the sunshines" as they say.

 

[Kevin Harding]

Well, it might just be a tad bit more than $60 to $100.00, but it's not just about a monetary refund. It's the hassle they have to go through to try and make thinks right. It takes time and people to do the job. I think eBay has got a handle on the problem for now. I did the search on the auction for Shanghai GP3 and all the sellers selling it now have pretty high feedback numbers and there are no more zero (0) feedback sellers. I then went to the completed auctions for GP3 and saw there were more than a couple of zero (0) feedback scammers that had sold GP3 at those "to good to be true" prices. Hopefully the problem is solved for now. JohnW

I have a feeling that there are more scammers out there selling higher-value goods than cheap B&W 100 ISO film.

 

[John Wiegerink]

I have a feeling that there are more scammers out there selling higher-value goods than cheap B&W 100 ISO film.

Yes, I ran into one a while back on eBay that had high class gear such as Hasselblad, Rolleiflex and many more photo items. He also had fancy motorcycles, cars, boats and many other expensive items. I can't remember exactly, but he had some kind of strange payment scheme. He said the stuff was located in I believe Vermont. I then started going through his listings and looking at the photos. There were some photos that didn't jive with Vermont. Like a boat or car and a few others that had things like Palm trees in the background. Now , as far as I know, Palm trees do not grow in Vermont. A day later all his listings were gone. This guy was USA based so it's not just Chinese doing the scamming. Some Americans consider it an art to be a good scammer. I'm always watching for it and some of the scams I see are really, really good. So, maybe it is and art? Shady art that is. JohnW

 

[Agulliver]

4th June is here, and unsurprisingly no GP3 so I've requested a refund. Also noted the fact that the seller has no feedback from any of the 60 bricks of GP3 they supposedly sold.

There's still GP3 from reputable sellers going for around £36-£39 a brick, but I can get Rollei Retro 400S or Fomapan 100 for very little more...films I know and trust.

 

[Kevin Harding]

I get that a lot of people don't trust this film, but how about we keep the thread to updates from those who use it or who want to instead of extraneous discussions about other films? : )
I do use GP3 and I love it.

 

[saman13]

This film is about the same price as Foma and Arista. Are there any advantages of GP3? If it had better reciprocity characteristics I might be willing to give it a try.

 

[John Wiegerink]

This film is about the same price as Foma and Arista. Are there any advantages of GP3? If it had better reciprocity characteristics I might be willing to give it a try.

For me, I think GP3 is/was far easier to work with than Foma 100 and I had no complaints in the end results. Truth is that FP4+ or even Delta 100 are just a few penny's more, which makes GP3 less attractive to me. At around $3.50 or less and I'm a sucker for it. Others might have a different view of GP3, but that's my take on it. JohnW

 

[Kevin Harding]

This film is about the same price as Foma and Arista. Are there any advantages of GP3? If it had better reciprocity characteristics I might be willing to give it a try.

Depends on your definition of "better" reciprocity characteristics. It has a pretty horrible reciprocity failure. But if you like a film that needs lots of time for smoothing out water, then this is your film!