I was sent 2 rolls to try out and let them know my findings. thought I would pass along a quick view of what I thought.
I had shot the 120 GP3 in 120 before many times and found it to be a nice emulsion with a little crude (not sure what term to use here) finishing. so how is the 220?
1) the film itself is the same as the 120 as expected. a clear stiff acetate, similar to the foma films. but it curls a lot. in 220 this made it necessary for me to give it an extra clothe pin on the bottom weigh it down to make me feel better. when dry it curled less but was still there. once sleeved in a print file sheet and between a few books, it flattened out some. I have yet to wet print, but happy to have a flextight scanner to keep the film taught when scanning.
2) the film results remind me a lot of plus-x. nice deep blacks, which i love.
3) in 120, the roll seeler was like kodak, a lick/moisten to seal. but the 120 gp3 never worked, so I always made sure to bring along a rollei retro black tube and some small rubber bands to keep the roll tight and light tight. the 220 was fixed nicely with a similar to fuji peel sticker thing. took me a minute or 2 to figure out but when I did, the roll sealed up nice and tight! YEH!!!!!! a big step in design and it gets a thumbs up from me.
4) the 220 leader and trailer are just cut 120 backing paper. the paper says 120 on it, so I loaded to the start line as a guess and it loaded fine. The paper is thicker than the fuji and kodak leaders/trailers are. as such, the roll when loading became loose. the leader and first shot were covered in leaks. there was piping on the bottom of the rebate on the first 7 shots that went away by shot 8 (I shot on a fuji gw690, so the first half of the roll). I know know to keep the film very tight and be extra careful when loading. clearly the leader and trailer were hand attached with masking tape. the were tight and I felt that there was no risk of it coming lose. not sure if this would change if the film was cold stored, as making tape does not do well when frozen and the re-heated to room/ outside temp. but it had no impact on at least the fuji camera.
the film was shot at 100 in a fuji GW690 version 1 with a B+W orange 2 stop filter. metered with a sekonic l-318 incident meter. developed in Pyrocat-M 1+1+100, 72 degrees for 18 minutes. 1 minute initial continues agitation, then 10 seconds every 3 minutes. water stop bath, kodak flexicole fixer for 3.5 min, then distilled water with 3 drops of photoflo. hang dried over night. the scans were loaded into photoshop to remove a few dust marks but any emulsion defects were left in. no sharpening was used, just resizing for uploading to this site. I might have missed some dirt marks from scanning and if so, Im sorry for that.
there are a few of what appear to be emulsion defects. a few zits or the like and a few scratches which I sometimes get in 220 B&W films. if the uploaded images need to be larger so better view them i can try to upload larger jpegs. Im not sure how i feel about the emulsion issues. while there are not many, if i was going to wet print them it could be an issue. scanning, would take a few minutes in photoshop to clean them up, but i always want a neg I can wet print.
This is a film that I would shoot in 220 if the price was right. but seeing as traveling with film overseas is hit and miss regarding airport scanners, not sure if I would bring any with me. And that is where, for me, 220 film was big. when traveling carrying half as many rolls was important. at home its not as big a deal.
so like many things in life, it all comes down to price. priced at 2x or a little more than a 120 roll, then for me it is a viable option. at a huge premium, like portra used to be in 220 the last few years of production, it made more sense to just by 2 120 rolls. I'm sure i forgot something, so I will add to the thread if I remember.
john
I had shot the 120 GP3 in 120 before many times and found it to be a nice emulsion with a little crude (not sure what term to use here) finishing. so how is the 220?
1) the film itself is the same as the 120 as expected. a clear stiff acetate, similar to the foma films. but it curls a lot. in 220 this made it necessary for me to give it an extra clothe pin on the bottom weigh it down to make me feel better. when dry it curled less but was still there. once sleeved in a print file sheet and between a few books, it flattened out some. I have yet to wet print, but happy to have a flextight scanner to keep the film taught when scanning.
2) the film results remind me a lot of plus-x. nice deep blacks, which i love.
3) in 120, the roll seeler was like kodak, a lick/moisten to seal. but the 120 gp3 never worked, so I always made sure to bring along a rollei retro black tube and some small rubber bands to keep the roll tight and light tight. the 220 was fixed nicely with a similar to fuji peel sticker thing. took me a minute or 2 to figure out but when I did, the roll sealed up nice and tight! YEH!!!!!! a big step in design and it gets a thumbs up from me.
4) the 220 leader and trailer are just cut 120 backing paper. the paper says 120 on it, so I loaded to the start line as a guess and it loaded fine. The paper is thicker than the fuji and kodak leaders/trailers are. as such, the roll when loading became loose. the leader and first shot were covered in leaks. there was piping on the bottom of the rebate on the first 7 shots that went away by shot 8 (I shot on a fuji gw690, so the first half of the roll). I know know to keep the film very tight and be extra careful when loading. clearly the leader and trailer were hand attached with masking tape. the were tight and I felt that there was no risk of it coming lose. not sure if this would change if the film was cold stored, as making tape does not do well when frozen and the re-heated to room/ outside temp. but it had no impact on at least the fuji camera.
the film was shot at 100 in a fuji GW690 version 1 with a B+W orange 2 stop filter. metered with a sekonic l-318 incident meter. developed in Pyrocat-M 1+1+100, 72 degrees for 18 minutes. 1 minute initial continues agitation, then 10 seconds every 3 minutes. water stop bath, kodak flexicole fixer for 3.5 min, then distilled water with 3 drops of photoflo. hang dried over night. the scans were loaded into photoshop to remove a few dust marks but any emulsion defects were left in. no sharpening was used, just resizing for uploading to this site. I might have missed some dirt marks from scanning and if so, Im sorry for that.
there are a few of what appear to be emulsion defects. a few zits or the like and a few scratches which I sometimes get in 220 B&W films. if the uploaded images need to be larger so better view them i can try to upload larger jpegs. Im not sure how i feel about the emulsion issues. while there are not many, if i was going to wet print them it could be an issue. scanning, would take a few minutes in photoshop to clean them up, but i always want a neg I can wet print.
This is a film that I would shoot in 220 if the price was right. but seeing as traveling with film overseas is hit and miss regarding airport scanners, not sure if I would bring any with me. And that is where, for me, 220 film was big. when traveling carrying half as many rolls was important. at home its not as big a deal.
so like many things in life, it all comes down to price. priced at 2x or a little more than a 120 roll, then for me it is a viable option. at a huge premium, like portra used to be in 220 the last few years of production, it made more sense to just by 2 120 rolls. I'm sure i forgot something, so I will add to the thread if I remember.
john
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