shanghai GP3 now available in 35mm

destroya · Sep 10, 2019

I found this by mistake. another film added to the mix is never a bad thing. I actualy like the tonality of the film and thought it would be a good choice to learn how to shoot 4x5 with as its the cheapest emulsion out there.

I have no relationship with the seller, just passing on something I found.

john

https://emulsive.org/articles/news/new-shanghai-gp3-100-in-35mm-format-120-film-updates

mshchem · Sep 11, 2019

There must be a whole lot of these products sold in China. With all the political skirmishes going on ,good thing for China to have a domestic supplier. I will stick with Kodak and Ilford for now.

foc · Sep 11, 2019

I see in the link regarding 35mm film,
“Our only small regret is that our domestic coating process still can not meet the expected standards, so the coating has been produced in cooperation with Germany’s OWRO. Therefore, in the absense of full mass production, a ‘UN54’ mark is left on the adhesive paper. I hope everyone will forgive me.”

So does that mean it is re-labelled Orwo UN54?

Regarding their quality ( I know they had backing paper problems with the 120 film)
"It’s safe to say that many film photographers in the West have had less than consistent experiences with Shanghai film in the past, although in my experience, this is mostly due to shooting expired stock with uncertain histories, rather than fundamental issue with the film itself – in over half a decade of shooting the film in 120 and 4×5 formats, to date, I have had only one issue of note which – as you may already have guessed – boiled down to purchasing poorly stored film from an untrustworthy seller"

I wish them the best of luck but if you want a product to succeed, it has to be brought to market after extensive testing and quality control. Otherwise it's a case of the cart before the horse.

wyofilm · Sep 11, 2019

I'm thinking film photography must have a pretty good market in China. Not only film, but automated film processors, knock-off JOBO processing tanks, and so forth are available. I doubt these products are exclusively for export.

howardpan · Sep 11, 2019

foc said:
So does that mean it is re-labelled Orwo UN54?

.

According to the speaker in the video, who apparently is a photographer, silver gelatin enthusiast and a distributor of Shanghai film, he was the last distributor of the product. He has been in business for over 23 years. He wanted to keep the product alive so he negotiated to have rights to the formula and brand name. To bring back the 135 film, he is using Orwo for coating. As part of this process, Orwo made changes to the formula to bring the formula into compliance with modern environmental standards. This is not an existing Orwo emulsion rebadged as Shanghai, but rather a revised emulsion .

Since this is a new team, there is no doubt he is climbing up the learning curve and working through the issues. Is it as good and problem free as Kodak or Ilford? Probably not.

But I have been using the 4x5 sheet films without any problems. I am going to support him by buying 100 ft to start.

Andrew O'Neill · Sep 11, 2019

It's nice stuff. I've been shooting it in 4x5 and 8x10. Got one or two images in my gallery...

foc · Sep 11, 2019

howardpan said:
To bring back the 135 film, he is using Orwo for coating. As part of this process, Orwo made changes to the formula to bring the formula into compliance with modern environmental standards. This is not an existing Orwo emulsion rebadged as Shanghai, but rather a revised emulsion .

Thanks for the explanation (the video wouldn't work for me). I am glad that it is a revised emulsion and I wish them the best. Any new or revised film is more than welcome.
I don't wish to be smart but maybe Ferrania should do something similar with their P30.

cmacd123 · Sep 11, 2019

was surprised when a 100 ft bulk roll of ASA 400 Shanghai "GP3" film came up on an unrelated e-bay search. who knows what the product actually is. Sounds like whatever is being sold under the name has no relation to the GP3 that was sold before the backing paper failure event.

Henning Serger · Sep 11, 2019

howardpan said:
To bring back the 135 film, he is using Orwo for coating.

FilmoTec (ORWO brand) has no own industrial scale coating facility. They never had. When they were founded about 20 years ago (by former ORWO employees) they installed emulsion making and cine film converting facilities. And coating was done at the Forte plant (Forte was also a shareholder at that time).
When Forte closed they switched to Harman technology as their coating partner at that time.
All this information is official!
Some years ago there was an interview of the FilmoTec CEO published in one of the major German economic newspapers (Handelsblatt). And he explained all the details of their business model.

Whether Harman is still their current coating partner is not confirmend. Maybe they have switched again (there are some rumours about it, but really only rumours so far).

Best regards,
Henning

cmacd123 · Sep 11, 2019

I am given to understand that the original ORWO coating lines were demolished when the company was broken up after the fall of the Berlin wall. Filmotec is a startup run by former ORWO employees, who aquired the rights ot use the ORWO name in connection to some lines of Film. the ORWO film processing folks were apparently
another spin off.

Henning Serger · Sep 11, 2019

cmacd123 said:
I am given to understand that the original ORWO coating lines were demolished when the company was broken up after the fall of the Berlin wall. Filmotec is a startup run by former ORWO employees, who aquired the rights ot use the ORWO name in connection to some lines of Film. the ORWO film processing folks were apparently
another spin off.

Yes, that is correct Charles.

Best regards,
Henning

howardpan · Sep 11, 2019

Henning Serger said:
FilmoTec (ORWO brand) has no own industrial scale coating facility. They never had. When they were founded about 20 years ago (by former ORWO employees) they installed emulsion making and cine film converting facilities. And coating was done at the Forte plant (Forte was also a shareholder at that time).
When Forte closed they switched to Harman technology as their coating partner at that time.
All this information is official!
Some years ago there was an interview of the FilmoTec CEO published in one of the major German economic newspapers (Handelsblatt). And he explained all the details of their business model.

Whether Harman is still their current coating partner is not confirmend. Maybe they have switched again (there are some rumours about it, but really only rumours so far).

Best regards,
Henning

Henning:

Thank you.

That’s very interesting, unless I misunderstood and mistranslated what the man in the video was saying.

What was said in the video is this is a pilot run of the revised emulsion. Because it was a pilot run, they didn’t want to spend the money on changing the words on the film rebate so it will show Orwo and not GP3. The size of this production run is 10,000 rolls, which by my estimate is ~500 sqm of film. Maybe someone can comment on the equipment size required for this production size.

What is clear from the video is this is not being produced by the former Shanghai plant. This team had to work on the packaging, using plastic canisters instead of metal. When the rolls came back, they had to repackage it into the canisters, which also has a learning curve resulting in some rolls exhibiting scratches at the end of the roll.

It’s a grassroots effort to revive an old emulsion, adapt it to the new environmental standards, and solve the supply chain and quality control issues. These are hard problems. I’m glad someone is passionate enough to do this.

pcren1212 · Sep 12, 2019

I have already taken one roll ,feel not as good as fomapan100

Henning Serger · Sep 12, 2019

howardpan said:
Henning:

Thank you.

That’s very interesting, unless I misunderstood and mistranslated what the man in the video was saying.

What was said in the video is this is a pilot run of the revised emulsion. Because it was a pilot run, they didn’t want to spend the money on changing the words on the film rebate so it will show Orwo and not GP3. The size of this production run is 10,000 rolls, which by my estimate is ~500 sqm of film. Maybe someone can comment on the equipment size required for this production size.

You're welcome.

500m² film coating runs are extremely small. Too small for the current coating lines being in industrial operation. I've seen five different film factories from the inside. From very small ones to big ones. And none of them is capable of doing 500m² coating runs economically. At such tiny volumes the costs would be much too high, and the price for the product in the market would not be competitive.

The situation is a bit different for film converting:
If you already have the film (e.g. existing film stock; established emulsion from bigger coating runs used for different purposes or markets) then doing film converting/finishing runs (cutting, spooling the film into cassettes) of about 10,000 units can be done economically by some facilities.

Best regards,
Henning

AgX · Sep 12, 2019

Henning Serger said:
FilmoTec (ORWO brand) has no own industrial scale coating facility. They never had. When they were founded about 20 years ago (by former ORWO employees) they installed emulsion making and cine film converting facilities. And coating was done at the Forte plant (Forte was also a shareholder at that time).
When Forte closed they switched to Harman technology as their coating partner at that time.
All this information is official!
Some years ago there was an interview of the FilmoTec CEO published in one of the major German economic newspapers (Handelsblatt). And he explained all the details of their business model.

This is one of the few cases where I agree with Henning ...

But of course known for sure to me before being made public. But even anyone with some understanding of the industry at least could have got doubts on them having production-coating facilities.

cmacd123 · Dec 9, 2019

Gettng back to the "GP3" I did order a roll of 100 ft of the GP3 - 400 in 35mm. it came in an oversize cardboard film can. inside there is a plastic bag with a roll of 35mm film wound on what to my fingers is a 2 inch core. I transferred the roll and bag into a metal film can, and will have to spool off a couple of rolls to investigate further.

Cholentpot · Dec 9, 2019

cmacd123 said:
Gettng back to the "GP3" I did order a roll of 100 ft of the GP3 - 400 in 35mm. it came in an oversize cardboard film can. inside there is a plastic bag with a roll of 35mm film wound on what to my fingers is a 2 inch core. I transferred the roll and bag into a metal film can, and will have to spool off a couple of rolls to investigate further.

Where did you find bulk rolls of GP3?

cmacd123 · Dec 9, 2019

Cholentpot said:
Where did you find bulk rolls of GP3?

ebay!

Cholentpot · Dec 9, 2019

cmacd123 said:
ebay!

Last time I tried to find GP3 on eBay it was a scammer. Do you have a legit seller you can share?

cmacd123 · Dec 9, 2019

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/323885982451 was the roll I bought. I did receive a roll, and hopefully it will turn out to be actual film. Stangest way to pack a roll of Bulk film I ever saw. YMMV. post for information only. Good luck.

Cholentpot · Dec 9, 2019

cmacd123 said:
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/323885982451 was the roll I bought. I did receive a roll, and hopefully it will turn out to be actual film. Stangest way to pack a roll of Bulk film I ever saw. YMMV. post for information only. Good luck.

Thanks!

howardpan · Dec 10, 2019

cmacd123 said:
Gettng back to the "GP3" I did order a roll of 100 ft of the GP3 - 400 in 35mm. it came in an oversize cardboard film can. inside there is a plastic bag with a roll of 35mm film wound on what to my fingers is a 2 inch core. I transferred the roll and bag into a metal film can, and will have to spool off a couple of rolls to investigate further.

I bought a bulk roll of the GP3 400 film too, but I have not had time to play with it. I would love to share test data.

cmacd123 · Oct 13, 2020

When Loading this GP3-400 in Cassettes, it was on a 2 inch core, which said "Agfa" (Not Agfa Gevaert ) B&H perfs. should get a good look to see if it has edge printing in a few days.

AgX · Oct 15, 2020

The firm is called Agfa-Gevaert, but their brand is Agfa. This is the case since 1964 (with a few exceptions on industrial materials, where the brand was Gevaert).

cmacd123 · Oct 15, 2020

well I did get one roll out of my order of GP3-400 developed and surprise surprise Surprise, the edge printing had KeyKode style footage numbers with film type ON, AND their is also a signature of Filmotec Orwo N74. !

so it seems to be run of the mill N74. How it got in the cardoard film can is still a mystery. But the film seems to have come from wolfen.

Before ORWO, the east German Orwo factory was known as VEB Agfa. (but was only allowed to use that name in the eastern bloc) (as it was the pre-war Agfa film site), so perhaps the core was made using a mold from before the Change to VEB ORWO

shanghai GP3 now available in 35mm

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