Shanghai GP3

Shanghai GP3 is a budget Chinese 100 iso, 120 format film I’ve shot quite a bit of recently. Bought off ebay direct from China it can work out as cheap as two quid a roll, which seems not at all bad. The adage that ‘you get what you pay for’ holds true with this stuff though, and I can’t say I’ve been overjoyed with the results. Relatively minor quible first, the negs seem to lack contrast, needing quite a bit of work to get them looking reasonable. By comparison the other budget film I’ve been shooting quite a bit of (Fomapan 100) looks pretty good straight out of the developing tank.

Now the major problems. I’ve noticed a set of just about visible wavy lines running down the whole film, something I’ve never experienced before with any other film. I’ve heard of people having problems with marks coming through from the backing paper with this film, I’m not sure if this is the cause or something else but its enough alone to put me off using it again. Worse though a few frames have random emulsionless areas. If you look at the last image in this series theres a weird black blob on the right of the frame where there simply isn’t any emulsion. Again I haven’t experienced this before, and I’m fairly confident its not something I’ve caused. I guess you could digitally edit both of these problems out, but it renders the film pretty useless for darkroom printing, which after all is the point isn’t it? Anyway, pictures follow, all shot on a Rolleiflex Automat K4A, developed in HC110 dilution B and scanned on an Epson V500 photo.

This gripes aside Shanghai is still pretty cheap, and might make a good practice film provided you’re willing to end up with potential troublesome negatives. Personally I think I’d rather pay a bit more for something a bit more reliable though. Back to Foma I go…