Scammed: Shanghai Light 400 Review

Scammed: Shanghai Light 400 Review

Nathan Hu

All images are courtesy of Nathan Hu unless otherwise stated.

One day, while scrolling through my email, I spotted one from Downtown Camera talking about new promotions and updates. Interestingly, I noticed that they now had stocked a new film that no one has ever heard about: Shanghai Light 400. Even better, they were offering it 20% off! Having popped out of nowhere with no reputation or any information available on the internet, it was hard to justify spending the $12.80 a roll of 27 exposures. Had it not been for the discount, I would have not succumbed to my curiosity and bought the roll.

Background

Literally nothing is known about this film, also called Shen Guang 400. Rumors suggested that it marked the return of the brand Shanghai, a famous brand in China that made panchromatic black and white film since 1958. It appears to have been a limited run, as it has since disappeared from store shelves. The design of the box and canister is pretty minimalistic, with a white theme with a red yellow blue stripe running along the edge. It has a pleasing vintage look to it, though the canister label has the texture of thick receipt paper.

Image courtesy of 8storeytree.

Despite little being known about this film, there’s already huge galleries of photos up online, especially on Lomography from people who have already tried out the film. I spent a while browsing the photos to see if it was worth trying, and the photos often looked quite nice. Sharp, contrast, saturated, warm, and super grainy, the photos had a really good aesthetic to them, but often reminded me of Kodak Ultramax 400.

Shooting the film

I loaded this roll on my Nikon FE with the 50mm AI lens during a trip to Toronto with my friends in late August. We walked around Chinatown (It only seemed appropriate), and Kensington Market. I took a handful of photos, and let my friend take a few as well. Afterwards, I finished off the roll on Labour Day around Iroquois Ridge and Uptown Core. It was at this moment when I got my first red flag: After taking my 25th photo, the advance lever jammed and wouldn’t move. I was very surprised, how did I already finish the roll? Turns out it was just a 24 exposure roll marketed as 27. I had the roll developed at Downtown Camera and then scanned the negatives myself using a cheap tracing board from Amazon.

It was at this time when my suspicions were confirmed true. I took a look at the film after only taking a couple steps away from the photo lab. Seeing the border of the film, I recognized the font and realized that it was literally just Kodak Ultramax 400. I just paid $12.80 for a rebranded $8 roll of film.

Shooting Experience

Kodak Ultramax is a really good film, so there was absolutely nothing wrong with this roll. Known as the do-it-all film, this stock is praised for its versatility and low price. Despite it having a huge exposure latitude and being incredibly forgiving, it is recommended to shoot at box speed (400 iso) and avoid overexposing to prevent color shifts.

I personally love first of the roll shots, where you take a photo before you get to frame 1 and it overlaps with the exposed part of the leader used to load the film. This shot was perfectly exposed and I really like the saturated and warm colors that the film brought out here.

I accidentally overexposed a photo, and the colors began to shift, the sky became turquoise and the picture developed a yellow-green cast. I didn’t correct it because I felt like it suited the vibe of the subject I was photographing.

In the future I would probably overexpose by ⅓-½ of a stop and/or meter for shadows (properly expose the shadows). I struggled the entire day with shadows being completely muddied out like these photos. Shoutout to my friend Mahoora for taking that absolute banger of a photo at Graffiti Alley.

Sometimes this contrast works really well, giving character to photos that otherwise would not have looked as nice without it.

Being a cheap-ish 400 iso film, the pictures are pretty grainy. Even viewing the landscape photos on my phone, the grain is still really prominent. Technically, this is bad, but it also means that this is a cheap ticket towards getting the “film look” that many people desire and attempt to achieve by throwing crap filters onto their photos. The 400 iso also brings great versatility to the film, making it useful in harsh daylight as well as inside where there is less light.

Conclusion

I didn’t know what to expect off of this film stock, given that nothing is known about it. But once I found out, I was left with zero surprises. Ultramax is a really nice film, giving you punchy, saturated, contrasty and warm images. Heck, it's probably even the same stock your parents used back in the day. Sure, I'm a bit bummed at the price I paid for a drugstore film, but in the end the photos came out really nice and since this film is now gone, no one will have to follow the same path as I did. If you are ever thinking of trying out film, Ultramax 400 is your go to.