The folks at the Film Photography Project have once again reached into their bag of tricks and brought out the latest addition to their line of monster films, in this case Jiangshi 400. The name Jiangshi honours the jumping vampire (and ghosts) of Chinese legend. The film itself comes from China and is relatively new to the North American market. While rated at ASA-400, most signs point to the fact the film responds better when over-exposed by a stop at ASA-200 and pulled in development, so I’ll be shooting all four roll at that ASA-200 mark. Although like many films out of China the emulsion does show some problems including pinholing, coating errors, and light leaks. But if you look past all that you have a film stock with a vintage look and feel and a wide latitude.
Nikon D750 – AF Nikkor 35mm 1:2D
Film Specs
Seller/Manufacturer: Film Photography Project
Name: Jiangshi 400
Type: Panchromatic B&W
Original Film Stock: Lucky Pan SHD 400
Film Base: Polyester
Film Speed: ASA-400, Latitude: 100-800
Formats Available: 135 (35mm)
Roll 01 – Kodak D-76
FPP thankfully provided a listed time for D-76; I decided to go with a 1+1 dilution to give the sharpness a bit of a bump. I shot these on an overcast day at ASA-200, and when I pulled the negatives out from the tank, I was seriously impressed! I wanted to pop on a yellow filter, but I forgot to pack it along. They didn’t need the boost because the frames looked excellent. And best of all, I had no trouble with the emulsion. When I got the negatives into the scanner, I was even more impressed with how easily these frames scanned. I had only to do a light touch when editing the frames. The results are clean, with a nice smooth tonal range. The overcast weather and even lighting helped with that. Another thing of note is how clean the grain is. I was expecting more visible grain (and that may yet come), but the grain is nicely structured and adds to the overall sharpness of the frames. For a first roll, the bar has been set high for the rest of the review.
Roll 02 – Kodak HC-110
When I first planned out this review, there were no listed times. Since then, the FPP has been published several times for Ilfotec HC, so instead of going with a calculated time, I went with the FPP time while rating the film at ASA-200 again. I also tried shooting this roll in bright overhead light and mixed light. There was far more density than I liked in my negatives, but I could still see a lot of detail in the negatives. They did scan in hot, but I had enough room to pull out the details from the highlights. However, in some cases, I ended up losing some shadow detail. Don’t let that stop you; my results aligned with what I got with D-76: great contrast, a little bit lower (probably because of how they scanned), and the exact fine grain and excellent edge sharpness. HC-110 is a good choice; however, I would recommend a couple of things: go with a 10-minute time instead of the 10.5 listed, or shoot the film faster, maybe ASA-320 instead of ASA-200.
Roll 03 – Rollei Supergrain
Looking at the listed developers I sadly didn’t have any in my chemistry kit and while I originally wanted to go with Adox FX-39 II for this roll I decided to use one of the universal times for Rollei Supergrain, going with a 1+12 and a 6.5 minute time while shooting the film at ASA-200 and added a pale yellow filter to the lens. The negatives looks good right out from the tank and reminded me of the negatives I got with the D-76 roll. There’s a bit more contrast with these images, that could be due to the lighting conditions and the filter, but I do like it. There is also a reduction in visible grain, but you do loose a bit of edge sharpness with these. But it isn’t anything too bad, I like these results and I think you could get a bit more film speed out of these, maybe punch it up to ASA-250 or even ASA-320.
Final Thoughts
You are going to notice that the roll that I was to develop in Rodinal is missing, that’s because it failed. As I mentioned in the introduction the FPP does warn of quality issues, and despite having a majority of the rolls turn out excellent, the roll with Rodinal failed. First off it jammed half-way through the roll and the frames that did work had emulsion damage. One thing that a lot of people have noted with this film is the handling while loading onto reels for home developing. Now the film base is thin, but I’ve worked with thinner bases and these loaded onto my plastic Paterson reels easily without binding. Jiangshi 400’s base is not that thin, tinner than most, but we’re not talking paper thin like Svema Foto 200! Others who use metal reels have reported having a harder time. The one good thing is that the film does dry nice and flat. The film also scanned easy, with only a bit of work needed in post-processing. And by only a bit I mean that I had to crop, straighten, clean up, and then add a bit of sharpening and level adjustments. These all scanned cleanly right off the scanner bed. Thankfully I did not encounter too many problems with the film stock, I did have a couple of frames that had damage, but it was not too prevalent. The best results for this review came from the rolls developed in D-76 and Rollei Supergrain. The negatives here scanned in easily and produced pleasing results. The best place to get your hands on Jiangshi 400 is directly through the FPP Online store!
Further Reading
Don’t just take my word on Jiangshi 400, you can check out the reviews by other awesome camera reviewers!
Random Camera Blog – Jiangshi 400 from the FPP
The Old Camera Guy – New Chinese Film?