It's a risk that just had to be taken - buy 10 rolls of Shanghai GP3 roll film on ebay for 15euro including p+p . The alternative was to travel into the centre of Dublin to buy some at 7euro a roll or to order some through a UK supplier and pay riduculous postage (usually £12stg) . Ten days or so the film duly arrived safely . The first thing I noticed was the packaging - each roll was very well sealed ...this looked promising ...maybe it was a good buy ??
As mentioned in the last post the first foll of film was left in the camera for nearly six months . My decision when I loaded the roll was to shoot it at iso200 - a push of one stop . Luckily I remembered this when I shot off the remaining frames . Film removed I processed in Kodak HC-110 (solution B ) . Instead of 7.5 mins at 20C I compensated for the extra stop by going to 10 mins at the same temperature . I'll go into more depth another time but suffice to say I was very impressed - initially just with the sharpness of the negatives due to the lens but then with the film itself . Yes its a little curly but if you are using a traditional enlarger like me thats not an issue . I detected no difficulty loading the film onto the reel and frame numbers on the paper backing werent an issue as Rolleicord III's don't used the red window system .
At time of writing (Oct '11) Shanghai is a little more expensive at 18euro for 10 rolls but still represents amazing value . Try it !