Need some advice (re-born home developer!)

[Landshark]

If you're looking for proper(!) exposure, do a film speed test. This will establish the correct EI for a given film/developer combination. Any new combination will need to be reevaluated. New film/old dev= new EI etc.
Just about every basic photo book can tell you the method involved and for general use can be defined as a simplistic Zone System. IE: expose for the shadow/dev for the highlight.

A couple comments re:earlier comments.
under development does not give under exposure, it's under development. Exposure is controlled in the camera not darkroom.
Over development does not increase film speed, it compensates(sort of) for underexposure by bringing up some detail that with normal dev.would not be visible in a thin negative.

 

[Vics]

Not that lucky. I gave up with mine after truly awful drying marks. Worse than I've ever had drying films any other way...

Strange. I've been using these for fifteen years, and never a mark yet. Maybe something in French water?

 

[Roger Hicks]

Strange. I've been using these for fifteen years, and never a mark yet. Maybe something in French water?

Nope. Gave up in California in 1990 or so, before going back to the UK (1992) and moving to France in 2002.

"The chemistry of colour, the alchemy of black and white".

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

If you're looking for proper(!) exposure, do a film speed test. This will establish the correct EI for a given film/developer combination. Any new combination will need to be reevaluated. New film/old dev= new EI etc.
Just about every basic photo book can tell you the method involved and for general use can be defined as a simplistic Zone System. IE: expose for the shadow/dev for the highlight.

A couple comments re:earlier comments.
under development does not give under exposure, it's under development. Exposure is controlled in the camera not darkroom.
Over development does not increase film speed, it compensates(sort of) for underexposure by bringing up some detail that with normal dev.would not be visible in a thin negative.

Except that development controls toe speed. Not ISO speed, to be sure, but still shadow speed. And of course contrast.

Cheers,

R.

 

[MartinP]

The OP asked about drying film when there is no handy shower-stall or bathroom (also no drier cabinet). There used to be a sort of plastic sausage device made by a few manufacturers, but you can make your own easily. The film hangs inside the sausage, open at the bottom. The commercial ones (Durst, Jobo and maybe more) had a fan at the top with air filtration but that isn't necessary if you are patient.

Make a frame of wire (two wire coat hangers at 90 degrees to form a cross, with polythene sheet taped over, to stop dust) or corrugated cardboard (a round or square shape, with strings underneath to attach the filmclips). This needs to be hung high enough that the film can be clipped to it and still be well off the floor. Make the tube from something like a cheap polythene dust sheet fastened with sticky tape, having enough diameter to clip easily on to the top part of the device and enough length to go well over the length of the film . Stick strips of light cardboard as rings, inside the tube, to keep the shape as you lift it up and down.

To use, clip your washed and wetted film(s) to the top piece, then carefully lift the tube-sausage from the ground to the top and clothes-pin it in place (this is why it has to be big enough not to touch the hanging film). As the top is covered there is no dust going through the 'chimney' and any that was in there to start with is attracted to the slight static of the polythene. Don't put this in a draughty place though, as it obviously isn't rigid and could be blown around and stick to the film. This device was my film drier in my student days so it should still work adequately 🙂

 

[zwarte_kat]

Thanks for all the answers, will take some time to take them all in! The Tube-Sausage is exactly that kind of thing I was imagining BTW, very interesting!