Which technique should I improve first: exposure, developing, scan/postprocessing

[ederek]

I agree with the others - thermometer first! I picked one up at a kitchen supply store for <$5 and it works great. Looks like something you'd use in high school chemistry class - good ole analog technology.

Find a large container that all your containers of chemicals will fit into, and fill that with tap water as your "water bath". Let everything come to temperature (change if you wish as other have mentioned) in the bath, and each chemical will have a consistent temperature. The bath has a lot of thermal mass so everything stays the same during the processing cycle.

When drying your negatives, find a dust-free environment, this will make your post-scanning work easier. What I do is turn on the shower (hot water) for the last several minutes of processing (rinsing and photoflo wash) so the bathroom is nice and steamy. This takes the dust out of the air. Then hang the negatives to dry.

Exposure is important but it looks like youre doing quite well with the recent B&W images in your stream, especially given the tough lighting conditions. Nice photos, btw!

Have fun!

 

[venchka]

Personally I'd back XP2 Super.

Absolutely true about stop/fix/wash but with dev +/- 'a few degrees' will make a BIG difference to contrast at a given developing time. You can dig yourself out with hard/soft paper in a real darkroom, or with PP in scanning, but it's a better idea to have consistently developed negs to begin with.

Cheers,

R.

Agreed Roger. I only meant that the liquids used after developing don't have to match the developer temperature exactly. However, it's rather simple to keep all the fluids very close to the same temperatue.
The important thing: Just do it!

 

[shadowfox]

Or if you may end up like me, printing in the darkroom. And then suddenly all the scans that I've done pale in comparison to a successfully printed ... print 🙂

 

[damien.murphy]

I would say you have the order right, firstly get your exposure right or at least in the ballpark, erring on the side of overexposure as Roger notes. If you have to, get your film developed commercially, if you need to when getting your exposure right.

Once you're ok with exposure, then tackle development. Consistency is key here, there is no place for cavalier antics, as with wet printing.

Lastly, when you have decent exposure, and correctly processed film, then worry about scanning. If you don't get steps one and two right, you won't have anything to scan.

It can be tricky and frustrating to tackle all the above at once, hence the recommendation for the staged approach.