Home film development - Not since the 1980's

My photography education back in the 1980's wouldn't have been complete without learning the techniques to produce my own prints. So I purchased a used inexpensive enlarger and trays, the rest was easy to find in my local photography shops. I processed mostly monochrome with a fair amount of E6 slides as well.

Since returning to film I have been trusting my local processing lab. to develop and scan both colour and monochrome 120 films, and e-mail me the scanned results. The results have been a bit mixed, if I collected the negatives after receiving the scans all was fine, but sometimes if there was a delay the negatives were very dirty. Also one Kodak Porta roll had strange uneven grain and many small clear scuffs, which I have just found out are caused by their machine not being clean.

So I decided to return to doing it myself, starting with some reliable Pan F. As I have a tank large enough for two films I processed a 120 roll exposed back in the spring, and a 35mm roll exposed over the last two weeks.
Now Pan F is known to gradually loose the exposed image if it isn't processed quickly, so I expected somewhat poor results.

This was something I had never experienced as I always processed my films within a couple of days.

As you can see these frames have something like a reverse fogging along the edges, and a general loss of quality.

Plus a lot of small fibers, possibly as I loaded the tank in a new changing bag which I should have cleaned first.

The fresh 35mm developed perfectly and had a lot less dust and fiber issues.

Just minimal dust removal after scanning.

With this new experience I will always remove the film from the camera/back and process as soon as I can.