Originally posted by bikehead90 Thank you all for the assistance. This is the only thing keeping me from enjoying my K1000 or ME Super more. Are there any “old guy” tips and tricks? I mean that not pejoratively, but rather “you might want to try X” or “I’ve found X to work better than Y because of Z.” While I was born during the film era, I didn’t start shooting until digital was just past its infancy. Even my mom (who introduced me to Pentax) never developed her own film, so I don’t really have anyone to glean knowledge from.
First of all, don't get overwhelmed by all the options there are for film developing. B&W is simpler than color and requires fewer chemicals, so I'd start there.
Pick one film and one developer. Ilford HP5+ is a popular choice, it's a good film and forgiving of some errors in exposing and developing. D-76 is a very common developer; many people will claim (and obtain) better results with other developers, but D-76 is relatively inexpensive and you can buy it in solid form which you mix as needed. This saves $$.
Stay with whatever combination you pick until you can reliably predict the results from your development. Once you reach that level, you can then branch out, trying other developers, other temperatures, etc. I'd stay with the same film because you want to see what effect your experiments have.
If you want to see just how many variations there are out there, look at The Massive Development Chart. Don't let it blow your mind! By the way, you'll find a useful temperature chart in there for whatever film/developer combination you choose.
If all this sounds like it could take a while - it does. I've been doing this for more than 40 years and I'm still not done. There's always something else to try - that's what makes it fun.