I processed my first ever film the other week - a roll of Ilford FP4 plus, rated at 125, in Kodak-HC110 developer, at the recommended time of 9mins, and inversions every 30 secs. Firstly, I had some problems with air bubbles despite thumping the tank after every inversion - large bubbles were visible on two frames, effectively ruining them. And the resultant negatives were somewhat unsharp after I scanned them in my film scanner, and mostly greys - not a very good tonal range at all. Some photos worked out better than others though. So my first developing experience turned out to be a bit of a dud and I am a bit apprehensive about trying it again on an important film. Is the greyness a characteristic of FP4 and should I be using something else, or is it the film+developer combination or something I did, or all of the above?

puzzled newbie,
&lt;See some of the grey Ilford FP4 images here&gt;