I don't pretend to be an expert on any of the below, but I figured a semi-in-depth wrap up of the stuff I used to prep, shoot, dev, and scan the film and then design the book with could be of interest to some!
For some context, i've been shooting film for some 7-or-so years, first starting on my mums old Pentax K1000, with my good friend Huw showing me the ropes from day dot. Since then i've jumped around numerous cameras, and a couple different formats, and began developing and scanning my own film. For Camera, point and shoots have been a constant for the past few years; I like taking cameras riding with me, and having something I can pick up, and shoot, and then continue doing what I was doing - where the digital equivalent the urge to check, critique, and reshoot is too strong. I know this position of being able to afford film, let alone a camera is one of absolute privilege, and one I take with an immense amount of gratitude.
The Camera
Since 2019, i've been using a clapped-out Olympus MJU I. I bought it for $40 off TradeMe with a faulty slider, a faceplate that (continues to) falls off, and untested. But its served me, with no faults to date, even after throwing it in bags, soaking it in water mid-Milford Track, and dropping it out of my hand while descending.
It's cool being to shoot on a 'cult-classic' camera, and while I can see while it earns that title, I wouldn't be jumping at grabbing one for the prices they usually go for ($250 - $300+). I've seen plenty of great images taken by far more affordable equivalents, and at the end of the day the process of a point-and-shoot is what makes it great, not any particular model, imo.
The Film
I discussed the reasoning behind shooting HP5 in Part 2 of my book development posts, but something I didn't mention was another reason for choosing it - Dynamic Range. Which is just a fancy phrase for saying it works well in heaps of different conditions. Because I was shooting in areas of harsh sunlight, dimly lit living quarters, fluorescent lit velodromes, and airports, I needed a film which could hold its own across the board. Usually you can manipulate a cameras setting to offset the conditions you're working within, or put on an ND filter or similar to flatten out the effects of harsh lighting, but the MJU doesn't allow or either of those manipulations, so the film had to do the heavy lifting.
Developing
I've used the same, pretty standard developing set up for the past few years. I use a Patterson Changing Bag, a Film Retrieval tool, some scissors, and archival cotton gloves for getting the film out of the canister. This set up means that I can get all the film into my developing tank safely, without the need of doing so in a completely dark room. I numbered each roll of film as I shot it in Japan (which made processing workflow all the bit easier), so my basic workflow for prepping to develop was to remove, and mount each roll of film into the developing tanks, develop it, rinse and hang, then repeat. The developing tank holds two rolls at a time, but I opted to only do one at a time, with the extra spool used to hold the single roll beneath the developer. I did this to try mitigate any bleeding or running from the sprocket holes, or blotching from chemical spreading unevenly.
I just used the Cinestill Monobath Developer&Fix solution as per instructions. Reading around on others results, they noted that best results came from using it as per box instructions, and given the varying conditions each roll was shot in, pushing or pulling wasn't really on my mind. Running around 22 degrees celsius, with each roll I increased the developing time by either 20 or 30s to compensate for the solution decreasing in potency.
I closed all of my doors, turned my aircon off, and had my bathroom extractor fan on to try remove any dust from the air. I also ran the shower for 5minutes before beginning to try get any residual dust to settle and not land on the film. After each roll, I washed it for 10mins as per archival storage conditions, and then squeegeed it between my rubber gloves, and hung it up in the shower, with another clip weighing it down.
I repeated this process for all six rolls, and left them to dry overnight.
Scanning and Storing
The following morning, my brothers immaculately curated Young Thug tribute playlist serenaded the archiving of each roll. Wearing cotton gloves to avoid any potential fingermarks, and taking the same anti-dust precautions as earlier, I simply cut, labels, and stored each roll in individual slide sheets. At this point my lack of patience got the better of me, and I spent at least 20mins after storing each roll with it hung over a blank, white laptop screen, looking at each roll.
After storing, I got onto scanning. I was very kindly lent an Epsom V350 scanner, which I used in conjunction with Epsom Scan, I scanned each roll at 16-bit black and white, and around 3000 x 4000px. The workflow for the next 5-or-so days was pretty monotonous. I'd clean each negative, scan it, make any adjustments to get the levels right in photoshop, and clone-stamp any dust or scratches out, sometimes re-clean, re-scan, re-edit if need be, and then repeat for the next image, and roll.
Designing
While scanning, I was already piecing the structure of the book together. I wont bother repeating myself, having already gone into detail on the design elements and process in my 'design elements' post, but more talk the technical stuff. I designed the full book in InDesign. What stuff I couldn't figure out, I just googled, YouTubed, and then applied any learnings to do what I needed to do. With a pretty simple layout, the book contents itself weren't real technical or difficult to sort, but my burnt-out eight-year old MacBook was well pissed off the fact I was often running Photoshop, InDesign, Epsom Scan, Music, and Safari at the same time, occasionally crashing but constantly buffering for 20-30s at the sign of any minute adjustment.
I tried using the scanner for the additional documents, but it wasn't having a bar of it, so I utilised my iPhones 'Scan' function in notes, to do the cover, and any supplementary pieces. I then used Photoshop to make any amendments to these. The cover in particular took quite a lot of work, getting the psuedo-crinkled texture, correct. I couldn't tell you how many versions of the book got created in that final week of MIQ, but at a guess it'd be north of 60 - 70. Having never undertaken a project of this size before, I think there's a lot to be said from distancing yourself from something, and then returning with fresh eyes, which is something I realised in the pointy end of the project.
I'm pretty sure that's all from me, if I can think of anything else I did or used, then i'll bring it up. I tried to simplify most of the process so I could focus on the layout of the book, and not get too bogged down in the technical components, but still have had created really slick images that'd look nice in the book, and i'd have the ability to print at a large format down the line.
Full List
Olympus MJU I
Ilford HP5+
Cinestill Monobath B&W Developer and Fixer
Patterson Development Tank
Patterson Changing Bag
Film Retrieval Tool
Cotton Archival Gloves
Rubber Cleaning Gloves
Epson V350 + Epsom Scan
2014 MacBook Pro with Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop
Cheers for reading!
Cal x