Black & White Film
You may be thinking "it's the 21st Century, why would you possibly want to use black and white film?" Well I'll tell you why - it looks so damn cool. Not only that, but its cheap, easy and fun to process your own black and white film at home. Once you've got all your materials its less than £1 (or Euro, Dollar, whatever) to process each roll. You'd be stupid not to use black and white at that price!
Anything I need to know?
Well as you are only dealing with shades of grey, you are going to want to look for subjects with nice contrast. Industrial buildings and decay look very classy in black and white, as do portraits. Look for subjects with strong patterns and textures. Once you've shot a few rolls you'll know what works, and what doesn't.
What are some cool tricks?
One of the best things you can do with black and white is to use different coloured filters over your lens. What this does is change the contrast of your picture automagically! So what filters can we use?
- Yellow Filter - most commonly used filter for B&W. What it does is reduce the brightness of blue colours, to make the rendering on film much more like how we perceive it. This is the most natural looking filter.
- Green Filter - good for when your shooting plants or shrubbery. Use on skies for a natural look, similar to the yellow filter.
- Red Filter - use this for insane amounts of contrast. Really dark skies with beautiful white clouds. Matt Callow used a red filter on his Two Towers picture above.
You don't have to rush out and buy a proper colour filter, which will probably cost about the same as your Holga. Instead look for theatrical gels or candy wrappers. The big tub of chocolates you get at Christmas is usually a haven for free filters. For an interesting effect, screw up your wrapper tightly, then unravel it and put it in front of your Holga. Wrap the edges of the wrapper around the lens barrel and secure with an elastic band. Now go take a few pics. There is more filter advice in the filters article.
Film choice
There are a few B&W films available in 120 format. Personally, I use Ilford HP5+ or Delta 3200. HP5+ is 400 ISO, making it useful in a range of light conditions. It's also tolerant of less than ideal developing environments. I use Delta 3200 because I was given 20 rolls for free! It would be bad karma not to use free film! Ilford XP2 might be a good choice for you if you don't develop your own film, I'll explain why in a moment.
How do I develop black & white film?
You got 2 choices; take it to your lab, or home developing. If you are taking your film to a lab, you'll need to find one who will develop black and white films. If you cannot find a decent lab, don't despair. You'll just have to find some film which can be processed in regular C41 (colour negative) chemicals. There is Ilford XP2, and Kodak BW400CN (thanks Vick the Viking).
If you want to develop your film at home, head on over to the developing film article.