Ilford’s FP4 stock is an ISO 125 black and white film. It’s great for daylight and getting beautiful grain – and here are some examples as to why you should shoot it! All of these images were shot on a mix of 35mm and medium format.
It gets great tones out of nature shots. FP4 is quite unique in the way that it looks, and still gets grain out of a film that’s not wholly sensitive. Most films – like Ilford’s HP5 – tend to get more grain the more sensitive they are (so ISO 400 has some grain, and 3200 has tonnes of grain).
It’s quite moody for a daylight speed film. Contrast is high, but the highlights (when shot in the right conditions) aren’t blinding. It’s definitely a film for those who like more drama in their images.
It’s widely available too – both for 35mm and medium format. There’s often stock available as most people tend to reach for colour film, not understanding the beauty that black and white brings in its own right. Lots of people feel like black and white film misses what the environment truly looks like, but I find that it highlights the subtleties that lots of us look past. Black and white film shows more simplicity in images, which I think is beautiful.
FP4 can be shot inside with the right settings – you can see some shake in this photo as it was handheld (I was more experimenting to see what it looked like/if it was even possible!) The glow that FP4 brings to the white in images is something else as well – it looks so dreamy. It’s like the perfect mix of moody, dramatic, yet dreamy.
Another example showing the dreaminess and that you can get it working indoors without a flash.
FP4 is incredibly unique and a film that should be far more popular than it is – it often gets outshined by HP5 because of it’s famous grain structure, but FP4 provides a dreaminess that lots of daylight speed black and white films don’t achieve.
All images shot by Isabel Armstrong.
