Film choices for a beginner? Really, there are lots.
Colour negative film is a good starting point for many. Kodak and Fuji both make inexpensive amateur-grade colour negative films. (Even though they are amateur-grade, they are still of high quality and I rarely use professional colour negative films except when I have a certain effect in mind.) I prefer Fuji Superia, which comes in 100, 200, 400 and 800 speeds. The lower speed films are generally of higher quality, although you'll have to have faster lenses or use slower shutter speeds in general to use them (on a bright sunny day any of these will be fast enough). I shoot mostly 200, with some 400 in lower light conditions and 100 whenever I can. The 800 is very handy for little point-and-shoot cameras.
Colour positive film (i.e. slide film) isn't really a beginner film, but I shoot much of my colour work (and almost all of my colour landscape work) on slide film. Kodak and Fuji again have some good amateur films in this category. I do not use either company's amateur products much in this film type so I can't really comment on them. I tend to shoot professional slide film because there are more interesting choices. Slide film tends to be a little slower than negative film, all things being equal. A good starting film might be Fuji Sensia 100. (Eventually you'll want to try the Fuji Velvias, and Kodak Ektachrome E100VS - but one step at a time.
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Black and white film doesn't really have amateur and professional divisions. There are a couple of subcategories worth discussing:
- chromogenic films. Ilford XP2 is such a film. Kodak has an equivalent (someone please add a reply with the name because I don't know it
). These are super-convenient, and normal labs that do colour negative film can process them. The Kodak film is designed to be printable by those labs but is not as good for printing in your own darkroom. The Ilford film is harder for the labs to print on colour paper, but is much easier to print in the darkroom.
- traditional black and white films. These generally have to be processed a home (a few specialty labs will process them). The good news is that processing such film is actually pretty easy and doesn't require much in the way of equipment. You will get a million answers on what to do with respect to black and white films. I'll give you two general paths with which to start: classic traditional films (Kodak Plus-X and Tri-X; Ilford FP-4 Plus and HP-5 Plus) and budget films (Foma 100, 200 and 400 and their rebadged equivalents under the Arista name at Freestyle Photo). They are forgiving to process and will all give you good results. I suggest picking a couple of them (maybe a 100/125 speed and a 400 speed) and sticking to them for many rolls until you get used to them. Fuji makes black-and-white films too but they are relatively hard to find in North America. However, if they are easy to find where you live, their Neopan 100 and 400 films are quite similar in character to the Kodak and Ilford films mentioned, and of very high quality.
As for gear, there is a lot out there. Used cameras offer tremendous value for money these days. I shoot Nikon, but at today's prices (Leica perhaps notwithstanding), you can pick whatever system appeals to you and get good quality gear within that system at excellent prices.
