I have a project in mind that will require all (or mostly) indoor shooting. Most of the photographs will involve people doing relatively sedentary activities. E.g., reading, listening to the radio, eating, and so on. Some of the pictures will be shot using natural light and some will be shot using room light. Can anyone recommend a 120 black and white film (Ilford preferred) for this sort of project? Since it is a documentary sort of photography, I would guess that some grain is acceptable. How about 400 speed film shot at ISO 800? Would this reduce contrast too much?
I would also appreciate any advice you might have about shooting household scenes.
The bottom line is that (very roughly) shooting indoors under average room lighting will require an exposure of 1/60 at f2.8 on ISO 400 film. If you are shooting 120 with your camera on a tripod and can go, say, 1/15 at f5.6, you could just manage with ISO 400, otherwise as David Miller suggests, Delta 3200 would give a useful increase in freedom of movement (although the true speed of Delta 3200 is only ISO 1000).
Any push-processing is going to give you more grain (which may or may not be the look you want) plus additional contrast, which may be useful for pictures shot with only room light but will be a problem if you shoot any pictures which include windows, where the contrast is very high already.
In my personal opinion, using a 120 camera would slow you down in this situation without giving any extra quality (unless you use flash). If it were me, I'd be reaching for a 35 mm camera with an f1.4 lens, but then, I'm not you!
Regards,
David
PS: HP5 Plus is the more advanced version of HP5. HP5 has not been available in Europe for some time. The difference between the two films is not dramatic, if you do buy HP5 (not Plus), check it is not out of date.