You are right, the different colour filters will change the look and "feel" of your B&W photo.

Instead of writing a super-long description of what happens here, I would suggest using a program such as Adobe PhotoShop (any version) or any photo editing program you have, converting a colour photo you are familiar with from colour to B&W, and then playing with the colour levels.

In Windows Photo Gallery, which most PCs come with nowadays, you would just open the photo, click "Fix", "Adjust Color", play with the "Tint" (set it to very red, or very green) and bring the "Saturation" to zero. When you know what moving the "Tint" lever does, change it while the photo is in B&W.

Hope this helps. Happy shooting!

Look at the color wheel in the link below. If you use a red filter, because green is opposite of red, the greens will come out darker in your prints. If you want to darken a blue sky you would use an orange filter. The opposite is also true, a blue filter would lighten a blue sky. But you cannot add color to B&W film, only make certain tones come out darker or lighter in grayscale.

http://www.colo…

The reason they work this way is that the filter absorbs its color of light and allows other colors of light to pass through. So that is why a red filter would absorb some of the red light and allow the green light to pass through.

Ignore the first answer - this person's "short cut" will not really teach you what you need to know about film and how filters affect it.

In short, a filter absorbs its own color and enhances its opposite and the adjacents. So think of the color wheel: Red on top, Magenta and Yellow to its respective right and left. A red filter will therefore lighten Red, the red portion of magenta and yellow. It will darken Cyan, Green and Blue. So a red filter darkens the sky, foliage, water. A green filter conversely will lighten green, cyan and yellow while darkening red, magenta and blue. A blue filter darkens Yellow, Red and Green, lightens blue, cyan and magenta. Et cetera.

****R**** Red: Lightens R, M Y Darkens C, G, B

Y ************ M Yellow Lightens Y, R, G, Darkens B, C,M; Magenta Lightens M, B, R, Darkens Y,G,C

G************* B Green Lightens G, Y, C, Darkens M, R, B; Blue Lightens B, C, M; Darkens Y,R, G

****C***** Cyan Lightens C, G, B Darkens R, Y, M.

In this poor diagram note the relationship between the colors. Best I can do without being able to upload an actual drawing. A filter of any color will lighten itself and darken its opposite.

Best way to learn is to take a color photo of a colorful scene with negative film. Then reload with some b/w, take an exposure using each of the filters and one with no filter, print them up and compare the results.

Using the different color filters will affect the contrast of the resulting bw image, depending on which filter is used and what colors are in the subject.

Tiffen has a decent webpage that might help you sort out which filter you might want to use:
http://www.tiff…

Look at the filter/no filter photos and note which color filters they are using.

For more info on Holgas and other lo-fi cameras, check out my website for lo-fi photography:
http://dianacam…

I also have several how-to videos for Holga and other plastic cameras on my website:
http://www.yout…