What ND Filter is most common for Portraits w/ BD?

I see a lot of photog's using ND's with their portraits in combination with a nice BD or some other modifier etc. Such as "Emily Soto" her work is phenomenal. However, I am curious since the only ND in my kit is a Hoya 400x, (landscape work) but before I purchase another since they are rather pricey. What is best/most common, I would assume a 3 stop no?

Curious on everyone's input.

Thanks

Also, Hoya or B+W?

I have a HOYA ND, and a B+W Polarizer.

Both work great for me, I know some photog's even stack polarizers with NDs on some portraits for a real nice effect as long as the quality of filters are decent.

It's all math, not magic. If you need 2 stop a .6 (2 stop) if you need 3 stop it's a .9. And you can work from there.

Tiffen makes the best variable ND filters for the money, and arguably the best outright. Don't take my word for it, there are some good comparisons online like here.

Variable ND filters are what you want, they allow you to set perfect exposure without having to waste flash power or raise your ISO.

They're just trying to destroy ambient light, however you'll have to increase the power of your flash to compensate. If your flash is strong enough, your 400x would be great. Of course your flash probably isn't strong enough for that and that's the rub. You want as strong of a filter as you can get before you run out of light from your flash.

On location it depends on what lens I'm using and how much i want to kill the ambient light to fit my sync speed. I have Hoya ND8 /ND16 and a Tiffen Var for all sizes of my lens. You can buy step down or step up rings, but i like to use my lens hoods with my lens.

ND 0.3 ND2 1
ND 0.6 ND4 2
ND 0.9 ND8 3
ND 1.2 ND16 4
ND 1.5 ND32 5
ND 1.8 ND64 6
ND 2.1 ND128 7
ND 2.4 ND256 8
ND400 ND400 8 2/3
ND 2.7 ND512 9
ND 3.0 ND1000 10
ND 3.3 ND2048 11
ND 3.6 ND4096 12
ND 3.9 ND8192 13


Standard full-stop f-number scale
AV −1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ​8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ​16
f/No. 0.7 1.0 1.4 2 2.​8 4 5.6 8 11 16 22 32 ​45 64 90 128 180 256

Vapour1ze wrote in post #16550039
I see a lot of photog's using ND's with their portraits in combination with a nice BD or some other modifier etc. Such as "Emily Soto" her work is phenomenal. .....

Just for the record...Emily's work generally rely's on her recipe in PP and of course agency models and very good stylists.

For the record, about the only valued use for an ND filter and portrait work is to reduce the ambient light so a photographer can shoot at shallow DOF. This is useful outdoor in f/16 light and using fast glass. Most portrIts look 1000% better with shallow DOF. Can't really see any other benefit of an nD other than shallow DOF for portrait work

Why use an nd filter in portrait work? For black backgrounds?

thedcmule2 wrote in post #16554469
Why use an nd filter in portrait work? For black backgrounds?

The question was for outside on location. LOL

I use ND's a lot for portrait shooting outside. To answer the OP's question, I have 4 of them for 77mm and 72MM lens diameters.

.3
.6
.9
1.5 circular polarizer

I can shoot in any lighting situation with my strobes and kill DOF for the portrait look I desire. I frequently shoot individual portraits with a .9 ND stacked with a circular from F/2.8-3.5 to get the look that I need in Full F/16 2:00PM lighting.

Its easy to go out at magic hour and take natural light portraits or to supplement with speed lights to get a fantastic look. But, being in business and working with family schedules does not always afford you the luxury to shoot at magic hour lighting conditions.

ND filters gives you the ability to control the ambient light and get the look any time of the day. You just have to experiment and come up with a look that will work and you have to have strobes that are powerful enough to balance the ambient lighting. ND filters allow you to do this. Put your client B/T the sun and the camera axis, slap on the ND's and stack a circular and you are god to go.

Canon T2i, Rokinon 85mm shot around 1.8 in the studio with a socked BD above the model. Light Craft workshop ND filter was used.

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