Beginner Filters

[jett]

OK. So I'm wanting to dab into some filters for B&W work. There are so many different filters but they get expensive to try. I want an ND filter, and the function for those is clear.

I'm mostly interested in shooting mostly people--informal portraits and general shooting I guess.

This is more of a taste-thing, but If you were to pick 3-4 filters, which would you recommend and for what purpose?

I'm thinking:
-Polarizer: Darken skys
-Yellow: slightly lighten skin-tones
-Green: slightly darken skin-tones

There are also different intensities of these, so I'm not really sure which to get. In general, I'd prefer something more natural-looking. I've seen some pretty interesting results with blue, but those to me, seem more application-specific and difficult to use. Yellow seems to be the most predominant but I've heard great things about green too. I'd get red if I were to shoot landscape, I don't.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I never use them. I have a full set of color filters for BW and haven't touched them in a decade, and before that used them so rarely I can count on one hand the number of photos I used them for.

However, the ones that are useful are Yellow (slightly darkens blue skies and makes clouds more prominant in landscapes) and Red (much darker blue skies for more dramatic clouds in landscapes). Green filters don't affect landscapes much, even ones with lots of green grass, but they make skin look 'rougher', more textured. Some like it for portraits of men to make them look more 'rugged'.

 

[Coldkennels]

I'm by no means an expert, so take my two cents with a pinch of salt, but generally what I've found is that green accentuates blemishes while yellow hides them. Red is an interesting one - turns the skin completely white, hides all but the worst blemishes, and whitens out the lips. If you were to compensate for the latter effect (via black or blue lipstick), it could be quite a good effect.

I tended to keep a medium yellow and a red to hand when I lived in a town near the sea. They had the most use for me; yellow for general purpose, red for seascapes and architecture. Now I've moved inland, yellow/green is a good general use for countryside walks. It separates the foliage more than the yellow. I've not shot a single portrait with it yet though, so I can't comment on its effect on skin. It might be a good middle ground - not as pale as yellow but not as ruddy/blemish-revealing as green. I'm not sure.

So I'd start with a yellow or a yellow/green (depending on how likely you are to be in a leafy situation & what you can get hold of the cheapest), and build from there. Fill out the filter kit depending on what situations you find yourself in most and what effects you want to try out. Ignore the lighter variants of these, though - they barely do anything most of the time.