What filters do you consider essential?

[Timur Civan]

I was shooting in Times Square in NYC one night and got an f/5.6 at 500 ASA, it was so bright out there, so I used an ND.30 to bring it down to an f/4.0. Same goes for shooting in a supermarket or some other bright interior location, I sometimes use ND filters so that I don't get too much depth of field. Sometimes what I do is use the ND.30 on the wider shots and then in telephoto close-ups, pull the ND and stop down to regain some depth of field to make focus-pulling easier. Once you get beyond 150mm or so, a background goes soft in a close-up even if stopped down quite a bit, so there isn't much reason to shoot wide-open unless for exposure reasons, it already looks shallow-focus anyway if you want that look.

Funny, Times square used to be a T2.8 average 5 years go, it has gotten far brighter since. Especially on the corner of 44th and bway.