choice of soldering iron tips for smd

[tooki]

Do you prefer a slanted / 45 degree chisel, or do you use a straight "screwdriver" type?

The 45 degree slanted one, where you get a cone tip then slice off the end to form a flat area.

Which is known as a Hoof style tip and available in a few sizes.
Good in that they have a fine edge for small work and the large flat footprint provides good thermal transfer into large pads. Favored by many along with the chisel/screwdriver tip.

For versatility on SMD PCB's the K/knife style Psi posted a few days back is hard to beat especially for SMD rework.

Hoof is not the same, hoof has a concave face to hold onto solder for drag soldering.

This may come as a surprise but there are 2 styles of hoof tip, those with a concave end and those without.
Eg, Hakko BCM/CM and BC/C
The first 2 styles on this page:
https://www.hakko.com/english/tip_selection/series_t20_standard.html#type_bcm_cm

Ummm... BCM/CM is hoof, BC/C is bevel. (Obviously I’m aware of the existence of both types since I’ve already mentioned both types in this thread.)

[Microdoser]

That technique works with both

For the small passives, I find it hard to stop components blowing away, no matter how low I set the flow on the air...  - Do you hold the component with tweezers or something?

For very small passives either I use flux as glue and a very low airflow, or I hold the part in tweezers and once it has wetted with the solder it doesn't go anywhere.

If you do a fair amount of pre-warming from a distance then move in once the solder has melted, the majority of the time the part stays where it is.

[bobbydazzler]

I seem to prefer a knife/wedge tip.  I'm just a hobbyist mainly soldering to 2 sided bread board pcb's and the wedge tip transfers heat into the joint almost as well as the chisel tip and is also easy to use to make solder bridges between pads, the chisel tip seems to suck the solder away from the solder bridge when I remove the iron.  Other than that I don't find the other types of tips too bad, I like the bevel tip too and I'm not too worried about using the 1mm cone tip once I've worn out the other tips.

[CharlotteSwiss]

thanks for all the contributions guys; now I have more confused ideas than before 
Come on, I'm joking. 
I see that many people despise thin pencil tips, but if they are produced there will be a reason, don't you think?
If I wish to heat ONLY a small spot, a pencil tip will be the preferred tip; I see that many use the tips cut at 45 °, interesting, but I think I can get the same results even with a flat chisel tip, of course you need to tilt more!
Looking at that video of welding (about 6 minutes), he saw that the heating phase is almost zero, I generally heat a little more, and in the end I stay with the tip 1 second more, it helps to not have cold welds and to obtain a nice final weld cone.
But as my father says, I am a woman, it is already an excellent result to hold a soldering iron ... 

[SilverSolder]

thanks for all the contributions guys; now I have more confused ideas than before 
Come on, I'm joking. 
I see that many people despise thin pencil tips, but if they are produced there will be a reason, don't you think?
If I wish to heat ONLY a small spot, a pencil tip will be the preferred tip; I see that many use the tips cut at 45 °, interesting, but I think I can get the same results even with a flat chisel tip, of course you need to tilt more!
Looking at that video of welding (about 6 minutes), he saw that the heating phase is almost zero, I generally heat a little more, and in the end I stay with the tip 1 second more, it helps to not have cold welds and to obtain a nice final weld cone.
But as my father says, I am a woman, it is already an excellent result to hold a soldering iron ... 

I taught my girlfriend to weld steel (using a MIG welder) back in the day,  she was better at it than most of the guys at the car club I was a member of at the time!

[CharlotteSwiss]

think that when there is an electrode to be welded at home, I do it and not my father (who taught me); they are better at me 

[SilverSolder]

[...]
I see that many people despise thin pencil tips, but if they are produced there will be a reason, don't you think?
If I wish to heat ONLY a small spot, a pencil tip will be the preferred tip; I see that many use the tips cut at 45 °, interesting, but I think I can get the same results even with a flat chisel tip, of course you need to tilt more!
[...]

It is mostly down to personal preferences, there is no really strong right or wrong answer.   I my case, I feel it gives me the best control and most accurate application, and I never feel I struggle to get it to do what I need it to do.   

It is probably best to experiment yourself and see what you like the best, out of the types that you see experienced people here are fond of, and keep practicing! 

[nigelwright7557]

I use a large tip and drag solder tqfp's.
Plenty of flux.
If I get a short either drag it away with clean tip or use copper braid if stubborn.