dimitris_georgopoulos1

<p>Mervyn,<br>

I am using a D3x which replaced my previous D3 quite equivalent in performance with the D700. I am shooting 60% of my photos in available light and night scenes. Hence I missed the hight ISO capability of the D3 and along with it the opportunity to replace it with a D3s which in low light is unsurpassed.<br>

In order to bridge the gap until a new model arrives I bough a D7000 just ten days ago. It is a camera of high picture quality but it is too small, even the classic DX lens the 17-55/2.8 is bigger than the camera, it cannot be handled easily, it has a small view finder (it has a 100% coverage but in DX terms this is small) and above all it is a DX. <br>

Once you are used to an FX it is nearly impossible to go back and underuse your lenses, revise your composition techniques etc etc.<br>

Therefore the D7000 goes back and a D700 has already been ordered.<br>

The D700 is full frame, it is a workhorse, it is mid priced for an FX camera, has an incredible performance up to 3200 ISO a full useable 6400 ISO level at which in RAW post processing you can work miracles and I feel that will retain its value for a long time to come after any new equivalent model appears.<br>

Having worked with the equivalent D3 and with the D7000 and with the replacement of D3s to look imminent (do not forget that the PMA is coming) the D700 would be the only choice for me for the time being.<br>

Last but not least do not care too much about the 12 mpx of the D700 vs. the 16 mpx of D7000. It' s only about being more accurate with your compositions in order not to crop too much. Otherwise you can reach a A3+ printing quality and more without any problem and without any interpolation or resizing and also your 35-70/2.8 will shine on the D700. Regarding of what it is written about many of the new G lenses the 35-70/2.8 remains a top performer on the D3x (I am using it) which means that the lowest resolution D700 will be a piece of cake for it.<br>

I hope I helped a little.<br>

Dimitris V. Georgopoulos<br>

Athens, Greece</p>

<p >When I was a kid the motive was to make my Agfa Box camera to work with some film because primarily I wanted to take a photo of my grand-mother.</p>

<p >When I was presented with a Beyerette-Ludwig “RF” camera the motive was to capture all the important moments in my everyday life.</p>

<p >When I got my first SLR the motive was to see how the telephoto frame looks like.</p>

<p >Since then, it was in 1975, when the things started to get serious between photography and myself, the sole motivation has been to read and record the world around me on film trying to express myself through this procedure which every time concluded with the final prints.</p>

<p >Therefore the continuous search for alternative ways to photograph my subjects along those lines, has always been the main motivation. Experimenting with light, form, geometry and composition and printinfg have been the ingredients of that.</p>

<p >My friends and fellow photographers usually say that my photos are abysmal, very dark, moody, something like tenebrism in painting. I think they exaggerate. Probably some of that is true but not necessarily bad. It seems that sometimes my way of interpretation of the semiology of my subjects is out of the norms. Probably I have my own point of view to state. But this the most beautiful thing of all; to accept a well documented critique and have some serious grounds on which to elaborate on that different point of view of mine. This is also a strong motivation. </p>

<p >Another motive which must not get unnoticed is trying new cameras, lenses and formats which offer the capability of a fresh or different approach to things.</p>

<p >When the times are getting “dry” I usually print and I am checking my back log and take pretty but meaningless pictures just to keep my hands on the camera. I recommend it. Now with digital this kind of pleasant nonsense comes for free. You will be surprised how often you get new ideas out of this play.</p>

<p >When you get yourself in that sinking feeling on your couch with the pillows to get a deeper pit all the time, I recommend watching some good movies on the DVD player and study the frames of each scene.</p>

<p >Primarily I shoot for fun and self fulfillment. If you have fun do it, if not, leave it and go fishing or go for a meditation over a couple of drinks or anyway do something else.<br>

For the concerned photographer the inspiration is there, but it hides itself from time to time. Don't worry just keep in touch and it will come back.<br>

Dimitris V. Georgopoulos<br>

Athens, Greece </p>

<p>Kevin,<br>

For me no sensor image at least in the relatively affordable digital medium format or the high pixel count full frame Nikons and Canons can be compared to a medium format transparency or B&W negative scanned at 4000 dpi and printed let' s say on an EPSON 7900 or equivalent on a prime baryta paper.<br>

I am doing all the work myself, but there are professional labs that are producing excellent results as well.<br>

Dimitris V. Georgopoulos<br>

Athens, Greece.</p>

<p>Cody,<br>

For B&W Kodak Tri-X forever, pushed up to 800 ASA (ISO), for night shots Fuji Neopan 1600 pushed up to 3200.<br>

Additinally for B&W for very well control of contrast and smooth tones for portraits, dreamy landscapes you can try AGFA PAN 100 and 400; are very fine at their nominal ISO only. <br>

For color transparencies Kodak Ektachrome 100 and Fuji Provia 400x and if you shoot macro Velvia 50.<br>

For color negatives Portra 160/ 400 and of course 800 pushed to 1600.<br>

Ilford HP5-Plus is still a very good alternative to Tri-X having a special character of its own. For very fine grain Ilford Pan-F, 50 ASA and Kodak Plus-X 125ASA, if it is still around.<br>

Of course the good old developers like the May & Baker Promicrol are not around any more but the existing ones are just fine. Rodinal is doing an excellent job especially with the Neopan 1600.<br>

If you wish your films to be developed in a lab in C41 process then Kodak BC400 and Ilford XP2 chromogenic films, are fine and easily pushed. You should watch them in the scanning process though.<br>

No digital conversion can compete with a B&W film scanned at 4000dpi and printed carefully on a good inkjet printer. Leica lenses both M and R simply "shine".<br>

Happy shooting.<br>

Dimitris V. Georgopoulos<br>

Athens, Greec</p>

<p>Fred,<br>

I think that there are not straightforward answers to your questions.<br>

I believe that it is very personal. It has to do with our memories, our sentiments, our mental state when we are creating a photograph (from the capture to the final print).<br>

I think transcendence and transformation are insinspensable especially when there is a need to express strong emotions or to give a certain semiology to the photo. In rough terms when somebody is the need of making a true but allegorical photograph.<br>

What is the difference between a table and the photograph of the same table, you ask.<br>

The initial answer comes with a question; of what table? If it is about my parents' table I can say that the difference is tremendous. I loved my father very much and I 've lost him of a sudden death, for twenty three years now. On Sundays, on Christmas Day on Easter we were all around that table. My father used to sit at the head with his back to the balcony door from where the light still comes to that room.<br>

I was sitting just on the other end. My father was half in the dark and half in the light so to speak. My optical corner towards him covered only half of the beloved ones around that table. I could not easily see and talk to sombody next to me without turning my head.<br>

Now whenever I vist my mother I look at the that table standing still at the door of the dining room. To have the feeling of those gatherings; for my eyes to cover the whole space.<br>

If it is to photograph that table I will certainly use an ultra wide angle form the point I used to sit, or I think better use my fish eye lens. To distort and encapsulate that table within that room as a cocoon to keep the memories of those happy days in there.<br>

I just said the story behind a table, a simple dining room table. If it is to sell that table I will bring the potential buyers to take a look. I cannot give any photograph of that table to anyone. It is like giving something of my inner world to somebody that cannot understand it and there is no need for that somebody to do so.<br>

Dimitris V. Georgopoulos<br>

Athens, Greece</p>

<p>Fame seeking is undeniably a factor of motivation. It is part of the human nature. The whole thing is to exist in the right proportions. I think that some of the highly esteemed photographers, of the previous century, were driven by this motivation, i.e to gain fame but for most of them, some amount of fame meant better job opportunities better food, a better place to live and work.<br>

But overall I do not think that they took better than worse photographs just to be famous. It just happenned.<br>

Did they manipulated their photographs? Some they did especially during hard and unstable times where propaganda had come of age. The flag raising on Iwosima is said to be a fake. The Russian flag raising on the Reichstag proved to be a fake, the death of the Spanish Patriot by Robert Capa had been discussed for over twenty years. It was proved at last that it was not a fake if it is to believe the statement of that Patriot's ancestor.<br>

These are some of the very well known examples of what photographers did for fame or to serve the fame of some others'. But all of those belong to an era when photographers became famous little by little mainly because of the quality of their work. Those were the times that fame and the need of it was proportionate to the generally accepted social ethics and the public ethos.<br>

But the things have changed. We have all become digital out of a sudden. The world became richer and the public ethos worldwide became very elastic. The Family of Man seems to become the Family of One and within this frame, fame become very important for its own sake.<br>

I believe that today's photographers seek an excessive amount of short to live fame. They are constantly looking for the photograpy segments that can quickly and easily provide that kind of fame. Fashion, wedding and reportage are the most important ones.<br>

The main ingredients are sex, beauty, awe and shock. The tools are here in the form of manipulating software and all in one super digital cameras. The means for promotion are also here. Agencies, sites, photo book companies, and profit hungry galleries that inflate photo prices just to serve the investemnt opportunities for the second hand money resting in the so called private banking system.<br>

So we see nude photos in all positions photographed from awkward angles, full of every kind of inuentos. Extremely beautifull overglowing brides, top models with the color of death in their faces, macho models always tanned by the sun, and also many anorexic, orthorexic and perplexic ones photographed in a provoking manner.<br>

We also see a lot of slaughter and hunger and misery and loss of human dignity. The B&W photos are mainly coffee tinted, the color photos are mainly copper tinted and generally it is more than self understood that the "bold and famous" photographers of today are not only following the mass trends dictated by the mass media dictated by the marketing needs of every kind of industry, but they are also dragging with them all the anonymus ones also wishing to become famous.<br>

Yes I do belive that fame is a strong motive for shooting photographs because of money, "glory", social emptyness and individual solitaire.<br>

Millions of dollars are flying around, glamour, champagne, Mario Testino with his big hat and a platoon of top models around him is calling every "ambitious" photographer to stand by him. All of those Nikon, Canon and other kind of "masters" and "gurus" are showing the way to the glorified workshops where you learn what the f number is, what to climb on the rock with a huge camera fitted with a huge zoom feels like, how socially helpfull is to photograph the poor in their slumps abandoned by the world and how aesthetically beautiful it is to go out for shooting dressed and armed like a marine in the combat zone, because...<br>

...nowadays photography is a very easy way to gain some fame, in the trade, in your neighborhood, in some photo magazine, in stock photography business, in the web. The aesthetic criteria are very vague, the marketing indusrty is very powerful, the human being too powerless and the "award winning photo" may be just a click of the mouse away.<br>

Dimitris V. Georgopoulos<br>

Athens, Greece</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I mostly found an excellent corpus of work in your site. I really thank you for that.<br>

Dimitris V. Georgopoulos<br>

http://www.luxeterna.com</p>

<p>I mostly found an excellent corpus of work in your site. I really thank you for that.<br>

Dimitris V. Georgopoulos<br>

http://www.luxeterna.com</p>

<p>Keith,<br />The Angenieux 35-70 zoom is not something to be discussed about; IT IS A MUST.<br />Every Angenieux lens comes in its own presentation box with its independent MTF graph and its two hoods (one ordinary lens hood the other to mount oversize filters) in its special box and pouch. Each Angenieux bears its own Angenieux filter for uncompromising quality. What you see in the photos of the lens is not plastic is special carbon fibre. The lens is so meticulously constructed that there is an internal real rubber extension tube that expands and retracts along the focusing distance of the lens in order to seal it against any unwanted light reflection. The same lens made for Leica R mount uses a riffled barrel in order to achieve the same result.<br />Angenieux 35-70, 70-210 and 200/2.8 are something exceptional with overall quality far better than the relative Nikkor AF. The 70-210 and 200/ 2.8 come nearly even only with the latest Nikkor AFS 70-200 VRII and at the f.l of 200 the Angenieux 200/2.8 is better in color rendtion. Those lenses have what we call cine color reproduction.<br />I have all of them and they are simply exquisite. Their only minor problem is that the zooms have no internal focus and that in close distance they present a slight barrel distortion which is very easily corrected in Photoshop, in case the subject is to critical.<br />All of them work perfectly on D3 and D3x and the more the pixel resolution the more they show their virtues. Put in the Non CPU lens data in the max f and shoot without any fear. the same suberb results I am getting with 35-70 on the Leica R9 with both film and the Digital Modul R, where the color rendition is still more critical as the DMR has a true 16 bit color.<br />And above all do not forget they are manual zooms with macro capability.<br />Therefore if you can put your hands on a Angenieux do not hesitate do it.<br />I wish you all the best and if you get one happy shooting.<br />Dimitris V. Georgopoulos</p>

<p>I noticed that Mr. Mel Cox is in the pursue of the better image by aquiring more lenses.<br>

I do think it is not the right approach. In the digital era it is not just the lens that counts but the body as well.<br>

So Mel if you are not satisfied with the pictures you take try to improve on your technique, your post processing then upgrade to a better body and buy two pieces of top zooms.<br>

I think they will suffice for the majority of your photographic sessions. With bodies like D90, D300/s and above you can make excellent use of high quality MF Nikkors along with the Carl Zeiss ZF line.<br>

I wish you luck and inspiration.<br>

Dimitris V. Georgopoulos</p>

<p>I have 36 lenses and 13 bodies. They accumulated with the years. They are all dear to me and especially my first Nikkormat FT3 my F2A and my FM2n.<br>

Most of them have my sweat, my breath, even my tears on them and the most important they are the tools that captured my memories and helped me to developed my skills.<br>

Although the digital era dictates that it would be adviseable to limit that collection to the more essential pieces, I really feel frustrated when I have to give something away.<br>

But above all I do not burn them.<br>

Just imagine that the camera and the lenses Mr. Key Fanigan proudly burned could be used by somebody who does not have the means to buy them and who really would like to have them.<br>

It is a pity and a shame to demonstrate such pictures. It is beyond the limit of the photographic code of behaviour. This in Greece we call "hyvris" which means great insult.<br>

Mr. Fanigan insulted by his photos and his vulgar pride insulted his fellow photographers and for that reason he must be expelled from this site.<br>

Oh tempora oh mores (What times and what ethos) as the Romans said.<br>

Dimitris V. Georgopoulos</p>

<p>AS THE TOP PROFESSIONAL LAB IN ATHENS IS:<br>

PHOTOLAB, NIKOS AKTIDIS, 6 ARISTOFANOUS STR., 115 61 HOLARGOS, ATHENS, GREECE<br>

TEL: 0030 210 6535 747 AND 0030 210 6533 864<br>

<a href="http://www.photolab.gr">www.photolab.gr</a><br>

BUT UNFORTUNATELY IS MAINLY IN GREEK. YOU SHOULD ASK FOR MR. AKTIDIS HIMSELF<br>

PHOTOLAB USES LAMBDA and FRONTIER AND INKEJET PLOTTERS.<br>

ANOTHER TOP PRO-LAB IS:<br>

TIPOMA, MARIOS VAINVOURM, 60 KONIARI STR., 115 21 ATHENS<br>

TEL: 0030 210 69 69 432 AND 0030 210 64 53 230<br>

<a href="http://www.tipoma.gr">www.tipoma.gr</a><br>

ALSO IN ENGLISH. YOU SHOULD ASK FOR MARIOS.<br>

i DO NOT KNOW IF THEY HAVE INTRODUCED A LAMBDA OR LIGHTJET LATELY BUT THEY ARE USING INKJET PLOTTERS.<br>

FOR FRAMES I CANNOT RECALL ANYONE BUT DROP A LINE TO <a href="http://www.fotorama.gr">www.fotorama.gr</a><br>

ATTENTION ALEKOS VALAVANIS QUOTING MY NAME (DIMITRIS V. GEORGOPOULOS). THEY ARE A PUBLISHING COMPANY SPECIALIZING IN PHOTO BOOKS, POSTERS ETC AND I DO KNOW THAT THEY SHOULD HAVE SOME REALLY GOOD ONE TO RECOMMEND.<br>

A TOP ART FRAME MANUFACTURER FOR CUSTOM FRAMES IS VERGITIS ON FORMIONOS STREET AT PAGRATI, ATHENS, TEL:0030-210-7231059 / 0030-210-7231 658.<br>

I BELIEVE THAT HE CAN UNDERTAKE THE WHOLE WORK BUT TIME LIMITS MIGHT BE AN OBSTACLE.<br>

IF YOU NEED SOMETHING MORE JUST DROP ME A LINE TO <a href="mailto:dvggeorg@otenet.gr">dvggeorg@otenet.gr</a><br>

Good luck,<br>

Dimitris</p>

<p> </p>