Hello from Greece. I am shooting 95% B&W street and people photography and some landscapes. Below you can find some samples!

Street Photography by Dimitris Kioseoglou

-- Dimitris Kioseoglou (kosefoto@otenet.gr), November 22, 2001

Answers

some really nice photos in there...funny, touching...lotsa feeling...

keep at it!

-- grant (g4lamos@yahoo.com), November 25, 2001.

Do you ever use a Minox camera, 35mm or 8x11?

-- Jeff Polaski (polaski@acm.org), November 26, 2001.

Jeff, yes, for the last three years I am using mainly a Minox 35GT camera. In the Children World serie most photographs (No.4,6,7,9,10,11,12,14 and 15) were taken with this camera. It is a great camera with a very good lens. It is very good for street photography. I have recently bought a new Minox GT-E but I haven’t try it yet. Everybody say that GT-E has a better lens than GT.

Street Photography by Dimitris Kioseoglou

-- Dimitris Kioseoglou (kosefoto@otenet.gr), November 26, 2001.

I love your composition and the balance in the photographs. You have a fine Eye!

-- Todd Frederick (fredrick@hotcity.com), November 26, 2001.

Dimitris --

First, your photos are great. I thought I had seen one of the children shots before, related to a Minox site.

I have a Minox 35ML and I'm not certain how to use it in street shooting. It has aperture priority, and I typically control shutter speed by using the meter lock feature (I meter an area that looks average, lock the shutter speed by keeping the shutter release partially depressed, recompose, and then shoot.) This is a bit clumsy for street shooting.

Question: do you control exposure to this extent, or do you let the aperture priority handle the shutter speed for you?

-- Jeff Polaski (polaski@acm.org), November 27, 2001.

Thank you all for your kind comments about my photographs. Jeff, I like to use cameras manually in order to control the exposure. I control the GT and the new GT-E from the ASA set up dial. This is very difficult but I manage it in all situation and especially in fast street photography. Always I am ready with the correct exposure compensation before seeing the theme. The aperture priority metering of 35mm Minox cameras is not so good! This is caused because the metering is not through the lens. If you let the camera work itself 60%-70% of the film would be one, two and even three stops underexposed. In some lighting situations I set the ASA dial to 50 when I was using 400ASA film. I don’t know about ML but if it has the meter lock feature this is very useful. I haven’t red the instruction manual of GT-E yet but I don’t believe that it has such a good feature. Despite from the not so good metering and also the known problems with the sticking shutters I like using Minox cameras because they are small, portable, you can carry them everywhere you go in your pocket, you can make photography anytime of the day in any situation and finally they have a very good lens. From Minox negatives I make exhibition quality prints up to 40x60cm.

-- Dimitris Kioseoglou (kosefoto@otenet.gr), November 27, 2001.

Thank you for the explanation. I have never really used the ASA setting (I guess we're both old enough to still call it "ASA") for exposure compensation because on other cameras I was able to compensate with the shutter or aperture manually. I'll run a couple of rolls and see how it works.

The Minox 35 series are in my humble opinion under-rated. Evey time I consider another camera for street or discrete photography, I keep coming back to the Minox with its 35mm focal length. Unlike today's point and shoot cameras, the lens is fast. (The exception is the Olympus Stylus Epic, whch has a good lens.)

The Minox 35 is so small most people don't seem to realize it is a camera. It is so quiet that I sometimes find myself checking the shutter indicator to see if I have really taken the photo.

I assume you are familiar with Martin Tai's Minox forum in Yahoo-Groups. I just started developing my own 8x11, which makes it much more affordable.

-- Jeff Polaski (polaski@acm.org), November 28, 2001.

I agree with you about Minox cameras. In my opinion as far as street photography is concerned Minox 35mm cameras are my first choice even they have problems with the shutter after a strong use. I bought the GT-E having my old GT with shutter problem!! With the GT I lost 2 or 3 frames in every roll! Do you have any problems with your ML? I also have a Yashica T4. It has a good lens, very good light metering but it is a little noisy.

I used to use ASA set up dial since my first camera, a Practica B100, which was an aperture priority auto camera. It is not so difficult if you have practiced in the past with an all manual camera and you are used to set aperture and shutter speed for different ASA films in different lighting situations.

I am familiar with Martin Tai’s Minox forum and I think this is a very good forum. As the history of Minox cameras is mainly the 8x11 subminiature cameras I can not find questions and answers about 35mm cameras. But after reading a lot about 8x11 cameras I am thinking seriously about buying and trying one! Can you suggest me a good model?

-- Dimitris Kioseoglou (kosefoto@otenet.gr), November 28, 2001.

Dimitris -- I haven't had shutter problems with my ML, but others have. It is electro-mechanical, and some of the problems seem to be caused by dust in the mechanism. (An additional Minox forum that includes 35mm is www.minoxography.org - based in Europe).

8x11 Minox Cameras: for manual control, I have used my Minox B since 1970. It has a selenium meter, and selenium meters wear out over time, so I don't use the meter. Slightly smaller would be a Minox III, IIIs (with flash synch), also called a Minox A. No meter. These however tend to be more expensive on the collector market than the Minox B. So what if it's slightly larger because it has a meter that you can't use? These cameras are small!

8x11 film processing: Commercially, this is expensive; too expensive for me. I bought a Minox daylight development tank for under $100, and it works perfectly. For printing, you need a short enlarging lens and a carrier to hold the 8x11 film. I found a used one for Beseler 23c enlargers. I can evaluate negatives with my Emoscop (emoscop.com) and print the ones I want. That's what I do with 35mm also, using a bigger loupe.

-- Jeff Polaski (polaski@acm.org), November 29, 2001.

Thank you for your king information about 8x11 Minox cameras. I like manual cameras so Minox B would be a good start for me. On the other hand it is very hard to find secondhand minox cameras and accessories in Greece. They are very rare!

-- Dimitris Kioseoglou (kosefoto@otenet.gr), November 29, 2001.