Photographing Hotels

One of my main business is photographing Hotels. Because my website is still under construction and i get asked every week for some samples which Hotels did i photographed etc... i will now show some samples on our Blog. Rolling out a little bit commercial for myself ;-)

For more Information contact: info@pro-samos.com

Kerveli luxury Villa:

Hotel Naftilos, Pythagorion:

Hotel Santa Katerina, Pythagorion :

2000 km away

At least on board of the charter flights they always say it is approx. 2000 kilometers distance equaling to 2 hours 50 minutes flight time between Samos in Greece and Frankfurt in Germany. Frankfurt is not far away from the city of Mainz, where I live.

So, what do you think I will do when I don't take photos on Samos? Well, you guess it, I take photos in Mainz!
If you are interested to see some images of a special place located on the banks of the river Rhine, where the river Main flows into the Rhine, please pay a visit to the presentation "Images of Mainz":

Images of Mainz / Mainz-Images from vimeo-minstrel on Vimeo.

Kallithéa

Kallithéa is a small village in the west of Samos, settled on the slopes of mount Kerkis at an altitude of approx. 300 meters. Most tourists will pass by on the road to Agios Isidoros/Valsamos beach or Drakei, unfortunately without paying a visit to this place. The name Kallithéa means: "beautiful view". And indeed you will have a spectacular view across the aegean sea to the island of Ikaria. And along the road several benches are inviting you to sit down and enjoy the breathtaking sunsets.

If you want, explore the beautiful areas above and below Kallithéa: starting in front of the graveyard, follow the dirt road up the mountain, pass the chapel Ag. Paraskevi under big platane trees. Follow the dirt road till the end, then walk up the steep trail through shady forests to the lovely chapel "Panagia Makrini" inside a cave. I promise, this will be a unique experience during your stay on Samos! Or, starting a little bit outside the village to the south, follow the dirt road that will lead you down to the sea, visit Charalampos chapel and relax on Katsouni beach.

I hav been there already several times. Last year I spent some time there in August and October and took a couple of photos. During the day, the small square and the narrow streets look empty, almost deserted. For sure, only tourists will walk around in the heat of the early afternoon!
And cats are strolling around. Old men are sitting in the shade of huge trees in front of the one and only tavern in the small square.


But during that one hot night in the middle of August, the whole place is more than crowded with hundreds of people who come from all over the world back to Kallithea in summer to celebrate and enjoy the panijiri. The whole square is packed with tables and chairs where people sit, drink and eat, A group of 4-5 musicians plays live music and people start to dance from about midnight as long as they can until the light of the morning dawns.


Wanna take part (visually) in that hot night in the square of Kallithea? At least, for a couple of seconds, you can do that on the internet:

Hot August summer nights on Samos island in Greece: panijiri in Kallithea from vimeo-minstrel on Vimeo.

Interested in the west of Samos island? More photos can be found in my collection "Through the west of Samos between Paleochóri and Drakéi"

Nostalgia...

I have mentioned it in the comments of my last post....
Nostalgia.... Well the F4 i would not call it Nostalgia as it still is a superb camera.

But, what about this one:

Zeiss Ikon 517/16
Its a Zeiss Ikon Nettar with Novar-Anastigmat 6,3 / 75mm
This camera has been released in 1949. It uses roll film 120 and you get 12 pictures of a negativ size of 6x6cm. The shutter is a vario leaf shutter with speeds of B / 25/ 75/ 200 .
As far as i could test the camera, the shutter is alright and working fine in all shutter speeds.

Actually i like to try this camera, taking photographs on black&white. And there comes my problem now. It seems that nobody on Samos island is able to develop and print this films anymore!!
That said, if i like to try Nostalgia cameras, i first have to get again a Darkroom equipement from E-bay.
Lets go to search...

Upgrading my camera gear (tech. gurus welcome)

In September 2003 i jumped into the digital waters of photography. Well, i should better say i moved into another world... but anyhow...
That time, my first D-slr was a 6Mp Nikon. It served my quiet a good job, very reliable although i was missing some features on that.
For instance:
- ISO settings below 200
- Mirror Lock-up
- better behave in low-light ( color noise )
- faster series shooting ( only 3 frames a second )
- better and bigger Viewfinder
- Sandwich exposure ( shoot multiple times on the same picture )
- Faster shutter ( 1/4000 only )
- faster flash synch. ( X-synch 1/180 only )
- more battery power / longer duration
- better white balance ( Need to work it out to get colors right )
- better dynamic range
- no cable connection for Studio Flash
- more buttons for functions instead of scrolling through the menu
- Less vibration from the mirror when releasing the shutter

Wow, now i am wondering myself how did i work all those years with that camera...
Although its not all that bad, but it could be better...

My new 10mp camera is better in many things but still not quiet the right camera that i want. Propably, the only solution to solve my problem will be to get a deep gap in my pants and buy the Nikon D3 ( about 4000,- Euro ).

But finally, i found another "solution"
My new camera in details:
- 18MP resolution
- ISO settings starting from 25
- Mirror lock-up
- Better behave in low light / less color noise
- series shooting up to 5,7 frames per second
- one of the best viewfinders i ever look through
- Sandwich exposure as often as you like
- X-synch 1/250
- fast Shutter of 1/8000
- long battery life
- No probs with white balance,filtersets for every light
- very good dynamic range
- cable connection for studio flash
- All important functions with buttons
- Camera vibration from the Mirror and shutter is minimal

And there is my new Working tool:

It`s the old toy-boy Nikon F4s. This analog film camera, manufactured from 1988 until 1996, was one of the most succesfull and reliable pro-slr ever made. It is a real pleasure to work with it. Get it in your hands and you might understand what i mean.

The mentioned 18mp resolution will be reached, if you scan the film with the filmscanner Nikon coolscan 5000 or 9000. If using high-end scanners like Imacon flextight, you will get results far above 18MP.

Samos presentations in high definition (HD, 720p) quality

Here is the link to my new channel concerning Samos, which I will use for publishing high quality (HQ) and high definition (HD, 720p) media via the internet:

"Experience Samos!"

I have already rendered some of my presentations in HD (720p) quality and published them on this channel.
Please pay a visit!

Since the HD video files now have large sizes, anything between one hundred and several hundreds of megabytes, I recommend to start the download of the stream and wait until at least two thirds of the stream have been downloaded before starting to watch the video. Of course, it all depends on the speed of your internet access and your computer.

"House of the setting Sun"

Samos-town has a lot of different faces. For example, the beautiful and elegant boulevard Themistokli Sophouli along the harbour, the Platia Pythagoras or the Archeological Museum! Many tourists will visit these sites while they are staying on the island of Samos.

Strange enough, there is one really ugly place along the boulevard, the building of a former hotel, that seems to be - already since many years - a monument for I don't know whom or what! This building resides directly on the boulevard Themistokli Sophouli, on one of the best sites in Samos-Town!
The building looks pretty dilapidated and like it could collapse at any moment!


It is uninhabited and surrounded by a - meanwhile rusted - fence.


There is a house in Samos-town,
best place to view the setting sun,
it's been a sad building for many years,
when are they going to pull it down?

Oh listen, mayor of Samos-town,
don't you see this misery,
it’s such a terrible sight to see
tourists turn away with a frown.

Now the only thing Samos people want
Is to pull this damn thing down
Use the free space to build something new
in the middle of Samos town.

(You can sing the words along with the melody of "house of the rising sun" by "The Animals")