Projects
This time, I was interested in the storm, but I wanted to make an animated gif of a lightning. Since my camera Canon Rebel XS does not have the video function, I used my mobile phone to record the video. The rain hit hard and I had to stay behind the closed window.
The most interesting part of the video was this nearby hit, and I uploaded it on Instagram
Afterwards, I took the 17 individual frames, the relevant ones, and made this animated gif for a better view of the lightning. As you can see, it was a double hit.
Monday, July 28th, 2014 at 11:53 am
Total Eclipse of the Moon. 15.06.2011. Belgrade. A small practice project of mine, I thought it would be interesting enough for the Projects section. Well, I never tried my Canon Rebel XS on an eclipse before the 2011 attempt. Preiously I tried to shoot a moon eclipse with my compact camera Canon A700 and failed big time. Well, I was not satisfied with this attempt also, since there was lot of humidity in the air, leftovers from that morning’s clouds and rain. Anyway, to shoot an eclipse of the Moon is a totally different thing than to shoot it on some other occasion.
I was very happy about my previous shot of the Moon (check it out below, it was taken in May 2011) and thought that I would be able to repeat the quality but I… Just observe this one as an amateur photo story of the event. Every one of these individual shots of Moon above required entirely different ISO and aperture parameters, so I was rather busy at the time.
The next photo “Touch the Moon” is the other shot of the Moon I am fond of. It was not an eclipse, but the conditions were right. If only I had a 700mm lens…
Wednesday, February 26th, 2014 at 5:17 pm
In June 2013, I remembered to adjust the white balance on my camera in order to avoid the reddish tone of the photos.
The story was the same as in 2011 take. Shooting photos from my hand and getting lucky. But, this time I tried a completely different approach with the parameters. I used ISO 800 (as opposed to ISO 100), which enabled me to shorten the exposure time. I set the exposure to 1/4 seconds (as opposed to 5 seconds) to avoid getting too bright photos due to high ISO. Last time, 5 seconds allowed for shaky photos and a higher risk of mistakes. This time 1/4 second exposure is still rather risky (without tripod), but definitely more stable. The problem is that I didn’t have the 5-second time window anymore, to wait for the lightning. When shooting at 1/4 exposure, there is no margin of error, you need to take the photo at exactly the right time, immediately before the lightning hits. Win stability of the image but be ready to lose some really great moments due to shorter exposure.
And… I made it! The photos came out great. Check out my favourites below:
Saturday, September 28th, 2013 at 10:48 am
Milky Way Time Lapse Photography – 22-25.08.2011 from Bosko Martinovic on Vimeo.
(Check it out in full screen mode)
This was my debut attempt at time lapse photography, from August 2011. Also, this is my first Milky Way photo session ever. The video consists of 394 still photographs, shot with Canon Rebel XS (1000 D) and a 18-55mm kit lens, on a tripod. All frames were done with 30-second exposure, and I tried to use a different white balance on the second night. Which was a mistake, the sky turned out brownish… Light pollution was significant, and the final part of the video is problematic since that night was windy (camera was not completely still due to the wind) and even clouds appeared to spoil the session.
The cropped cover shot shows non-stationary satellites reflecting sunlight or passing meteors. I’m not quite sure, but I’ve been spotting satellites since I was a kid, and this was not different. The beginnings of the lines are exact locations where two dots appeared, some 5 seconds apart. The shot had 30″ exposure, so what you see is a trail left by two “dots” appearing and later disapppearing.
Here it is again, zoomed.
Aaand, another zoom for more details. 
Neat! What do you think?
So, why was this session significant? Once more, I expanded my activities related to photography, which resulted in a video originating from a camera that does not have a video mode. When I saw the results, it was clear that my ideas had definitely outgrown what Canon Rebel XS (1000D) had to offer. When I bought it, I considered its ISO settings to be advanced (which they were, for a regular user). Nevertheless, I still (2013) have the same camera and I will probably be using it for a year or two more…
This photo above is actually one of the two favourite photos from this session (the third night). Here is the other one:
Ps. Music was also composed by me. The track is “Cat’s Mood” and is a part of the Cat’s Mood demo recorded from 1999-2003. You can check all the tracks on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/boskomartinovic
Sunday, September 1st, 2013 at 12:37 am
In 2011, I stumbled upon this website http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/ and was instantly bought – I just HAD to do try this stuff! Instructions were rather simple, and I felt up to the task.
So, everything was ready to start, as I gathered all of the stuff required. You can see the early stages and almost finished pinhole camera.
The only thing I replaced during the work was the can opener, as I found a better replacement (an opener from a beer cap). I don’t know about your matchboxes, but the ones I had could not be cut perfeclty clean. There were small tears and particles everywhere, which in fact produced an interesting result. The most important thing was the black tape! It keeps the light out (most of it), it makes the setup rigid. If you cut it nicely when you finish, you can reuse the camera several more times (until it falls appart, of course).
This is how it looked in the end:
Thanks http://www.matchboxpinhole.com/ for this interesting project!
And what about the photos? Did I succeed? You’ll be the judge of that, but as far as I’m concerned, the achieved results exceed the expected ones (failure). Check them out below.
Details: The photos in this serieswere all taken using a hand made matchbox pinhole camera I made in September 2011 (see it in another album). Exposures range from 1 second to 20 minutes. Film used was the common Fuji ISO 200 film. The edges of photos were produced by unevenly scalpel-cut matchbox cardboard. The first photo studio scanned the film automatically, which cut off parts of photos and skipped a few. The second photo studio did the positioning manually so I have everything. Anyway, I am happy to have some results from project, this challenge of mine. I hope you like them and try it out yourself. Anything is possible. Thanks to http://matchboxpinhole.com
#1 Students’ Park
#2 Students’ Park
#3 Students’ Park
#4 Students’ Park gate and Philological Faculty in the background…
#5 Students’ Park gate and Philological Faculty in the background…
#6 Students’ Park
#7 Republic Square, National Museum and Prince Mihailo monument
#8 Greenery
#9 Greenery
#10 Greenery
#11 Mess in the kitchen
#12 These two photos overlapping were cut when scanned, so I reconnected them, regardless of the error.
#13 My love Milica
#14 I want to ride my bicycle
#15 A test shot of the Church of St. Petka, as seen from Milica’s stroller. You can see my finger tips as well 😀
#16 George the cat
#17 George
#18 George the cat moving his head
#19 Walker
#20 From my balcony
#21 Room
#22 Zeleni Venac bus station, and a glimpse of the market
#23 Night shot from my kitchen window. Exposure approximately 20 minutes.
#24 A bit distorted perspective of my living room corner. The face on the wall is usually beautiful.
Friday, August 30th, 2013 at 1:24 am
From time to time I get the urge to try something new in photography. The stuff I try may be old news to you, but it’s a challenge to me. I could even say that trying out that old Yashica SLR and shooting film after so many years was a serious challenge as well. All the benefits of the digital gear that have spoiled us over the years made me learn the basic principles again. So, stay tuned. I just might come up with a new challenge. So that’s what the “Projects” category is going to be all about.
Friday, August 30th, 2013 at 12:04 am
This series of posts does not represent a true Project. It was more of a stubbornness mission and a learning curve. In June 2011, I wanted to learn to take nice, clear lightning photos. So, I just needed to stay tuned at my window/balcony for a really flashy summer storm :D.
This was my first successful take on this subject, it was June 2011. I was confused about the reddish tone of the photos, totally forgetting about the white balance! 😀 Oh, yes, there is another thing – I wanted to do it without a tripod. The idea is always to get lucky and take a shot at the exactly right time. I used the daytime ISO 100 to achieve contract and then set the exposture to 5 seconds. So, 5-freaking-second exposure without a tripod. What you get is many photos for deletion and a couple of very nice ones. Several seconds is enough time to catch 2-3 lightnings at the same photo, if the storm is severe enough, and you don’t need to stack several photos and edit stuff in Photoshop.
Check the shots out!
Thursday, June 20th, 2013 at 10:00 am
