What we should do amidst the calamities happening around us...

Now the earth quake of magnitude 6.6-7.0 happened in China, Sichuan province a while ago. Death toll upto 71 and 600 injured... last week there is strong earth quake in Iran-Pakistan border, Papua New Guinea and Japan, and milder intensity in Cotobato, Davao, Ilocos, Batan area in the Philippines... What we can all do? We can start to Love and care for Mother Earth and each other more (including plants, animals, insects and not to forget human beings)... Loving and caring will do a lot of difference... We are all connected... These earth quakes are somehow created by us, the energy each and everyone of us emit (collective consciousness as some call it)... If you don't believe, well... there is no harm to believe me here... just trust me... Please... You have nothing to lose, but everything to gain.

Front Panel Audio Problem

We bought a brand new PC computer with an ASUS P8H77-M PRO mother board, However the Front Panel audio didn't work when I tried it...

Solution: Download the latest Audio driver from ASUS's driver download site here
http://support.asus.com/Download/Options.aspx?SLanguage=en&type=1

I am not sure if this will work with other mother board models and brand, but I hope this solution sharing help others with similar problem out there.

True Happiness

True happiness is a state of mind.

Happiness is not a consequence of things that happen. Do not pursue happiness - practice it. Sing, even if you do not sound good. Smile, even when things go wrong. Create happiness, and happy you will be.

-An excerpt from Facebook App's "God Wants You to Know"

Seascaping with Generic Photography Filters

Disclaimer: I am not a professional seascape photographer, I am just sharing my experience and point of view as a photography enthusiast.

Wanted to try out doing Seascape Photography? But you're on a tight budget like me?

Well one option is to barrow those Branded (but costly) Lee or Singh Ray filters from your photographer friends, assuming they would trust you enough to lend them to you :)

Another way is to try out those Generic filters, I got my ND8 and CPL filters for around 600.00 Philippines Pesos (around 15 US Dollars) a piece, ofcourse the price also depends on the size of your lens barrel.

My objective with using the ND8 filter is to get that cloudy effect on water, since we need to shoot it with relatively slow shutter speed.  With my initial tries, my ND8 was not enough so I stacked it up with my CPL to darken it further, and get some extra stops. Not the best solution, but it's the only one at hand during our shoot, so I had to improvise, I'll probably try to get an ND400 next time.

After I got back home, I simulated Graduated filters using photoshop filter plugins (again not the best solution for seascape photography) to darken just the skies, best is to use Graduated ND filters to minimize photoshoping and get a more natural effect.

I am not saying that we shouldn't patronize those branded filters, if you have the budget, by all means please go ahead and get them. As the saying goes, we get what we pay for.

The point I am driving here is that we can still enjoy seascape photography even without those branded filters, we just need patience, imagination, knowing the basics of light and filters to produce nice seascape photos, and Trust that our photos will turn out OK...  We have to start somewhere, and this is a good way to start, and we can invest more as we go along.

Here are some of my shots using my generic filters, hope you like them.

Shot Details: Nikon D90 with 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 Nikkor Lens, f/22, 13", 18.0 mm, ISO 100

Shot Details: Nikon D90 with 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 Nikkor Lens, f/22, 3", 18.0 mm, ISO 100

Shot Details: Nikon D90 with 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 Nikkor Lens, f/22, 3", 200.0 mm, ISO 100

Shot Details: Nikon D90 with 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 Nikkor Lens, f/22, 6", 18.0 mm, ISO 100

Seascape Photos

To the end year, together with some of my Photography Roadtripper friends, we joined a seascape photography workshop with www.Johnnydao.com last Dec 28, 2012, and went to one of the beaches in Batangas, Philippines.

I hope you enjoy the photos that I posted here.

Fixing a dislocated Manfrotto 190CXPRO3 Tripod Leg

I was ready to shoot the sunrise in Panglao Island in Bohol, Philippines.  But.. when I was about to setup my Manfrotto 190CXPRO3 Carbon Fiber tripod, the tripod legs broke into several pieces...  Arrgghh... instead of shooting the rising sun, i had to spend some time figuring out what happened, and picking up pieces of my tripod, and luckily I was still able to find the tiny parts of my broken tripod on the beach sand... (imagine looking for parts that I don't even know existed just using a tiny flash light because it was still dark... I just saw them and thought that they were part of my tripod and picked them up... Wheww...) Anyway, it looks like the plastic part in the figure below, but much tinier on the sand...  anyway, now you know that the 190CXPRO3 has this part, it should be a bit easier for you, in case the same accident happens to you.

Now that I found the broken parts, I had to assemble them together in order to use them, I had to figure it out quickly, but after I assembled them, I noticed that I didn't put them back the way it should be... Ouch!

The screw holding the sections of the tripod leg needed a hex type screw driver... Oh Boy... To cut it short, my tripod leg had misaligned joints for almost 2 months.  (ok, I was too lazy to look for and bring it back to the store where I bought it since I bought during a trade show)

I was about to give up, and I suddenly thought of giving my Swiss Knife's Flat (Slotted) Head screw driver a try and it Work! It fits perfectly into the screw driver slot and allowed me to loosen the screw and get the job done.  This is just an idea of how to work with a Hex type screw, you could use another Flat head screwdriver that fits the slot of the screw.

Putting back the legs into place is easy once you know what should go where, here are some tips...

The plastic part above is called "R190,616" by Manfrotto (you can find the190CXPRO3 Part List here), it is used for locking the leg and preventing it from totally slipping through when you extend it.  Therefore it goes on top of the leg, fit it into the hole on the side of the leg, see Fig. A and Fig. B.

Insert the lower tube(leg) into the upper tube(leg), See Fig. D.  Take note that there is a protruding line inside the tube, see Fig. C.  Insert the lower leg with the slot formed by the two plastic locking mechanism, see Fig. B, using the protruding line as a guide.

Before tightening the screws, make sure that the locking latches shown below are aligned with each other.

That's it, I hope this tutorial on how to fix a Manfrotto 190CXPRO3 Tripod helps.

A Visual Tour around Fort Santiago

Fort Santiago Park

Old Canon

Old Anchors

I think this is another Prison cell

Footsteps of Dr. Jose Rizal on his execution day towards Bagumbayan or Luneta

Dr. Jose Rizal's Prison Cell

Prison Cell

Rows of Prison Cells

Another View of a Prison Cell

Marker for all Filipinos and Armericans who died in Fort Santiago

Replica of Dr. Jose Rizal on his way out towards Bagumbayan

Replica of the Footsteps of Dr. Jose Rizal

Replica of Guardia Sibil

Replica of Guardia Sibil

Modern View outside of Fort Santiago

Walkway on the walls of Fort Santiago

Calesa Tour around Fort Santiago