Armed with my Nikon D80 & it’s kit lens (AF-S Nikkor 18-135mm f3.5~5.6) I went to Manila Bay & patiently waited for the sun to set. Thank God for a very cooperative weather, it was a hot yet cloudy afternoon.

Moving on to my experiment, the first photo’s white balance was set at Fluorescent, color temperature at approximately 4,200°Kelvin.


Next photo was taken using Incandescent (Tungsten) white balance, color temperature is at 3,000°Kelvin.

Finally using Direct Sunlight white balance, color temperature at 5,200°Kelvin.

What’s your pick? I personally love the warm blue effect of the Tungsten white balance on a setting sun, it looks calm & serene.

While in University of the Philippines in Los Baños field, I experimented on shooting panorama. I took this 5 photos using my new Giotto’s tripod.

Then I used Photoshop CS3’s Photo Merging function to merge the 5 photos into 1 panoramic image.


From what I’ve the key to taking good panoramic image is a sturdy tripod & a panoramic tripod head, this will keep the images aligned & easy to stitch. I put my Giotto’s MT970 Tripod to a test, it’s quite heavy at 2.5kgs., but it’s sturdy enough for a panorama shot. The only problem is, I don’t have a panoramic tripod head.

The answer is my new Giotto’s MH7302 Ballhead, it equipped with a 360° dial for panoramic shooting.

The weather was not that good for panoramic shooting yesterday, I’m waiting for a better weather to once again experiment on shooting panorama.

Answers.com defined snoot as nose, while mimi.hu has given a more precise photographic definition of the word. Yes, it resembles a nose (more of an elephant trunk), to which the term has been derived, it’s being use to direct light to a particular location, it is being classified as lighting modifiers.

To further elaborate the practical use of a snoot, I’ve attached 3 photos of my DIY snoot in action. The first photo was taken with a snoot attached to an SB800 flash facing the camera, photo no. was an SB800 directed to a wall without the snoot & the last with a snoot on.

On the third image, you will notice that the scope of the light is smaller & more direct, which precisely what the snoot is for.

Now to try it on a subject, I called on my friend Kobe to be my model on this test. The first photo was taken with direct undiffussed (controlled) flash & the second photo with my DIY snoot.

Notice how the shadow on Kobe’s face added to the drama of the image, whew! This one’s a success, see you in my next experiment.

The key in capturing infrared photos is the timing, the most suitable time is around noon where the sunlight is at it’s peak, the elements must also be present i.e. clouds, blue sky & green leaves or grass. I went on a shooting spree around 2pm today & here’s what I got.


I shot the above photo using RAW/NEF format of my Nikon D70 camera using an 18-135mm lens. The exposure time is set at 1 second, aperture at f8 @ ISO200 & white balance at 3000° Kelvin (Fluorescent +3). I downloaded the photo using Camera Raw 4.2 of Photoshop CS3, I noticed the reddish cast of the photo which (I believe) is not normal. I’ve seen alot of sample shots & I’ve never seen something like this, I think I need to experiment more on other settings.

Anyways, since I’m not that satisfied, I adjusted some settings when I downloaded the below photos.

I did some adjustments on the Camera Raw before finally opening it with Photoshop until I finally removed the reddish casts on the photo. I then edited it to fit my taste. The first option is to use a brownish sepia tone, I added some blur & noise on the photo to my liking to get this look.

FinallyI tried it on a black & white photo with additional blur & noise.

Infrared is not a new photographic technique, even during the film era, infrared photography is quite popular to some. It’s an interesting field that I might study more.

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