Ever wondered what that flashlight in your mobile phone is for? My blogger friends and I have discovered a new and very useful way of using it that will surely help a lot of bloggers. Aside from helping you find your way in a dark cinema, that flashlight can be used as lighting when taking macro photographs.

My friends and I use the flashlight as additional lighting when the lighting is bad in a restaurant or store and we have to shoot food or products. Last weekend, we had a nice (and yummy) al fresco dinner at Mamu’s Restobar here in Davao City. Since there was barely enough lighting under the stars… we used the built-in flashlights in our respective phones (mine is a Nokia 1200) to make our shots clearer. Here are the rest of the shots I took using my Canon Ixus 70 in Digital Macro Mode:

So next time you need better lighting for those crucial digital macro shots for your blog (or other publishing or vanity) purposes, remember there might be that nifty built-in flashlight function is your mobile phone.

Food courtesy of Mamu’s Restobar located along Bacaca Road in Davao City, a host of the Davao Food Appreciation Tour 2009.

You want to make an exciting slideshow of photos you want to embed on Friendster, Multiply, or your blog but don’t know how to?

Head to Animoto, sign up for an account and it simplifies slideshow making for you. You just upload your photos, upload your music (or choose from their audio library), and they make the slideshow, and the do the rendering for you. NEAT, HUH?

Here’s my first Animoto slideshow…

It’s not as I want it to be, but the process of making it was fuss-free.

So I chose my photos carefully the next time I tried it out…

Wooo… a better video!

ANIMOTO AMAZING!

Thanks to Jeric for the tip!
Photos by Me, Kuya Andrew, and Ms. Jojie Alcantara.