Digital camera & digital photography resources
for professional & amateur photographers

Matt, well done for suggesting this idea - it would be great

I would agree with Graham and Chronos on all of their points.

I think being anonymous is paramount.

I think the judges should be appointed by the Byte admin.,but I like the idea of one of the judges being from the byte community.

There are several themes and categories, however, we could just have the one theme per contest. The entry should be especially shot for the contest.

Clear guidelines on digital manipulation to be nutted out.

I think you could have up to four entries, particularly if the comp. was over a month. No entries in the last week.

Comments, but no ratings from members and it would be great if there was a minimal number of comments were required per entrant to the competion.

Nothing very original here, but just some agreement with points raised,

All the best, Matt and thank you for your efforts.
Mary

Report this to a moderator | IP: Logged

Hi This is my first ever foram and I am lining as I go I fink that this is a god i der and fink that it shold be longer than tow weks my be 3 to 5 so you can take photos for say 4 weks and the 5 for voting. I know my seling is not that god I hop this site well hillp me.
Regards
Sue.

Report this to a moderator | IP: Logged

Hi everyone,

Here's a brief outline, with some additions, of what has been mentioned previously in this thread for the challenge idea.


Winner chooses theme but admin must agree on theme so as not to have a "pictures of my cat" theme for example

Entries will be anonymous and passwords to upload to the challenge gallery will be given to those who wish to enter.
update : for the moment entries should be submitted to challenge@bytephoto.com with the challenge topic as the object of the email.

3 photos per challenge
Max dimensions 800 px wide at 1MB

Duration 3 weeks (monday to monday) with the fourth week of the month to give time to choose the winner. (1st, 2nd and 3rd places)

Only comments, no ratings

Freshly shot during challenge period

Exif data must be included

A photographer must be able to produce the original photos if asked

Photo manipulation depends on chosen theme

Judged by admin for now but may change in the future


So what do you think ?

Also, the idea will be still experimental at the moment so when the challenge begins there may be future updates to the rules so as to improve on the idea.

If all goes well the challenge may begin Monday if not the following week.

__________________
Kind regards
Stephen

Report this to a moderator | IP: Logged

Sounds good.
Explain how and where we upload for the and let the games begin!
Buddy

Report this to a moderator | IP: Logged

sounds good to me

__________________
aladyforty

Report this to a moderator | IP: Logged

These sound like good ground rules to start ~ fair and simple. Time will shake out the kinks.

I'd like to suggest that at the end of the official entry period there is clear notice that the challenge is closed so don't have the situation we have now. The PC entries usually remain up after close and people continue commenting and the new week's entries become entangled with the old.

Just might be cleaner, if it's possible, to find some way to make it clear it's over.

I'm looking forward to this.

Sheila.

Report this to a moderator | IP: Logged

Looks good to me Stephen

This looks great for starters. Looks like you've included as many members suggestions as possible so I think you've done a great job.

How about starting a challenge thread for members to make suggestions on ideas for future themes. We could have a Byte brain storming session. Winners could then use it if they get stuck for an idea of their own.

Thanks to all the members who got involved in the thread. I'm looking forward to this. Thanks also to Stephen and Paul for taking on the extra workload.

Matt

Report this to a moderator | IP: Logged

This is an excellent basis Stephen.

Certainly, I think we'd probably need to get a few challenges under our belts to see what (if anything) needed fine tuning, such as number of entries per member...will up to 3 entries per member plus comments be too much to search through? e.g. we can have up to 30 comments per image in POTW over just one week, could very easily mount up if you multiply that by 3 (images) over a month, per member.

I'm also wondering at this point about the value of allowing/having comments at all. As these are going into selection for Admin to judge - not members - would we also be critiquing the images before selection occurs? Also, if uploads are anonymous (excellent prospect) would the comments left on images be anonymous also? It wouldn't be too hard to see whose images belong to whom, when the owner doesn't comment on his/her own work.

Also regarding comments left on an image by members or Admin, I imagine that an owner of an image would love to respond to comments either as thanks or acknowledgement (as we do now for POTW) which would therefore render the anonymity redundant.

Another question I have is regarding the final placings.

I mentioned this previously, but I'm wondering about the value of '1st, 2nd and 3rd' placings for the challenge. Since we are not competing for prizes and since Admin are choosing the winner, why would we have 2nd and 3rd placings? No doubt, we need to have a 'Best In Class' for acknowledgement of the member and their image that best meets the Challenge and Category criteria, but as with Best of Best, there's no 2nd or 3rd. I would certainly support 'Challenger of the Month' or 'Best in Class' and maybe between 3 to 5 honourable mentions.

I would like to think too, we are going to get feedback on a selection of images as to what did and didn't work - maybe you guys can select a random 20 images and call them the 'Admin's Selection' (e.g. 10 good images that worked and 10 images that didn't quite work) with your/judge's appropriate comments, so everyone would get something out of the challenge besides the fun of entering.

I'm not sure that could all be tailored to fit inside the first challenge lol, but think it's a great thing to work towards.

Great stuff and excellent to see this progress.

Report this to a moderator | IP: Logged

I'm happy to participate.

Frank

Report this to a moderator | IP: Logged

Yes I'm in. Maybe 3 photos per member is too many. What is the EXIF data? and how do I includ it?

Regards
Sue.

Report this to a moderator | IP: Logged

I think that too many rules might not be necessary as the ones we have now cause alot of problems and they are really not enforced until a crisis situation arises. Perhaps keep it as simple as possible would be great.

Thematic approaches are good as long as we realize that all areas are not equal....if I were to choose "Snow"...I would not have a problem but for others having to shoot it during the challenge period will in fact be a challenge to complete during the period when it is not possible....... I do not see why any photo would not be okay as long as the EXIF info is present.

Finally, Graham mentions about the possibility of receiving 30 comments....Where does that happen?...here at Byte? certainly not for me and never has.................in fact I have always felt that there should be a mechanism built in forcing comments. There is a visible group who comment on each other's work while the majority remain with 1, 2 or no comments at all. How will you deal with those members who receive no comments?

I would like to see it go forward but keep it simple as possible.....with few or no restrictions

Report this to a moderator | IP: Logged

G'day Ray.

As far as receiving up to 30 comments on an image, if you pop by the POTW comp, you'll sometimes find maybe 2 or 3 images have 30 comments against them. (Like one of Buddy's images this week)

Often it'll be because there are comments left by individuals, and then responses by the shooter. Some shooters like to thank people who comment one by one, so if 15 people comment, you might get 15 responses of thanks by the image owner. See? it can happen easily lol

That's during the course of only one week. If you have an image that generates a lot of interest, then if it's there for the 3 weeks of the entry period you could easily have 40-50 or more comments on an image.

Anyway...just thinking ahead really...

I agree, too many rules makes it unwieldy and top heavy. What Stephen and Admin's come up with so far looks great and easily workable. It's cos we're starting from scratch from one of Matt's ideas that all the rules are up front, makes it look like there's a lot of them to begin with. Given also that it was put to us members, rather than just being implemented that a lot of potential rules and guidelines have been suggested.

EXIF data, Sue, is the camera details, like shutter speed, aperture, whitebalance, exposure, etc, that is recorded digitally whenever you shoot an image. It's attached by the camera as part of the file info and is revealed in whatever post processing software you might use. When you upload your edited pic here to Byte, it appears just under the image, so we can see what settings your camera had at the time you shot your image. For instance, in Photoshop (and it's derivatives like Photoshop Elements), you can always see the original EXIF when you look under 'File' 'File Info'

Usually it's retained when you save the image in certain way (rather than 'saving for web', which often discards this info)

Let us know what post processing software you use and we might be able to advise which is the best way for you to save this info for upload.

Report this to a moderator | IP: Logged

Count me in - and just remember the two hemispheres - 'snow' and 'ocean' are not great challenges for all of us!

__________________
Suzan...

Report this to a moderator | IP: Logged

My biggest problem is with the EXif data is that I often use noiseware or noise ninja or neat image and find the data disappears.

__________________
aladyforty

Report this to a moderator | IP: Logged

You can still get your EXIF data from your original shot by right-clicking on it in an Explore window, and going to properties and going to the Summary tab in XP and I believe it's the advanced tab in Win2k. You can then put the info into a text file and paste it into the posted image.

Admin, would that be acceptable for this challenge?

__________________
Suzan...

Report this to a moderator | IP: Logged