Time for the 2009 Dave's Garden photo contest!

The harvest is in, the hay is in the barn, the air is crisp and that can only mean one thing - photo contest!!

This year's format is identical to last year. No obvious photo enhancements allowed, maximum of two photos per person per category. New photos only - don't enter photos you entered in previous DG contests.

Thanks to the hard work of many members, we now have 24 very carefully selected categories. This should make it easier to find where to upload your beauties this time.

Enough talk. Let's start uploading!

http://davesgarden.com/contest/2009/

Fast work, Dave, thanks!

Wow Dave! You don't joke! That was fast!!!

Great, I've so waited the contest!

Oh, Great! Get ready for contest!

We already have 22 entries, and they keep coming in fast. I've been sneaking peaks and I am astounded again at the beautiful photos. We have such talent here.

I can already tell that this is going to be another difficult judging, and once again I'm glad that the burden does not rest solely on me!!!!

Here we go again!

It's hard to believe it, but the contest has only been open for about 8 hours and we already have over a hundred entries!

POPULAR!!! Great, I better go look through my pictures....

I predict judging to be brutal!

This will be my third year to enter and to judge the DG Photo Contest, and I have always been amazed (and humbled!) by the amazing talent of the members here! Judging the photos is way harder than entering I can tell ya that!!!

Calif_Sue I ended up with pics stuck on the walls and laid out on the floor trying to decide in some catagorys! My DH thought I was a nut ^_^

Must be why you chose your name LOL!
I went wuickly with my instant gut reaction, no pondering, I didn't have the time to over analyze.

When can we start seeing them?

We don't get to look till the contest deadline is past! I can hardly wait!

I have a couple I am entering this year. It was a great year for some of my flowers.
Martha

Go gardenmart Go! The best thing about the photo contest is getting to see the photos that people choose as their favorite or special photos.

This message was edited Oct 7, 2009 7:50 PM

Yippeeee!

For the macro category is this small images or images of small things?

Neither, technically. Here's a good description posted earlier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro_photography

This message was edited Oct 8, 2009 12:59 PM

While the categories may seem obvious to some, I would appreciate seeing full descriptions of each.

When does the contest end?

Click on the contest link, all the dates info is there.

I'll looking forward to the end to see all the photos. I hope to enter a few myself - I'm still waiting for my Canon 40D to arrive. I got it with a Canon 28-135mm lens. I then bought another lens - a Sigma 70-300mm.

I got this camera because it is one of the ones Dave uses (and it had rave ratings on Amazon), and we all know how good his photography is. I think he uses a Canon 100-400 lens and I checked it out. When I came to, I bought the Sigma instead.

Now, I got the good camera, lets see if I can do it justice.

Hack

This message was edited Oct 9, 2009 1:48 PM

Pardon my ignorance. on the contest site it reads that the contest ends "At midnight UTC on November 2nd, 2009"

I didn't know what UTC was, so I looked it up.

Here's a link so you can figure what time it is where you live.

http://www.dxing.com/utcgmt.htm

Hack

Hmmm. I was going to enter a couple photos, but I'm having a bit of trouble deciding where to put them. They're macros of insects. LOL So which category is most appropriate? I guess what I'm asking is, how do we differentiate what goes into the macro category as opposed to any other category, because whatever we photograph would almost certainly fit macro as well as another category.

Thanks!

Another very important time is when Dave will announces the results. Dave I seem to recall that you have your coffee and read the news before posting the results. Any volunteers in Dave's hood to race over with coffee and news really early, early on the morning after voting closes?

Bonus RainGear! You can put 2 different ones in each catagory!

Go with you gut RainGazer!

I have tried finding that info, to no avail. So, I'll ask before submitting anything.

How big a picture should we submit? What resolution? I typically post pictures that are
600X400 pixels at 72 dpi, which seems to work well for on-screen viewing and keeps the file's size manageable for the server. Whenever I print a picture, I'll go for 300 or 600dpi depending on the printer I'll use. Which is best for the contest?

Thanks.
Sylvain.

Sylvain,

I recommend uploading photos around 800x600 or so. Anything over 1,000 pixels wide will be resized down.

Drat! I thought you might feel that way Dave but it was worth a shot ^_^

so if you loaded smaller photos should we redo them????? Mine are the 640x480 resized.

No, that's okay.

I hate to be a pest but how many dpi?

Sylvain.

I don't know... Maybe someone else knows about dpi settings.

I would not know a dpi if it bit me. Please explain what a dpi is for the camera dummy!!!

dots per inch...

This explains DPI pretty well...
http://www.dsbglobal.com/ishrink/About%20Images.htm

Question~ what actually is meant by no obvious photo enhancements? I usually brighten and sharpen and generally clean them up a bit...sometimes fixing for true color...also are black and white photos made in photo shop allowed?