Images of the Year Competition 2008 by American Photo

2008 American Photo Images of the Year Competition

OFFICIAL RULES

• ELIGIBILITY:

You must be 18 years or older as of September 12, 2008 to enter the contest. Employees of Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc. and members of their immediate families are not eligible to enter or win. The contest is open to both amateur and professional photographers.

• CONTEST DEADLINES:

The Contest commences on April 23, 2008 and continues until September 12, 2008.

We have created an extended deadline of September 17th, please note you must pay an additional fee. All mail in entries must be post marked by 12:00 p.m. on September 12th, 2007 or September 17th if you are paying an extended deadline fee.

• CATEGORIES:

PHOTOJOURNALISM/DOCUMENTARY
COMMERCIAL WORK: ADVERTISING/EDITORIAL
PERSONAL WORK
STUDENT WORK
PORTRAITURE
NATURE

• ENTRY FEES:

Single Entry: $25 | Series: $40 | Student Work: $10

Extended Entry (September 17th):
Single Entry: $35 | Series: $50 | Student Work: $20

An entry can be either a single image or a series of images. A series
includes multiple images or pages that make up a cohesive related
story. A series is limited to a maximum of 10 images. To enter the
student work category you must currently be enrolled in classes.

• PRIZES:

To Be Announced

• SUBMISSIONS

The competition is open to work produced from September 1 2007 – September 17, 2008. Entries can be submitted by uploading the image and making a payment on the www.iotycontest.com website.

File specifications: submissions should be in JPEG format. This compresses the size of your file and should make for quick uploads. It’s important to set your JPEG compression to maximum image quality (minimum compression) in order to prevent deterioration of image quality.

In Photoshop, saving your file via Save As, select JPEG for your image type, and put the quality slider to 12 (all the way to the right).

Filename should not have spaces i.e. “blue car.JPG” instead “blue_car.JPG”
File must have the correct extension ().
Filename should not have slashes i.e. “women/child.jpg”
Filename should not have odd charachters i.e. “%$@#*()

Contest is open to amateurs and pros.

Employees of Sponsor, Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc., publisher of American Photo and Imaging magazine and popphoto.com web site (“Sponsor”) and their immediate families are not eligible to enter or win.

Entrants name, address, email address, and category must be affixed to all entries.

• JUDGING/WINNERS:

The judging will be done in two stages: The initial stage will be done by the American Photo & Imaging promo staff. The second stage will be done by a jury of outside experts selected by the editors of American Photo & Imaging. Entries will be judged equally on creativity, technical expertise and aesthetic value. Entries will be ranked in descending order. The decisions of the judges are final.

Winners will be notified via email or mail by October 19th, 2008. Winners may be required to sign and return an affidavit of eligibility, grant of rights, and a publicity and liability release within 14 days of notification, or alternate winners will be selected (alternate will be next highest ranked entrant). By entering this Contest and/or accepting a prize, you agree to allow Sponsor to use your name, city and state, voice and image in connection with publication of your winning entry and for promotional purposes (except where prohibited), without review, notification or approval.

• MISCELLANEOUS:

This Contest is subject to all federal, state, and local laws and is void where prohibited. Winners agree that Sponsors and Prize Contributors, including their parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors and employees, shall not be liable for injury, loss or damage of any kind resulting from participating in this promotion or from the acceptance or use of any prize awarded. HFM reserves the right to verify eligibility qualifications of any winner(s). Sponsor, in its sole discretion, reserves the right to disqualify any person tampering with the entry process, the operation of the web site, www.popphoto.com, or who is otherwise in violation of the rules. Sponsor further reserves the right to cancel, terminate or modify the Contest if it is not capable of completion as planned due to, for example, infection by a computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention or technical failures of any sort. In the event of early termination of the Contest, winners will be selected from all eligible entries received at the time of termination in accordance with the judging procedures described above. In no event will Sponsor be responsible for any damages or losses arising out of access to and use of the web sites or the downloading from and or printing material downloaded from said site.

Sponsor is not responsible for lost, late, incomplete or misdirected entries. In the event of a dispute concerning the identity of a person submitting an online entry, the entry will be deemed submitted by the person in whose name the e-mail account is registered.

• WINNERS LIST: A winners list will be available upon request once the January 2009 issue is released.

Sponsor: Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc., 1633 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

Prize Contributors: Epson, Samsung, Blurb, Smugmug

CMOS Sensor vs CCD Sensor – Which one is better for Digital Cameras

CMOS Sensor vs CCD Sensor – Which one is better for Digital Cameras

Todays Digital cameras are extremely common and prices have gone down because of the introduction of CMOS sensors, which are cheaper to produce then CCD Sensors.

CCD stand for (charge-coupled device) and CMOS stand for (complimentary metal-oxide semiconductor) both work in the same way and convert light into electrons. Once the Sensor accumulates enough charge, it is transported and read an converted from analog to digital from pixel to digital value which we see on our LCD screens and outputed to print.

• CCD are said to creat higher quality and cleaner files than CMOS
• CMOS is power efficient compared to CCD Sensors.
• CMOS are cheaper to produce thats why most cameras use CMOS
• CCD technology is older and been optimized for better quality.
• CMOS is gaining ground with the CCD technology and soon will outdo CCD
• CCD has advantage in Dynamic Range and Noise over the CMOS
• CMOS has the advantage over CCDs because all camera functions can be placed on the image sensor.
• CMOS has natural blooming immunity (Antiblooming, the ability to gracefully drain localized overexposure
  without compromising the rest of the image in the sensor) CCD requires engineering antiblooming also known as simple as over exposure
• Both image chip types are equally reliable in most consumer and industrial applications.
• Both types of sensor accomplish the same task of capturing light and converting it into electrical signals.
• CMOS image sensors are designed for a large, consumer or near-consumer application.
• CCD image sensors, on the other hand, are more general purpose.

Some CCD Cameras : Nikon D60, Fujifilm FinePix S5 Pro, Nikon D80, Nikon D40X, Canon PowerShot G9, Canon PowerShot Pro1, Ricoh GR Digital

Some CMOS Cameras: Nikon D2Xs, Nikon D3, Nikon D300, Canon EOS 450D, Canon EOS-1D Mark III, Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, Canon EOS 5D, Pentax K20D, Samsung GX-20, Sigma SD14

If you check the sensor use in the above list of cameras that use ccd or cmos, it is safe to infer that CMOS sensors are used on the high-end cameras for specific uses and for varied highly customized camera features and speed. Will the CCD technology which came earlier and is already mass produced is used on prosumer cameras with a wider market base. (value for money?)

In the end, each camera gives its own distinct character, color, and feel. Choose one that best suits your shooting style and imagery style. It is hard to say which one is better since both technologies are evolving and the new cameras keep getting better and better.

In the end, it will always be the image, content and the story it tells… whatever camera you use.. Happy Shooting!

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