Oct 3, 2012, 21:49
While today’s camera gear are advanced, wonderful pieces of equipment having ability to capture almost perfect photographs, as we all know, only few photographs stand-out from the rest, to win a contest. It’s not the camera body, or the brand you are using, or the equipment, that determines whether you are a winner or not. Here are few tips to increase your chance of winning the next big photo contest.
1. First and foremost read and understand the Rules and Terms of Conditions in the particular competition. May be it’s about the dimensions or the resolution of the images you have to upload, or may be about the file format, whether jpegs or TIFFs etc, or the way you must send your entries (By email or by uploading to a particular website). Violations of these rules result in immediate rejection of your entry no matter how hard you tried and captured the perfect shot possible.
2. Understand the theme of the contest. Do some online research and find more about the particular theme, other major topics related to it etc. Remember, the more your image stand out from the rest of the entries, the more is your chance of winning. So try to capture something new, something original.
3. Sharpness of your photos is important. Blurry out of focus images are rejected by judges in the first round, with-out much thought at all. So try to capture sharp, focused images. If it’s ok with the Terms and Conditions apply some sharpening in photoshop, using unsharp mask filter etc.
4. Achieve the perfect exposure possible. Remember exposure is of two types, there is right exposure, and there is the creative exposure. By this I mean that combine aperture and shutter speed to achieve the perfect exposure while creating the perfect depth of field to the photograph.
5. Avoid excessive noise. Try shooting in lower iso ranges, if your camera is not a very high-end one with advanced noise reduction systems even at very high iso settings. Use a tripod whenever possible to get rid of camera shake.
6. Be creative. Creativity is really important to create an appealing photograph. Interpret the theme thoroughly and decide your shot earlier.
Good luck for your next big photo competition.
1. First and foremost read and understand the Rules and Terms of Conditions in the particular competition. May be it’s about the dimensions or the resolution of the images you have to upload, or may be about the file format, whether jpegs or TIFFs etc, or the way you must send your entries (By email or by uploading to a particular website). Violations of these rules result in immediate rejection of your entry no matter how hard you tried and captured the perfect shot possible.
2. Understand the theme of the contest. Do some online research and find more about the particular theme, other major topics related to it etc. Remember, the more your image stand out from the rest of the entries, the more is your chance of winning. So try to capture something new, something original.
3. Sharpness of your photos is important. Blurry out of focus images are rejected by judges in the first round, with-out much thought at all. So try to capture sharp, focused images. If it’s ok with the Terms and Conditions apply some sharpening in photoshop, using unsharp mask filter etc.
4. Achieve the perfect exposure possible. Remember exposure is of two types, there is right exposure, and there is the creative exposure. By this I mean that combine aperture and shutter speed to achieve the perfect exposure while creating the perfect depth of field to the photograph.
5. Avoid excessive noise. Try shooting in lower iso ranges, if your camera is not a very high-end one with advanced noise reduction systems even at very high iso settings. Use a tripod whenever possible to get rid of camera shake.
6. Be creative. Creativity is really important to create an appealing photograph. Interpret the theme thoroughly and decide your shot earlier.
Good luck for your next big photo competition.
