Red Bull Illumine Photographic Competition

Calina

Red Bull are running an adventure sports photographic competition. It's an international open competition.

Pictures must be 8 megapixels for digital, and except in one category may not be digitally enhanced. They will accept high res scanned film photographs as well (see website for details). The photos have to portray one of a list of acceptable sports (see list on the website which I will post below) and you will need a model release form from anyone forming the subject of your photographs.

More details available here.

halenger

8MP minimum? What sort of moronic nonsense is that. Infuriating.

digitalbeginner

I agree, 8mp is very high for most people. It may have something to do with the resolution required for potential advertising by Red Bull.

At 300dpi an 8mp file will go to A4 bleed in a magazine with minimum enlargement, but the resolution requirements for large inkjet poster output is less, so they might even get A2 posters or bigger out of the 8mp.

In other words I think it's the marketing dept of Red Bull who are deciding the minimum resolution.

elven

So, basically it's open to people that generally have semi-pro cameras? How thoughtful.

halenger

Uprezzing all the way so. I've ordered a 30x20" (76x52cm, or there abouts, i.e. HUGE) print of a 6MP file that I uprezzed to 6016x4000. It should arrive early next week. I just did it as a test.

Michael Weber has some interesting comments on this. I'll just paraphrase. He shoots Nikon D2H(s). That's a 4MP pro camera. A lot of people have turned away his pro images because they were 4MP. He went off and uprezzed some photos that were turned away and they were accepted this time (by the same person). ... Too much emphasis on numbers.

Doesn't look like much of a 'general public' competition really. Hefty looking prozes no doubt meant for some serious serious entries. It wasn't even the competition that miffed me that much, the 8MP did however.

digitalbeginner

It depends on the shot. If there is fine detail in the photo then up-rezzing can be problematic. I've always found that a little bit of unsharp mask in photoshop works wonders.

My first digital camera was 5mp, which should only go to 8x6 inch at 300dpi, but it could be pushed to A4 (11.75 x 8.25 inch) and occasionally to A3 (16.6 x 11.75 inch).

Another problem altogether is when you crop the shot afterwards, now you are actually dealing with a smaller mp size and have to increase it even more! This makes it even more imperative that you crop in the viewfinder and not later in the computer.

elven

How big can I actually go with my 3mp jpgs from the EOS 350D then? Is A4 the limit - and does it make a difference if I shoot in RAW?

(Slightly OT since I've no intention of entering the comp, hehe)

digitalbeginner

I thought the 350d was a 8mp camera. Is there a reason you're only using 3mp? You'll get just short of a 5x7 inch at 300dpi from 3mp.

RAW does help keep the quality as jpeg use a lossy compression system. Each time you open and save a jpeg you are losing some of the detail (a tiny bit). So when you shoot in RAW you are keeping the quality at its max.

Ideally you should convert your RAW file straight to a Tiff when you are finished manipulating it, which does not lose any detail. But if you are using jpeg you should always keep the compression to a minimum, even on your camera (use the 'Fine' setting).

elven

Nope, it's not as simple as that... it's not a case of an 8mp camera takes pictures that are 8mb in size - possibly down to the jpg compression, maybe they would be 8meg in tiff or bmp. I've attached the table from the manual that tells you the filesizes for each mode, and I currently use large, fine.

I suppose if I was shooting in RAW it would mean that the camera wouldn't be adjusting and saving as jpg then on top of that my photoshop tinkering, and saving again, increasing the lossy-ness (?) of the file... I just have to get my head round the process better. Anyone know any good online tutorials that won't send me to sleep?

digitalbeginner

You fairly have it there.

I think there might just be some confusion between the megapixels (mp) and megabytes (mb). An 8 megapixel camera records a picture of just over 23 megabytes in RGB, but the jpeg saving reduces the file size to around 3 megabytes.

The pic from the manual is detailing the "Image Sizes" possible (mega pixels), the jpeg options (how much you want to compress the shot) should in the "Image Quality" settings.

So if you are shooting Raw you will only fit just over 40 shots on 1 gigabyte card (40 x 23mb), but around 300 jpegs (300 x 3.2mb).

Shrimp

I got 7.1.. ffs..

FinoBlad

I'd say a 6mp slr would be good enough, I've had photos from a 10d on a 8 foot wide sign. And anyway the quality on a 6mp slr would be higher than a 8mp compact, go for it.

halenger

elven wrote:

Nope, it's not as simple as that... it's not a case of an 8mp camera takes pictures that are 8mb in size - possibly down to the jpg compression, maybe they would be 8meg in tiff or bmp. I've attached the table from the manual that tells you the filesizes for each mode, and I currently use large, fine.

I suppose if I was shooting in RAW it would mean that the camera wouldn't be adjusting and saving as jpg then on top of that my photoshop tinkering, and saving again, increasing the lossy-ness (?) of the file... I just have to get my head round the process better. Anyone know any good online tutorials that won't send me to sleep?

That 3MB (megabyes) file is still 8MP (megapixel). Just because it is compressed doesn't take from the fact that is is 8MP. You are better off shooting RAW for large pictures as you can play with them more without loss of quality...especially with large prints.

digitalbeginner wrote:

So if you are shooting Raw you will only fit just over 40 shots on 1 gigabyte card (40 x 23mb), but around 300 jpegs (300 x 3.2mb).

You won't get anywhere near that few images on a D50 or a 350D. I get 121 photos to a 1GB SD card with RAW on a D50. Yes, that does mean they are compressed. They come in at around 5MB each. You don't have to worry about file sizes like that until you're dealing with much more expensive cameras etc etc.

I shoot RAW exclusively now. Between my 1GB and my 512MB SD card I've enough space to keep me quiet for a long enough photoday. I'll probably pick up another 1GB or maybe a 2GB to keep me even quieter if I get a chance.


Of course FinoBlad is quite correct. Many people do large prints with 4MP pro cameras as I said before and many still use older 2MP pro cameras for some work (A4 or so I guess? - magazines, newspaper sized photos I mean).

elven

*makes mental note to get up to speed with this RAW malarkey*

Borderfox

Shooting in Raw is excellent but if you have a lot of shots it adds a load of work, I was shooting polo at the weekend and took about 1000 shots. I would be there for days unless I batch process these. With Jpeg's it's done and there. Don't get me wrong if I had time I would use Raw all the time....This competition is it only these extreme type sports accepted?

Calina

Borderfox wrote:

This competition is it only these extreme type sports accepted?

See the redbull illumine site (link above) for a list of accepted sports.

Roen

Ye Gods, I assumed that everyone here would automatically shoot in RAW, it's the only way to go. The advantages are too many to mention here and there is really only one disadvantage.......increased workload, i.e. time spent at a pc instead of out snapping. I use Raw Shooter Premium, but this is a link to the free Essentials proggy. Guides are here and tell you all you need to know.

Fajitas!

I agree that the 8MP rule is idiotic! I mean, they are excluding anyone with a (Canon range, sorry, not too familiar with other brands stats) 300D, 10D AND a 1D Mk1 which is stupid...I'll take it the don't accept interpolated images either... And yeah...Sour grapes because I don't have a camera over 8Mp...Not that I have photos of extreme sports either!

elven

Down with this sort of thing!

Cheers Roen, I'm away to do some reading. I can't believe I'm a techie and can't seem to get this raw thing on the go... I feel thick as mince. (sorry, is that a scottish phrase?)

Fajitas!

elven wrote:

I feel thick as mince. (sorry, is that a scottish phrase?)

It'll do!

Matt Holck

You could use a 35 mm canera

The very short answer is that there are around 20 million "quality" pixels in a top-quality 35mm shot. That's a shot with a tripod, mirror-up, with a top-rate lens and the finest-grained film, in decent light. 12 million are more typical for "good" shots. There may be as few as 4 million "quality" pixels in a handheld shot with a point-and-shoot camera or camera with a poor lens. And of course if focus is poor, or light is poor, or the camera was not held steady, the number will drop down below the 1-2 million pixels of the modern consumer digicam. Of course, one can have a bad shot with a digital camera too, not using all its resolving ability. However, few pick their gear with the plan of shooting badly.

http://pic.templetons.com/brad/photo/pixels.html

halenger

Film "quality" is only as good as the scanner (well, you know what I mean). They specifically mention drum scanning too which is quoite expensive last I looked...

Matt Holck

This guy will do it for $20
http://www.dannyburk.com/drum_scanning.htm
I check a few that prce is pretty even

that's not cheap
but you'd only have to do the one you decide to enter
or indeed the ones they accept (maybe?)

Roen

digitalbeginner wrote:

You fairly have it there.

I think there might just be some confusion between the megapixels (mp) and megabytes (mb). An 8 megapixel camera records a picture of just over 23 megabytes in RGB, but the jpeg saving reduces the file size to around 3 megabytes.

The pic from the manual is detailing the "Image Sizes" possible (mega pixels), the jpeg options (how much you want to compress the shot) should in the "Image Quality" settings.

So if you are shooting Raw you will only fit just over 40 shots on 1 gigabyte card (40 x 23mb), but around 300 jpegs (300 x 3.2mb).

I get 110 RAWs on my 1Gb cards, the 8.2Mp RAW file when converted to a 8 bit TIFF is about 23Mb and is 47Mb at 16bit. Remember when shooting RAW the camera only takes the data straight from the chip. Any processing is done manually afterwards.

Alun

Roen wrote:

I get 110 RAWs on my 1Gb cards, the 8.2Mp RAW file when converted to a 8 bit TIFF is about 23Mb and is 47Mb at 16bit. Remember when shooting RAW the camera only takes the data straight from the chip. Any processing is done manually afterwards.

Exactly. Due to the way in which the vast majority of sensors work (Bayer pattern) there aren't, contrary to what most people think, 8 million RGB pixels (= approx 24 MBytes) on an 8 Mp sensor. What there are is 8 million single colour pixels, divided up into 4 million green, and two million each of red and blue, which, if you save as JPEG or TIFF will get interpolated internally by the camera to an 8 mega-RGB-pixel image, the stored size of which will depend on a number of factors. If, on the other hand, you save as a RAW file, you get (if each raw pixel value is stored as 8 bits) just over 8 MBytes.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter for more info.