I'm in a contest. If you vote, you can win a $100 B&H gift card. (Vote before Dec 20)

[Ryebrye]

Unified Color - makers of HDR Expose, Float 32 and a new product called "HDR Express" have been running a contest for a while now. It had 3 phases, and the 3rd phase just ended and now all the winners and honorable mentions are in a public voting around.

http://www.ryebrye.com/blog/2010/11/...lease-go-vote/

I didn't know about the contest until just before the end of phase 2, but I managed to get a couple honorable mention prizes for that one.

In phase 3, I concentrated a lot on architecture shots and this one ended up winning the architecture category for phase 3 with this image:



Surprisingly another shot of the conference center also got honorable mention (hey, I'm not going to complain... although the main reason I submitted both of them was to hope that one of them would match a style the judges liked - since it was a judged contest for the first phases)

That shot is actually a bunch of shots stitched together (40 maybe?) - and using the "vedutismo" projection in Pt Gui Pro (called the "panini projection" by hugin) - it's a perspective mapping that keeps verticals straight and lets you get very wide angle views with a different kind of distortion than you normally see with a standard rectilinear lens.

If you want to help me win, I'm asking my friends to vote for this image because I think it's the one that's strongest of them.

One thing that is cool is that the people running the contest are giving away 5 $100 B&H gift cards to people just for voting. (They also posted something on twitter today implied they might be giving away a copy of HDR Expose to someone for voting too, but they haven't stated that publicly anywhere)

I wrote up instructions on how to vote on my blog here:
http://www.ryebrye.com/blog/2010/11/...lease-go-vote/

Basically you just go to the voting page:

http://www.unifiedcolor.com/contest-vote

and click on the images to see them. (This contest definitely ramped up. The first round winners, in my opinion, are much weaker than the later rounds - probably because the company is a startup and so there weren't very many entries in the first round? I'm not sure)

When you click vote it will have you create an account by registering your email address.

You can vote once per registered email address.

Anyway, thanks for any help voting... and I hope you guys win the gift cards! :)

[ibenick]

Nice pic, I voted for you. Kinda lame that you have to setup an account but at least you know there's not a lot of vote rigging like in some other contests on the web. Good luck!

[Ryebrye]

Thanks! Yeah, I agree the voting requiring an account is kind of lame, but at least they are offering the voters a prize too.

[ratagonia]

Nice pic, I voted for you. Kinda lame that you have to setup an account but at least you know there's not a lot of vote rigging like in some other contests on the web. Good luck!

Ditto. Not like it was hard to set up an account, though.

Ryan - used your Subway shot on my new calendar - http://www.canyoneeringusa.com/rave

I'd like to send you some calendars, but can't lay my mouse on your address. shoot me an email, will ya. canyoneeringusa at gmail dot com

Thanks, Tom

[DiscGo]

I just voted for you.

[Ryebrye]

Thanks to everyone who has voted!

I updated my blog with a link that makes voting very quick - it goes directly to the registration page and once you register it will show you my photo that you just voted for.

Voting closes one minute after midnight, so there's still a chance to get registered for the $100 gift card.