March "Flowers up Close" Contest Finalists Announced

Vote for the overall winner!

By PF Staff in Photo Contests on Apr 15, 2024

After the end of the nomination phase of last month's official Flowers Up Close photo contest, we're now ready to announce our top 15 finalists!  Click on the link below to view the photos in full size and cast your vote in the poll:

Vote for your favorite photo in the poll

As usual for our monthly photo contests, voting closes in a week, and then we'll announce the winners.

Don't miss our April Architecture photo contest, which closes to submissions at the end of the month.

Announcing Our April, 2024 Photo Contest

Win a gift card and other prizes in our monthly photo contest

By PF Staff in Photo Contests on Apr 2, 2024

We're herewith announcing our monthly photo contest for April: Architecture.

The topic for April is Architecture. Your image can include building interiors and exteriors, cityscapes, bridges and other human-made structures. It can encompass entire buildings, or it can focus on details like the design of a stair case or other building elements. Good luck!

First prize is a $50 gift card to B&H Photo, second prize is a one year forum account upgrade, and third prize is a box of photo paper form Red River.

The official contest rules are found here.

Click here to submit a photo for the contest.

If you haven't done so already we invite you to browse our special gallery of last month's photo contest submissions and nominate your favorites.

Introducing Pentaxify AI by PentaxForums.com

A revolutionary tool to make any photo look like a Pentax photo

By PF Staff in Site News on Apr 1, 2024

Over the years here at Pentax Forums, we have seen over 80,000 photographers join and participate in the community, with countless others lurking in the shadows.  Although tens of thousands of these users remain active—some since the community started in 2006—there are also plenty who have moved on.

It is well understood that Pentax cameras are hard to beat.  From legendary ergonomics, to compact lenses, backward compatibility, unique rendering, or even the slick Asahi Optical Company logo, it's compelling to be a Pentaxian.

On the other hand, there are those whose photographic journey no longer involves Pentax cameras or lenses, as well as those who simply never got the opportunity to pick up a Pentax.  We have all heard silly arguments such as, "I need faster autofocus", "mirrorless is the future", "they don't carry them at stores", or "my phone is better because it fits in my pocket".

One thing is clear, however: once a Pentaxian, always a Pentaxian.  In fact, every photographer is a Pentaxian at heart, because to be a photographer actually means to be a Pentaxian.

With this as inspiration, today, we are launching a revolutionary, AI-powered online tool called Pentaxify.  Pentaxify will take any photo as input and automatically make it embody the Pentax spirit, quickly fixing any flaws, and adding that special character that's absent from typical photos these days.  Best of all, Pentaxify is completely free, though donations are always welcome.

We have ethically trained a proprietary ensemble of Wasserstein GAN models on a corpus of millions of Pentax photos from across the Internet and private archives, including digital photos and film-era scans.  This ensures that Pentaxify can represent the nuances that have historically been confined within Pentax camera bodies and optical designs. For further customization, the Pentaxify tool optionally allows you to specify a camera body or lens that should be emulated and imbued within the target photo. 

February 2024 "Series of Three" Photo Contest Winners

Announcing the winners of our monthly contest

By PF Staff in Photo Contests on Mar 23, 2024

"Gotcha!" by oneill

It is our pleasure to announce the winners of our February, 2024 "Series of Three" photo contest! In first place was forum member oneill from Canada who captured "Gotcha!" (pictured above). This photo was shot with a Pentax K-1 and an smc Pentax-DA 560mm F5.6 lens.

Our runners-up were forum member tungal from Estonia in second place with "Triptych" and Andy58 from UK in third place with "Autumnal Progression". Click on either thumbnail for a larger version.

"Triptych" by tungal	"Autumnal Progression" by Andy58

We'd like to congratulate the winners and also thank everyone who participated or voted! Also, be sure not to miss our current photo contest, "Flowers up Close". Read all about it here.

February "Series of Three" Contest Finalists Announced

Vote for the overall winner!

By PF Staff in Photo Contests on Mar 15, 2024

After the end of the nomination phase of last month's official Series of Three photo contest, we're now ready to announce our top 15 finalists!  Click on the link below to view the photos in full size and cast your vote in the poll:

Vote for your favorite photo in the poll

As usual for our monthly photo contests, voting closes in a week, and then we'll announce the winners.

Don't miss our March Flowers up Close photo contest, which closes to submissions at the end of the month.