Every month, PentaxForums.com hosts an official photo contest for its members. All members are invited to participate! The contest procedure and rules are outlined in this post.

How to Submit

To submit a photo, it is enough to start a thread in the submission forum containing your photo. Note: others won't be able to view your submission until voting time.

Official Rules for PentaxForums.com Monthly Photo Contests

Please follow these guidelines when submitting entries for our monthly photo contests. Your photo may be disqualified or you may be asked to re-upload it upon any violations.

• Submit only one photo per contest
  
• Your submission must have been taken with a Pentax or Ricoh camera and match the contest theme
• Post your submission in a separate thread within the contest submission forum
• The photo dimensions must be between 300x300 and 1400x1200 pixels (WxH)
  Recommended dimensions: 1200x800 for horizontals, 800x533 for verticals
• To ensure smooth loading, photos must be no larger than 1.5MB in filesize
• We recommend that you use our attachment system to ensure you are within limits
• You may receive an e-mail or PM prior to voting time if we detect any issues with your submission
• To verify that your submission was successful, navigate to the contest submission forum and make sure you see your submission thread as well as a photo within it. Only the last photo in your first submission thread will be considered. If you did not use our attachment system, make sure that your photo can be accessed by the public (i.e. isn't behind some sort of permission-based system).
  

Fine print:

• Photos that have won a previous contest (1st, 2nd, or 3rd place) cannot be re-submitted to future contests
• Your submission must be taken by you and may not be a derivative work. Composites are allowed provided you advise in your submission that it is a composite and provided that you took all the photos that form part of the composite image.
• Photos that are Not Safe for Work/Not Work Safe (NSFW/NWS) (i.e. any form of nudity) are no longer allowed in our monthly photo contests. You may still share these photos in our Post Your Photos forum.
  
• Post-processing that enhances your submission is allowed
• Image borders are allowed, but should be used in moderation
• Submissions do not have to be taken in the same month as the contest unless otherwise specified
  
• To avoid voting bias, please do not watermark your photos with your username (but rather with your real name or website if needed)
• Do not specifically list which photo(s) you voted for or comment on others when commenting on the voting thread
• Only the first post of your first submission thread will be checked for a photo. Thus, to change your submission prior to the closing of the contest, simply edit your post. Do not reply with additional submissions.
  
• If your photo doesn't contain EXIF information, please specify the camera and lens in your thread, using the appropriate fields
• Contest start/end dates subject to change based on staff availability
  
• If your photo wins, it will be showcased in our Premier Gallery along with all previous winners. We reserve the right to permanently leave a copy of your photo in that gallery.
  We also reserve the right to publish your photo on our homepage and via social media channels. Proper attribution is guaranteed. You may request that the published photo be altered to include a copyright notice.
  
• Regarding prize substitutions: we do not guarantee substitutions if you are unable to claim your prize. International shipping is offered.
• Prior to receiving your prize, we reserve to right to ask you for a brief blog post describing the technique you used to shoot and process your photo, as well as what equipment you used.
  

Note that we use an automated system to process voting threads. Therefore, if your photo does not meet any of the submission requirements, it WILL NOT BE INCLUDED, and you may or may not be notified of disqualification beforehand.

General Procedure for PentaxForums.com Monthly Photo Contests

Note that our contest procedure has been changed as of July, 2014.

Around the first day of each month, we:

• Announce a new contest theme in a sticky thread in the main contest forum
  • As soon as the theme is announced within the users may start submitting their contest photos
• Close the previous month's contest and make those submissions visible to the public in a special gallery
• Start accepting user nominations for finalist photos from the previous month
  • Comment on others' submissions via the gallery linked above to nominate them to become finalists
  • Include the text "not a nomination" to ask a question without nominating

Following the end of the 2nd week of each month, we:

• Announce 15 finalists from the previous month's contest based on highest number of nominations
• Create a public poll to determine the winners
  • Every forum member gets one vote

At the end of the 3rd week of each month, we:

• Close the voting thread
• Announce a winner of the previous month's contest and send out prizes
  

Proper Conduct

We ask that you do not comment on which photos you voted for within our voting threads.

When submitting photos, your submission thread must have the photo embedded (i.e. IMG and not URL tags), and it must conform to the size guidelines above. You may only submit one photo per contest: if you submit more than one, then only the FIRST photo within your thread will be included.

Additionally, once a new theme is posted, the previous month's contest is considered closed. No late submissions are accepted. As a failsafe, try to have your submission in before before last day of each month. We typically don't announce themes until midnight U.S. time on the last day, but this may vary.

You cannot vote in contest polls if you registered after the corresponding contest closed to submissions.

[JASMAZ77]

You still have the rest of February to take one

Well yes I do, but the full-moon has gone now and it does not light up the landscape as much, plus i live in suburbia so the conditions are not right.

[Andrea K]

Hi,

I'm in the moon contest, an user which nominated me, also pointed me to a software to better manage noise. I made a new version of the image with only different noise... can I edit the first post to switch the picture?

[Adam]

Hi,

I'm in the moon contest, an user which nominated me, also pointed me to a software to better manage noise. I made a new version of the image with only different noise... can I edit the first post to switch the picture?

I don't think you can make edits after the nomination phase starts, but if your photo ends up winning, I'd be happy to replace the final version with the new one for the winners' gallery.

[Andrea K]

I don't think you can make edits after the nomination phase starts, but if your photo ends up winning, I'd be happy to replace the final version with the new one for the winners' gallery.

Yep, this is correct. What made me think we could do is this sentence in the rules: "Thus, to change your submission, simply edit your post. Do not reply with additional submissions"

[Pepe Guitarra]

The one vote per member rule is for voting only, or for nominating also? I like to nominate several photos, can I?

[Adam]

The one vote per member rule is for voting only, or for nominating also? I like to nominate several photos, can I?

You can nominate as many as you'd like.

[johnberry]

Could an entry inbto the photo contest be taken on Samsung GX-10? This camera is basically a Pentax K10-D, rebranded.

[Adam]

Could an entry inbto the photo contest be taken on Samsung GX-10? This camera is basically a Pentax K10-D, rebranded.

Yes

[mahanpots]

I thought I had been voting for the past several contests until I saw a comment by an administrator recently that made me think there was an actual poll somewhere that I couldn't find. I looked and looked and couldn't figure it out, until my wife helped me discover that I had to click a button at the top of the page to open up the poll (on the far right of the red bar that states "Poll: Pick the photo you think should win the contest." I thought I was voting by stating my vote in a post, and I think others do as well. Is there a way to "unhide" the poll? Maybe it's not hidden for everyone.

Thanks,

Michael

[Adam]

I thought I had been voting for the past several contests until I saw a comment by an administrator recently that made me think there was an actual poll somewhere that I couldn't find. I looked and looked and couldn't figure it out, until my wife helped me discover that I had to click a button at the top of the page to open up the poll (on the far right of the red bar that states "Poll: Pick the photo you think should win the contest." I thought I was voting by stating my vote in a post, and I think others do as well. Is there a way to "unhide" the poll? Maybe it's not hidden for everyone.

Thanks,

Michael

It shouldn't be hidden for anyone (by default). But if you collapse any poll, it will remain collapsed by default for the duration of your session in the same browser.

[mahanpots]

It shouldn't be hidden for anyone (by default). But if you collapse any poll, it will remain collapsed by default for the duration of your session in the same browser.

Perhaps it's because of my browser Safari 11.1.1, but my experience has been that I never saw the poll. If I saw the poll, I would not collapse it and then forget that I had collapsed it. I have attempted to vote in other monthly contests. I never saw a poll.

I think there are others having a similar experience. That's why they are attempting to vote by posting rather than taking the poll. They don't see a poll.

Maybe it would help us unfortunates, if someone would replace that little collapse button with the words "CLICK HERE IF YOU DON'T SEE THE POLL."

Or, don't make the poll collapsable at all.

Thanks,
Michael

[DAZ]

This is mostly just speculation on my part, but it could have something to do with JavaScripts. Javascripts, especially off-site Javascripts, have become the security bane of the Internet. They make it much easier for the writers of websites/forums to write more complicated things like polls and pull-down menus. They also allow the Internet sites to push down things like ads from off-site servers and thus alleviate both the server load and the sites bandwidth requirements. This is where the security problem starts to raise its ugly head. These off-site servers can, in turn, run a script that directs to an additional off-site server argumentum ad infinitum. I have personally seen sites call up between 30 to 60 other server sites in a chain. Anyone of these sites could end up running a malicious JavaScript. At my work, the IT department filters out many of these so that a great many sites will not even be displayed or run. The users at my level have no control over this filtering. Many sites will direct you to turn off your “ad-blocker” software. From their point of view, all you are trying to do is block ads. The blocking of ads may at one time been the primary use for such software, but this has not become the case anymore. Many, possibly most, are just trying to stop the security hole of running off-site JavaScript. That, for example, is what is happening at my work. On my home system, I have much more granular control over blocking these scripts. Pentaxforums is not near as much of a security hole as most other sites as Adam is much more conscientious about such things. But even so, my system tells me that Pentaxforums is running as many as 9 site/off-site scripts. Adam would know exactly which off-site scripts would need to be let through for things like the site itself, poles, and drop-down menus to work. Of the 9, I allow at least 6 to run but I suspect a minimum of 3 is needed for things like polls and drop-down menus.

DAZ

[Adam]

This is mostly just speculation on my part, but it could have something to do with JavaScripts. Javascripts, especially off-site Javascripts, have become the security bane of the Internet. They make it much easier for the writers of websites/forums to write more complicated things like polls and pull-down menus. They also allow the Internet sites to push down things like ads from off-site servers and thus alleviate both the server load and the sites bandwidth requirements. This is where the security problem starts to raise its ugly head. These off-site servers can, in turn, run a script that directs to an additional off-site server argumentum ad infinitum. I have personally seen sites call up between 30 to 60 other server sites in a chain. Anyone of these sites could end up running a malicious JavaScript. At my work, the IT department filters out many of these so that a great many sites will not even be displayed or run. The users at my level have no control over this filtering. Many sites will direct you to turn off your “ad-blocker” software. From their point of view, all you are trying to do is block ads. The blocking of ads may at one time been the primary use for such software, but this has not become the case anymore. Many, possibly most, are just trying to stop the security hole of running off-site JavaScript. That, for example, is what is happening at my work. On my home system, I have much more granular control over blocking these scripts. Pentaxforums is not near as much of a security hole as most other sites as Adam is much more conscientious about such things. But even so, my system tells me that Pentaxforums is running as many as 9 site/off-site scripts. Adam would know exactly which off-site scripts would need to be let through for things like the site itself, poles, and drop-down menus to work. Of the 9, I allow at least 6 to run but I suspect a minimum of 3 is needed for things like polls and drop-down menus.

DAZ

This wouldn't be an issue, because without the JS, the table wouldn't get collapsed to begin with. I think the bigger issue is folks just overlook the poll at the top. A redesign to that end might be in order.

[mahanpots]

This wouldn't be an issue, because without the JS, the table wouldn't get collapsed to begin with. I think the bigger issue is folks just overlook the poll at the top. A redesign to that end might be in order.

In my case, I never saw a poll when I decided to cast a vote. I guess I must have collapsed the poll earlier on in my site usage before I got involved in the monthly contest, and then forgot. Once collapsed, it remained collapsed for me. I never saw the poll again, even when looking for it, until my wife figured out how to open the poll again by clicking the button. I tried it with a new browser I just started using - Google Chrome. I opened up the contest voting page and collapsed the poll. I quit Google Chrome, then reopened it, went to the contest page and the poll was collapsed. I then cleared my browsing data in preferences, quit Google Chrome, then reopened Google Chrome. I opened the contest voting page and the poll was there, uncollapsed.

If it's possible to have the poll be uncollapseable, I think it would help.

[redpatmuz]

Is it bracketing photography allowed in monthly contests?