Shooting Challenge: 16 Winter Shots… Vote For Your Favourite!

Hope you like great photos, because last week’s Shooting Challenge is coming at you. There are some amazing photos in this bunch, so start voting for your favourite photographer! They might just win an Olympus micro four-thirds camera!

For five weeks, Gizmodo readers (and the friends they convince to vote for them) are voting one weekly Shooting Challenge finalist through to the prize round to be judged and announced by Gizmodo editors on Wednesday, July 25.

Note: In the interests of fairness, voting has been restricted to one per user, based on cookie and IP.

Voting closes at 10am on Tuesday, July 24.

Prizes


The Olympus OM-D EM-5 is designed to make the jump into DSLR easy. With Live View functionality that lets you see exactly what a shot will look like before you take it, coupled with a 5-axis in-body image stabiliser for shooting in low light, and a retro design inspired by the first OM-D from 1972, the EM-5 lets you capture some beautiful shots. More at Olympus.

We’re excited to be able to give this camera away to Gizmodo’s Shooting Challenge faithful.

The kit you’re playing for is valued at $1499, and includes the OM-D EM-5 body and 12-50mm lens, both of which are weatherproof so you can feel confident when Mother Nature turns on you.


Want to join the challenge? Enter this week’s theme: Texture.

Note: Going forward, linking friends from your social networks to the Gizmodo voting page will still be encouraged, however, please don’t use “vote farming” sites including (but not limited to) GetOnlineVotes or link directly to polldaddy.com. The goal is to grow the Giz Shooting Community in the fairest way possible.

Also a reminder to please be respectful and constructive if leaving a comment about any photo.


Last Week’s Most Voted Photo — Finalist 3 Of 4

Last week was all about beautiful HDR photography and Mark Burban moves into the final round judged by Gizmodo’s editors next week.
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This Week’s Entries

Click on images to zoom into gallery mode, and don’t forget to scroll down to vote.

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Sam Dougherty

Canon 550d
ISO 200
f/3.5
1/160 sec
18mm lens
My Dad gave me a week to move this pile of wood. I was about to do it but instead saw this photo opportunity. The pile of wood still hasn’t been moved.

Tony Kearney

Image taken this afternoon as the thunderstorms moved in, the hail bounced around the courtyard and the clouds danced above our heads.

David Johnson

Light Cold Rain
I went out to shoot for the winter challenge and winter came to play….
So hiding under a bridge out of the coming rain, I found a scene to remind me of how I felt at the time. every time I thought it was ok to relax, one of these would get the camera or myself from above, so I decided before the camera or I suffered too much and making the dash for the car, to shoot one of them lucky for me the rain misted shore came out as a background otherwise it would be just a drip with grey skies…..
Camera 600D
Lens :Sigma10-20-f:3.5 @ 10mm
Aperture: f/10
Shutter: 1/160th
ISO:800
Handheld
Image Correction :None, it’s as shot.

Merlyn Cantwell

In my garden bare branched fruit trees signify the middle of Winter. Today is a clear calm dry day – perfect for pruning back the apple trees. Before I do so I armed myself with my trusty Canon 550D and 100mm macro lens. I have sought to capture the stark bare branches that only Winter can produce. Cropped, contrast, brightness and saturation adjusted in Picasa.
1/800 f7.1 ISO 100

Tony Dal Masetto

Winter in South Gippsland can be a long, dull period of time however one place that takes on an eerie, yet beautiful feel in the winter is the beach as storms approach. The blinding white of the summer sand yields to the much more subtle, soothing tone and the water reflects the wonderful soft greys and blues of the sky. I took this photo while a storm was approaching one of my local beaches. I felt that the black and white processing, with a cold blue tone suited the mood of the image. Taken on a Canon 60D with a Tokina 11-16. ISO 100, f8, 1/160sec. Shot in RAW, processed with Lightroom.

Jason Ruth

Camping in Winter and the mandatory camp fire. At Patonga you have to have your own fire pit, off the ground (or brazier with plate). So after a sunny winters day, it was time to relax, cold beer in hand, and enjoy the warmth of fire.
Equipment: Nikon D300, 16-85mm lens, handheld at 1/5sec, f/4.5, ISO100.

Daniel Buskariol

Hey everyone!
I believe this best encapsulates the fluctuating weather we have during winter in Australia. The dark stormy sky on the left of the image and the water on the ground represents those cold dark rainy winter days/nights. The far right light blue sky combined with the saturation of the orange and reds of the building represent those beautiful sunny days we all live for.
This photo was taken on cockatoo island with a Canon Kiss X4 (550d) with an EFS 18-55mm lens all on a tripod. Being inspired from last weeks competition, this shot is HDR image consisting of 3 images. The ISO was 400, the F-Stop was set to 0 and the shutter speed started at 2 seconds.

Ben Ricketts

Really struggled with this one. It wasn’t particularly cold out, so a lot of my ideas didn’t work. I settled on rum & hot chocolate by the fire. I used a flash with orange gel off to the right and gold reflector as a fill. The fire in the background which didn’t really work too well is you tube video of a fireplace.
f4
1/25
ISO 50

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Brendan Meharry

Canon EOS 1100D, f/6.3, 1/80, ISO-100, 24mm.
This rose bush seems to be as old as me, yet it still carries on even through the hash winters that the Perth Hills present to it.

Hannah Percival

Camera: Lumix G2
Lens: Panasonic 14-42mm
ISO: 400
f/13
Manfrotto tripod
In Queensland we don’t get snow or ice, but winter does bring dew, fog and, this year, lots of rain. Ever since I was a child I loved how dew would collect on spiderwebs like diamonds.
In this picture it was especially hard to focus while the web was blowing around though!

David Sundstrom

I was travelling Tasmania when this challenge started. I’d packed light and only taken with one camera / lens and no tripod. So not too much gear to choose from.
This was taken at Cradle mountain on one of the shorter walks on a rather overcast and cold day (probably about 6 degrees) and was shot with my Nikon D700 + AFS 50mm 1.8G. 1/60 sec f2.8 at ISO800. The final image was tweaked in Lightroom 3.

Brad Saegenschnitter

I woke up to a foggy morning and decided rush out and take this weeks shooting challenge shot. A simple shot where I decided to have the wooden fence post as the focus point and then the fog and trees blurred in the background.
Shot with a Canon 5D MkII and EF 24-105 mm lens
ISO-160, f/22, 1/2 sec.

Shaun Heath

Shot with Canon 400D+50mm lens
I was out with some friends on Saturday and typical Melbourne weather yielded more sun than rain when we were out in the streets. I was firing from the hip trying to get some crowd shots, it wasn’t until I got home and saw this frame that I decided I liked what I saw.
The gentleman in the shot wandered past us whilst we were eating lunch and didn’t seem in any particular hurry, his big scarf and bigger beard made him seem altogether woollier than he was. I imagine he, like many others, were enjoying the schizophrenic nature of Melbourne weather and taking in the brisk air tempered by the soft sunshine that peeked through the clouds.

Stuart Addelsee

Canon 7D – 50mm 1.8
1/15s | f/1.8 | ISO 400 | 50mm
Winter is about keeping warm, wether it be with fiends or family. I wanted a shot that conveyed that feeling of togetherness, closeness and warmth. As you can see a simple setup, the 50mm hasn’t got he shortest focal distance and as I was using my own hands it was a little challenging to position my hands, focus, compose and use my foot on the remote shutter release to take this photo.
Stuart – http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuart_addelsee/

Elenor Bennett

This image captures the winter trees in a purple winters light with the warmth and contrast of a gold lamp hanging on to one last autumn leaf.
Shot on a Pansonice DMC_TZ3: f/3.9; 1/8sec; ISO400

Adrian Smith

I always associate Winter with the stark, spindly, leaveless Pecan tree in our back yard. I can sit for hours under it looking up through its branches. In this photo it reminds me a snowflake in its intricacy.
I actually took this shot with a borrowed OM-D – what an unbelievable fun camera! Wish I had my own!
Kit lens at 12mm; 7 bracketed exposures, merged in Photomatix and then converted to b&w in Silver Efex Pro… Not sure I nailed it but it has been fun 🙂

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