Shooting Challenge: 45 Magnificent Mobile Shots…Vote For Your Favourite!

It’s Gizmodo Australia Shooting Challenge prize time! There are some amazing photos in this bunch of Sharps entries, and we’ve selected the first of two finalists to go head to head in the final round! Check out these entries!

Prizes

Back once again with a brand new prize: this time you’re playing for the awesome Nokia Lumia 1020: the best Lumia yet.

The Nokia Lumia 1020 is a mobile photographer’s dream.

The 1020 packs a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, 4G capabilities and a 4.5-inch 1280×768 screen with 332 ppi. It’s a gorgeous device, but the real party piece comes when you turn the phone around.

There, you’ll find a 41-megapixel PureView camera: technology we thought could only belong in a lab, let alone on a phone you can slip easily into your pocket. The camera is the 1020′s main event, and boy is it quite a trick.

We’re giving away the Lumia 1020 handset, valued at $899, as well as the incredible Camera Grip Pro attachment, valued at $89.95, which not only turns the Lumia 1020 into a convenient everyday shooter, but also includes a spare battery to charge you up on a long day snapping.

It’s exciting to be able to give one Nokia Lumia 1020 away to the Shooting Challenge faithful over the next three weeks (one round per week). The prize pack you’re playing for is valued in total at $988.95.


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William Solis

Sunset at the pools at Narrabeen Beach, I rotated it a bit since the pole reflection wasn’t straight and threw off my horizon.
I’ve been going along the coast line at sunset to photograph the beach and I took this today, definitely my favourite.

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Mitchell Howden

It is hard to get a photo of my dog carter. It’s not that he is camera shy ,the boy just never stops moving. The only way to do it is to use both of his obsessions against him , The ball and of course food. To take this photo i threw his ball and then called him back and offered him food. Once he noticed i had food, the choice was easy. This photo was taken with my Sony Xperia Z smartphone and no filters or effects where added. The photo was landscape however i cropped the sides out to get rid of some of the ugly in the photo.

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Matt Everingham

Took this on my HTC yesterday afternoon while taking some shots of this ultimate man cave garage. Took about half hour to arrange these heavy tanks for this shot !

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Bryden Vasquez

I went along with my sister and her kids to the Werribee Open Range Zoo today, and took this picture (out of the 500 I took). When we walked up to the window, my 2 year old nieces screamed ‘Look! It’s Simba and Nala!’ (from The Lion King).
I took this with my iPhone 5, and edited with the VSCO app. 1/1178 sec f/2.4 ISO 50
I know that the challenge said to avoid taking the picture in portrait, but I think the composition looks pretty good.

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Hao Quan Cai

Waiting for my date to arrive. She was working overtime and a bit stressed so I snapped this photo and sent it to let her know what to look forward to. Turned out to be a good night.

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Susan Shanta

Samsung Galaxy 2
f2.6, 1/252, iso32, 4mm
Cold blue jelly in a wine glass. Back lighting. Little scale model in a fishing boat. As the glass changed temperature, condensation formed creating a watery effect.

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Jack Ross

It was a really hot day, and that nice, cool, refreshing beer cooled me down.

Sadly, it was a New – Don’t judge me, it was cheap that day.

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Patrick Wang

Motorola Razr HD in HDR mode. Location Watson’s Bay during 1pm about 100m from the pier on the park. Windy but warm under the sun.

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Dianne Male

Driving on a country NSW road on Thursday evening I noticed the full moon and car headlights on a nearby road…busy because the Henty Machinery Field Days were now over and people were going home.
Photo taken at ISO-80, f2.8 and with an exposure time of 1/33 sec. handheld by the side of the road in pretty low light. No alterations made to the photo post shot, however I did use digital zoom for framing before taking the photo.

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Phil Branagan

I was walking along the Yarra River in Melbourne when I took this pic with my Nokia N9. It has stopped raining and I was taken by how the pure black of the sky was in contrast to the colours of the lights reflected in the river.

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S O’Neill

Out with my kids at the mangrove swamp walk near Bunbury W.A. after a week of bad weather was good to get out and enjoy the sun. Shot on and lumia 820 on default settings

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Daniel Thompson

Taken with an iPhone this morning in a graffitied alleyway in Melbourne. There was some great artwork all the way down, and I just loved how captivating these eyes were.

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Bruce Bradford

This is shot on an iPhone 5. The “equipment” is the standard equipment that the iPhone 5 has built-in. ISO is apparently 50 from looking at the EXIF data.
This is Surfers Paradise; and this is my daily drive to work. Aside from the beautiful beach, the warming sunrise to wake you up; your open windows as you drive so you can smell the salt air; and construction; we have exquisite cars that the rich can drive, which only make us think “wow how nice would it be to have one of THOSE!”. So I took this picture as I waited in traffic on the Esplanade, for a car-enthusiast friend.

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Katy Standfield

Yesterday, on our way back from playing tourists in Mooloolaba, we weren’t quite ready to head home just yet so took a look off the beaten track and headed up Wild Horse Mountain, just north of Brisbane. At the top, after a heart-attack and the harsh realisation that I’d worn very inappropriate footwear for a steep track, we reached the lookout and were blown away. We were just in time to see the sun set below the Glasshouse Mountains, their beautiful silhouettes standing proud against the clear spring sky. Stunning, a complete accidental find with perfect timing, and so close to home.

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Mohan Marulaiah

Photos taken at the National Rhododendron gardens, Olinda, Victoria.
First ‘proper’ day of spring.
I am not a big fan of mobile phone photos but amazing photos by a simple Nokia 620, especially with good lighting.
The flowers are ‘bell’ flowers ‘Pieris japonica’ of the Ericacaea family for all you flower buffs out there.

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Wonjoon Kim

This was taken by iPhone 5s.
There was no special technique and just took it when there is a chance.

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Curtis Lyon

Nexus 4
Focal length: 4.6mm
Exposure: 1/2777
Iso: 100

Currently backpacking around Europe for my gap year and came to this majestic place in Iceland, the Blue Lagoon hot springs. The water here is a beautiful sky blue and excellent to soak in for a couple of hours. Can heartily recommend it after a night on the drink.

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Ifanada Koentjoro

Took this photo during my lunch break; a bright sunny day with some clouds at Martin Place, Sydney. Old buildings somehow give me a sense of ageless. I used my Lumia 920, edited straight from the phone using Nokia Creative Studio. All settings auto except the aperture.

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Arjun

Shot using samsung galaxy s3. #canberraSpringTime

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Richard Clement

One of the pictures I took the just after taking Lumia 1020 out of the box…

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Leo Atap

Nokia Lumia 925
Settings: Auto
F-stop: f/2
Exposure time: 1/1473 sec.
ISO speed: ISO-100
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Point and Shoot!

Date: Saturday, 21 Sept 2013
Event: Toowoomba Flower Festival 2013
Place: Japanese Garden, Toowoomba, QLD
Story: Last Saturday, we went to Toowoomba, QLD, a 2-hour drive from Brisbane CBD to witness this year Flower Festival. Although heaps of nice places and flowers to choose from, I have choosen the Japanese Garden photo as my entry. It is very sirene and picturesque inspite of the many people flocking there. My wife, daughter and friends enjoyed so much. My 3-year old daughter enjoyed feeding the ducks and turtles. So may photos taken but I can’t have them all as my entry.

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Maureen Atap

Phone: Nokia Lumia 925
Settings: Auto
ISO: ISO-160
Exposure time: 1/100 sec.

Date Taken: 21 Sept 2013
Event: Toowoomba Flower Festival
Place: Queen’s Park, Toowoomba, QLD
Story: We went to Toowoomba, QLD last Saturday, 21 Sept 2013, to witness the Toowoomba Flower Festival 2013. So many flowers of different varieties. My family enjoyed so much especially my daughter who is very fond of flowers.

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Kaileen Nicol

This was taken by my IPhone 4S, Couldnt help but treat ourselves by adding more colours to Spring!
The more I tried to focus on the yummy sweets the more the gorgeous beachside sunshine would melt it all together – no way am I complaining yum yum!

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Steve Berrick

Heard the water rushing through Scrivener Dam when I was at the National Zoo this morning. Took a walk over the bridge to get a birds eye view.
Shot on my iPhone 5 and ever so slightly recropped in Lightroom. Really wanted to black and white filter it but resisted the urge.

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Darren Varney

This photo combines my two favorite things, photography and bikes and old stuff (or is that three). The bike is my fixie commuter bike in front of an old Fanta sign hanging on a wall. I like the weathered look of the sign and think the colour compliments the fire engine red of the bike bike. The shot was taken with an iPhone 4 f/2.8 1/17 sec. ISO-80 using the new square feature in the standard photo app in iOS7.

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Sandro

Was shooting a wedding in Samford (Queensland) when I came across this old rusty fridge, many years old.

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David

A quick snap yesterday from Kirra hill on the Gold Coast.

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Adrian Rogers

The photography equipment is a Nokia Lumia 1020 that I took with me to my local waterfall to see what it could really do and I would love to see what could be done with many 1020’s.

Lens is a ZEISS lens and the image is the 5mp oversampled image with an ISO of 100.

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Angus Denham

We were in Rorotua, NZ last week and went on the Canopy Tour zip-lining through the forest. When you aren’t flying through the air between tree platforms you’re using swing bridges. This was the longest and I was lucky enough to take a quick snap that turned out much better than expected.

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Chris Eacott

Taken with an HTC Sensation XL
Set for fluro lighting, ISO 400

Was taken during a Battojutsu grading at my dojo over the weekend.

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Leigh Gorrie

With a little sun over the weekend I took my family to the reserve near my house. My son and myself kicked the soccer ball and football around while my wife and daughter made flower necklaces.

This was just a quick point and shoot with my Lumia 920. I couldnt even see the screen clearly because of the sun.

I had to compress the file a little to get it under 3MB.

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Steve Moylan

A Fresh Start

Just a photo in the morning when I got to work. I thought it looked and felt nice and fresh. I like the shadows running to either side of the frame

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Shyamal Sharma

Using the wife’s lumia 1020 of random carpark sunset. I want one!

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Georgina Luczi

Architectural Stairs

Camera: Sony Xperia Z
I saw this building in the heart of Brisbane city. It immediately caught my attention with its unique style, shape, textures and stair shaped shadow.

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Stuart Addelsee

Neon + Robot, enjoy.

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Michael Chong

Pretty simple story, the girlfriend and I decided to take her puppies out to the beach for the first time to enjoy the sunset. It was a Fantastic afternoon, hopefully it can nab me a new phone.

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Julian Brecevic

Morning Colour

This photo was taken with a HTC one x+ F/2.0, ISO 160; exposure time 1/100; focal length 3.6mm .

This photo is what i see every time i leave my house so i wanted to share it with everyone else. It has a nice view of the mountains and plenty of green colour to look at.

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Brian Ho

# Lumia 920
# Nokia Pro cam – Shutter priority 1/1000

I’m a huge fan of the pureview technology inside Nokia phones. As such, I tried to recreate the amazing “behind the lens” scene where light hits the sensor using falling lego pieces.

After numerous attempts, I managed to freeze the colourful lego pieces in midair and get a few blurred in motion.

I couldn’t do this with my own phone due to lack of control over camera options so I had to borrow my Mum’s Lumia 920. Hope you guys like it.

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Allan Dang

iPhone 4s, ISO 125, f/2.4, 50.8sec
Taken with Slow Shutter Cam app in light trail mode. Minor colour and exposure adjustments were then made in Pro HDR.
Flinders Street Station looks beautiful at night, but rarely do people get to fully take in the scene as they are in a hurry to get home.

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Lucas M

On Tuesday night, I was lying in bed unable to sleep. 2:30am rolled around, and the light coming in through my window made me decide to take a look outside. On seeing the extremely dimly-lit view out the window, I decided to grab my Nokia 808 and max it out on ISO 1600, just to see what it would do (also set focus to infinity and flash off, so that it would work properly). I had it rested on the windowsill to keep things steady, and took the picture.

At first, when checking out the full shot on the phone’s low-res screen it just seemed mostly black with a dimly lit part in the middle, so was ready to just delete it and get back to trying to sleep. But then I went to take a closer look, and on zooming in I noticed that some stars suddenly popped into view. I started taking more photos, now aiming more skyward to see what I could capture. It was a slightly cloudy night, so I could only just make out the brightest stars, maybe a dozen or so of those pictured here. I couldn’t believe it, somehow my PHONE’S CAMERA was managing to show me stars that were otherwise invisible.

I should probably explain that crosslink pattern, actually – it’s from netting put up to stop some birds that would come and furiously peck at our windows a while back. Not sure it needs to still be up there, but it is.

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Robert C Johnston

I often remember how Monet used to paint his garden at different times of the day and at different seasons, just so he could see the many ways that the light played on his flowers and pond. This is what I do in my own garden, and in composing this shot I waited for the last specs of dappled sunlight to hit this old garden tap on the 23rd of Sept, 2013.

This was a particularly nice subject to photograph because it allowed the crisp rustic look of the tap to be pronounced against a contrasting background of sandstone wall and flowerbed.

I used a Nokia 808 PureView on 5 megapixel Creative mode, with colour mode set to Vivid and Saturation set to +1. To capture this I had to basically lie down in the garden and zoom in slightly to counter the 808’s fairly far minimum macro focusing distance, and hold the phone very steady and without tripod. It was tricky avoiding capturing my own shadow in the shot because the sun was right behind me, but I was very happy with how this one turned out.

Nokia 808 PureView
5 megapixel
3072 x 1728
1.95 megabytes
F-stop f/2.4
Exposure time: 1/50 sec.
ISO speed: 80
Focal length: 8mm
No flash
White balance: Auto
Zoom: 1.52
Creative mode, Vivid, Saturation +1

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Brad Collins

A short stroll in the bush on Saturday morning ended at an exquisite waterfall just begging for a few phone photos.

Taken with a Sony Xperia Z.

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Neeraj Kanogia

Took this while out on a walk on a beautiful sunset last sunday with my Nexus 4, taken with Hdr setting/Iso 100. Was taken at Green point Reserve at Near belmont.

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Ash Sharma

I always loved plasma balls since I was a kid. Always fascinated by them. So when I saw that they had them for $20 at Kmart I bought one a few months ago. Looking for inspiration along the lines of technology and science, I realised that I had my plasma ball (I couldnt find anything at work or home that fit the bill). So I snapped away. Focusing was the hardest part. But with the room all dark and only the light of my computer monitor in the room, I snapped as best as I could with my Samsung Galaxy S 4 (GT-i9505).

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Jen Luben

It was a nice sunset in the city and on my way home via Pyrmont bridge I saw this view and had to capture it, it was around 5:30pm, I used Nokia Pro Cam with everything on auto since I didn’t have time to stop for long, I love capturing the golden hour in the morning and evening, I just so happened to leave work a bit late and see the sky like this.

This is directly from the camera, I’m so happy with how it turned out and the sharpness is incredible.

For so long before I got this phone I had to either carry my big camera or capture it on my crappy little dumbphone, now I don’t have to.

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