Update: This giveaway has ended. Winners were randomly selected and announced here. Thanks for participating!

Things were kind of hectic this week. My bike and laptop decided to both die on the same day, and two days later I became a Mac user for the first time by purchasing a 13-inch Macbook Pro. Might still switch back to Windows next time, but I didn’t want to upgrade to Vista.

Anyhoo, how about another giveaway?

This week I’m giving away four annual subscriptions to the popular photo sharing service SmugMug. The four prizes are:

• 2 standard memberships worth $40 each
• 1 power membership worth $60
• 1 pro membership worth $150

There will be four different randomly selected winners this week. All you have to do to enter this week’s giveaway is to answer the following question:

What is your favorite photography related website?

This could be a photo service, a blog, a forum, or whatever else, as long as it’s related somehow to your passion for photography.

There are two ways to share your answer and enter the contest, and you can use both methods to double your chances:

1. Leave your response as a comment on this PetaPixel.com post
2. Tweet your response, and include the following link to this post anywhere in the tweet: http://j.mp/ppsmgmg

   As long as the link appears in a tweet, you will be entered in this giveaway. You don’t even need to include @petapixel.

The deadline for this giveaway is Saturday, September 19th, 2009. The winners will be randomly selected using random.org.

Good luck!

Update: Forgot to mention this in the original post: existing SmugMug members can still participate in this contest. if you win, the membership will be added to your existing membership.

Our Lensbaby giveaway has come to an end. In the past week, we received 566 entries (a new record), with 310 comments and 256 tweets. Our previous record was 510 entries a couple weeks ago when we gave away a Streetwalker backpack by Think Tank Photo.

I think our question, “What is your favorite childhood memory?”, is the most interesting one we’ve asked so far, and many of you wrote quite a bit in response to it.

More about favorite childhood memories in a bit, but first let’s announce the winner of the Lensbaby Composer. The randomly selected winner is…

#41: Maria

Climbing in parents’ bed and making clock-faces on Dad’s bare back… with my baby teeth! Yeah, he would half-laugh half-scream but still let me make multiple ones… I think/hope I tickled him more than I hurt him. Thanks, Dad, for enduring with love, you always warm my heart. <3

Congratulations! Please email me at editor@petapixel.com to claim your prize.

Thanks to everyone who entered and shared their favorite childhood memory with all of us! We’ll be giving away something again very soon, so stay tuned!

Here are some childhood memories we received this past week:

elainepeters:

When I little my father was severely ill in the hospital for more than three months over the Christmas holiday. We were told Christmas would be very simple that year one gift for each of us. Then on Christmas Eve total strangers showed up and brought us gifts and food. With no income because my father was in the hospital, I remember my mother in tears of joy and gratitude over their kindness. We never knew who they were or how they knew, but it made Christmas very special that year. Also my mom let us keep up our artificial tree until he came home in March. We wanted him to enjoy Christmas at home , too.

syedahmed:

My favorite memory is watching my dad taking family pictures with his Roliflex camera that was in a brown leather casing. Now I am fourty years old, a father of three sons, and my dad has passed away. I own his Roliflex camera and look at it in amazement everytime I take it out. It brings back fond memories of my childhood and who would have known that after almost four decades I would be into photography just like him. If only one day, my boys can follow my footsteps and enjoy photography as much as I have begun to.

Jennifer Squires Ross (website):

My favourite childhood memory was not having tv because I grew up in such a small town, so small that we didn’t even qualify as a village. There weren’t cable lines running out there (and there still aren’t) and aerial antennas didn’t do much because we were in a valley. We had to make our own fun which included building our own Ewok village and counting and installing our own population sign (262 people in case you were wondering). This small town called Hockley Village is what inspired me to become a photographer.

boris (@borborigm):

Being able to play for hours with a piece of wood

Update: This giveaway is now over. The winner has been randomly selected and announced here. Thanks for entering everyone!

If you follow us on twitter (@petapixel), you might have heard already, but we just passed 10,000 followers. Huzzah!

This blog is about four months old, so I’m definitely surprised at how far it has come in just one summer. Thank you all for reading and following us on Twitter.

To celebrate this big milestone, I’m going to be giving away a Lensbaby Composer lens and a Creative Aperture Kit. This combined package is worth $280. I probably don’t need to tell you much more about this lens. It’s Lensbaby.

To enter this giveaway, simply answer the following question:

What is your favorite childhood memory?

As usual, there’s two ways to enter, and you can use both ways to double your chances.

1. Leave your response as a comment on this PetaPixel.com post
2. Tweet your response, and include the following link to this post anywhere in the tweet: http://bit.ly/pplbby

   If the link appears in your tweet, then our little giveaway elf will automatically find it and count it as an entry. If you don’t include the link, then our elf won’t be able to find it and it won’t be counted.

The deadline for getting your answer to us is the evening of Saturday, September 5th, 2009. We’ll be randomly selecting an entry using random.org.

Good luck!

Update: Some of you have been asking whether people outside the United States can enter. The answer is yes. The lens can be shipped internationally. Good luck!

Disclosure: Lensbaby is currently a sponsor of PetaPixel.

Update: This giveaway is now over. The winners were randomly selected and announced here. Thanks to everyone who participated!

One of the tools I occasionally bust out during post-processing is Noise Ninja, a noise-reduction program/plugin used by seven of the ten largest newspapers in the United States.

Take this photograph I took yesterday as an example:

Though I was shooting outdoors with plenty of light, I had accidentally left my ISO set at 1600. This caused the photograph to end up looking dirty and full of noise. In addition, I underexposed the photo, giving it even more noise after correcting the exposure during post-processing.

You can hover over the above image to see the image after using Noise Ninja on it.

Don’t see much of a difference? Maybe a crop of a smaller area of the frame will help you see what Noise Ninja does (hover over this before image to see the after image):

Neat, huh? The amount of noise in the photo was significantly reduced, even before tweaking and selectively editing the image. For some more before-and-after examples, visit the gallery on the PictureCode website.

I’m giving away three (3) Noise Ninja Pro Bundle licenses, each worth $79.95. These bundles include the Photoshop plugin, the Aperture plugin, and the standalone program. All you need to do to enter this giveaway is answer the following question:

If you could turn into any animal, which animal would you choose?

There’s two ways you can tell us your answer, and feel free to use both ways:

1. Leave a comment on this post (at PetaPixel.com)
2. Tweet your answer, and include this link somewhere in the tweet:

   http://bit.ly/ptpxnn

   The tweet doesn’t even need to be @petapixel. As long as the link is somewhere in the tweet, our friendly little giveaway bot will find it.

This giveaway will end next Tuesday morning, on August 25th, 2009. We’ll be picking the winner randomly using random.org. As usual, in addition to the winner we’ll post some of the more creative or interesting responses we receive.

Good luck!

PictureCode is not (currently) a sponsor of PetaPixel. They were simply nice enough to provide us with these licenses for us to give away to you, our awesome readers.

Update: Just learned that I had accidentally posted the deadline as September 1st, or a week later than I intended. Fixed it to read August 25th. Thanks for catching this @scottnopants!

Wow… I’m pretty surprised at how popular this past week’s Streetwalker giveaway was. Over this past week we received 510 entries, with 230 comments and 280 tweets. To put that into perspective, the most responses for a giveaway prior to this one was 191 (when we gave away two Photomatix licenses).

To pick a winner, I assign each entry with a number, and use random.org to randomly select one entry. Using this method, we found the winner of a Streetwalker backpack to be:

#144: Kerry (birchblazephotography.com)

I think it would be amazing to photograph the Country of Bhutan, it’s supposed to be one of the happiest in the world, and it’s very beautiful as well!

Congratulations Kerry! I hope you enjoy your new camera backpack.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this week’s giveaway. Be sure to check back again soon, as we have some pretty awesome stuff lined up to be given away…

I also really enjoyed reading all of your responses. Here are some of them:

dahak_z:

Well, not so down to Earth speaking, in the broader sense of the word ‘world’, I’d really go and photograph the Universe, if one could only explore it. Think of all the nebulas, alien planets, and other unseen phenomena. Could result in quite some awesome photos.

On a more down to Earth tone, i’d make a one year (or more years, however long it takes), of all the world’s national parks. That could also result in quite some awesome photographs.

Cheers

Martin (time2shoot.com):

It might sound strange for some, but I wish I could capture the life of the people of North Korea and show the world how life is over there.

4strinbass (@4strinbass):

My dream place to photograph would be the ocean floor of the Atlantic Ocean, want to get nite style shots of glowing fish

simonhucko (@simonhucko):

how about anywhere over the earth? i’d love to go up to the ISS with a camera

Update: This giveaway is now over. The winner was randomly selected and posted here. Thank you to everyone who participated!

It’s time for another PetaPixel giveaway! Huzzah!

Today I’m giving away a copy of onOne Software’s Plug-In Suite 4.5, a package that retails for $499.95.

This is a package of six award-winning plugins for Photoshop, and four of the plugins can be used with Lightroom and Aperture. Here are the plugins:

Genuine Fractals: The industry standard for resizing images
PhotoTools: Instantly give your photographs a professional look
PhotoFrame: Add edge effects, backgrounds, and adornments
FocalPoint: Easily add selective focus
Mask Pro: Remove unwanted backgrounds
PhotoTune: Quick and easy color correction

If you purchase all six of them separately, they would cost about $1,300. One lucky PetaPixel reader is going to get all of them for free.

Entering this contest is easy, but please pay attention to detail to ensure that your entry counts.

To enter, all you need to do is answer the following question:

What is your favorite or most memorable photographic experience?

Just like most of our previous giveaways, there are two (2) ways to send your answer to us. You can use both ways to double your chances of winning, but please don’t use either of them more than once:

1. Leave a comment on this entry with your response
2. Tweet your response (it doesn’t even need to be @petapixel), but be sure to link to this post (http://bit.ly/kKCQv) at the end of your tweet. Here’s an example tweet:
   

   My fav photo experience was when I went to the grand canyon in 2006! http://bit.ly/kKCQv

Linking to this page in your tweet will automatically add your tweet to the “Social Media Reactions” list under the comments. This makes it easier for us to manage entries and randomly select a winner.

In our previous giveaways, you could simply tweet the answer to us without a link, but I had to record each of the tweets by hand. As the number of entries has gone up, it has gotten harder and harder to do by hand, so I’m asking that it be a little more automated now.

The deadline for entering this contest is the evening of Saturday, July 25th, 2009. We will randomly select the winner and post the results at that time.

Good luck!

Oh, and also — if you submit a really unique or interesting answer (feel free to include links to photographs!) that catches our attention, we might include some of them in the results post.

Update: Don’t worry if your response doesn’t show up in the Social Media Reactions immediately after you tweet it. It’ll show up eventually.

Update: Just to clarify, adding a link to this post is only required for tweet entries. If you respond via a comment, there’s no need to do anything else aside from respond. We just need the link in the tweets to track them.

Keep the favorite experiences coming. They’ve been extremely interesting to read so far!

Update: Looks like the Social Media Reactions aren’t showing up as they should. We’ll try to get it sorted out and working for our next giveaway. For this giveaway, I’ll include the tweet entries by searching for our link (http://bit.ly/kKCQv).

Update: This giveaway has ended, and the randomly selected winners were posted here. Thanks to everyone who participated! Stay tuned for more awesome giveaways!

High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography is really interesting, and is mentioned a lot these days. Some people love it, while other hate it. Whatever camp you’re in, I would still recommend that you at least try it out, since I believe you actually learn the most in photography from experimentation.

Here’s an HDR photograph I took in 2008 of the Campanile on the UC Berkeley campus:

It’s composed of two photographs that I took without a tripod, and was created using Photomatix by HDRsoft. It seems like everyone these days is using Photomatix for their HDR work, and if you’ve heard of HDR, you’ve probably also heard of Photomatix.

Well today, I’m giving away two (2) copies of Photomatix Pro Plus, each worth $119. This bundle includes not only the standalone program, but also plugins for Photoshop, Lighroom, and Aperture. Of course, feel free to downgrade to one of the individual packages if this much software is overwhelming.

Entering this contest is simple. All you need to do is answer the following question:

Who is your favorite photographer?

Any photographer is okay, though try not to say it’s yourself. Links are definitely encouraged if the photographer is modern enough to have a website!

There are two ways you can send your answer to me, and feel free to use both methods for double the chance to win! You can…

1. Leave a comment on this post
2. Tweet your answer to @petapixel on Twitter

Winners will be randomly picked and announced in a week on the evening of July 18th, 2009.

Good luck!

If you’d like to view more examples of what you can do with Photomatix, check out the Photomatix group on Flickr, and to learn how to actually do HDR photography, try reading this tutorial by Trey Ratcliff on Stuck in Customs.

Another tip: If you include a link in your tweet back to this post, your tweet will automatically show up below the comments section, allowing you to share your answer not only with me, but with PetaPixel readers as well!

A big thank you to everyone who entered our latest giveaway. The winner of the free QuikPod handheld tripod is:

#12: Patricia Reiser

Congratulations! I hope you enjoy your new accessory and put it to good use! Please send an email to editor@petapixel.com to claim your QuikPod.

We have many more giveaways planned, so please check back soon. Also, I’m definitely looking forward to Monday, when we’ll be hearing from David Nightingale of chromasia!

Have a great weekend!

The first PetaPixel giveaway has come to an end, and I’m definitely surprised by how many entries we received. We received 101 comment entries, and 76 entries through Twitter. To choose the winners, I used random.org to generate a random number between 1 and 177. Numbers 1-101 were comment entries, and 102-177 were Twitter entries.

Here are the winners:

#102: Frank DelValle (@frankdelvalle)

Canon EOS 1D Mark III

#84: Diana Pink (iamdianthus.com)

While I love my D80 with the 18-50mm 2.8 lens, it will never replace the 1970′s Minolta with 35mm lens I learned with.

#141: Chris Scott (@nzcjs):

Just starting HDR, see http://tinyurl.com/nhl4yg Favourite camera would have to be my Nikon D300. Do I win now ;-)

#140: Jon Krombein (@Krombein)

my favorite camera is the Canon 1Ds Mk3.

#79: Dustin Dodge (dustindodgephotography.com)

Camera: Canon 5D
Lens: 24-70mm 2.8L

#123: Donnita Mae (@DonnitaMae)

My favorite lens in the Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS.

#34: Robin (aroundtheisland.blogspot.com)

My only SLR is my Nikon D40 so I’ll go with that. It’s either that or the older than ancient Yashica I had as a teen many (far too many) years ago.

Congratulations to all the winners! Please send an email to editor@petapixel.com to claim your HDR PhotoStudio license.

If you didn’t win, don’t fret. I have some more giveaways planned for the near future, including more HDR software licenses!

Now, some interesting things I discovered through laboriously tabulating the entries by hand:

The most popular cameras were the Canon 5D Mark II with 12 entries, and the Nikon D90 with 10 entries.

The most popular lenses were the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS with 8 entries, and the Nikon 50mm f/1.8D with 4 entries.

You can download the final tally here, though I’m not sure why you’d want to.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in this first giveaway. I definitely had a lot of fun reading through everyone’s favorite cameras and lenses, and am definitely looking forward to the next giveaway.

P.S. PetaPixel just broke the 1,000th follower mark on Twitter (@petapixel). Thanks everyone!