Deskthority wiki photography competition

Daniel Beardsmore · 14 Sep 2013, 16:21

There are a large number of wiki pages requiring illustration; I've just identified another 50 — see Category:Pages requiring illustration

To help clear down this backlog, I am proposing a photography competition.

Update 2013-10-12: Winners have been selected
Update 2013-09-26: first prize set
Update 2013-09-20: second/third prizes decided; still need suggestions/feedback on first prize!

Rules

Images must be your own work, and must not yet be on the wiki
Images must have a complete and correct imagedesc template in the description
No watermarks
Images must be added to the relevant page(s)
Images should be categorised as [[Category:Photography competition 2013]]

Judging criteria
The competition will be judged based on a set of photos added to a single wiki page. The number of pages you have illustrated may work in your favour as a tie-breaker.

The following criteria are not exhaustive, but they should give you a clear idea of what I will be looking for:

Quality is more important than quantity, but good subject coverage is important — angles, details, disassembly etc
Photographic quality: images free from colour casts; minimum distortion; bright, even lighting and tone and minimum unwanted shadows; sharp and even focus etc
Presentation: the image should be well framed, and the photos should have clean, non-distracting backgrounds and be free from unwanted clutter (no half-eaten lunch/homework/porno mags/bed bugs crammed in all around the subject); subject should be reasonably clean and presentable; images should all be the same aspect ratio for consistent presentation within a page's gallery (4:3 is ideal, so that images from different sources can be placed together into a gallery, but not required)
Image resolution

Deadline and prizes
The deadline will be Friday 11th October 23:59 UTC.

First prize — winner's choice of keyboard, to a value of £150 excluding tax and shipping (to be sourced from a reputable merchant, or the keyboard's value to be provided directly otherwise)

Second and third prize — winner's choice of £20/$30 (excluding tax and shipping) of keycaps from QWERKeys/TechKeys/Fentek (or equivalent merchant)

Disclaimer and bootnotes
This competition is not official, and is open to anyone (except me). I just think that we can easily get the photo backlog cleared, and I feel that some incentive may help here. Also, the official Deskthority awards are fast approaching, and once you've figured out how to enter this competition, you may find yourself on a roll and a candidate for the Deskthority Wiki Award 2013.

Muirium · 14 Sep 2013, 18:03

Giving Wiki photos a sense of competitiveness ought to get us slow pokes moving. It does wonders for the site banner's photography. Now I need to figure out what I can actually lay hands on to shoot.

Compgeke · 14 Sep 2013, 18:15

Just curious, is there a reason for the 4:3 requirement? All the cameras I have access to shoot in 3:2.

JBert · 14 Sep 2013, 18:42

Daniel Beardsmore wrote:

Quality is more important than quality, but good subject coverage is important — angles, details, disassembly etc

Quality == quality == true

I guess you meant to say Quality > quantity?

Daniel Beardsmore · 14 Sep 2013, 19:22

Compgeke wrote:Just curious, is there a reason for the 4:3 requirement? All the cameras I have access to shoot in 3:2.

It's not a requirement, but I did explain — allows images in a gallery to appear consistent. If the industry has changed, then so be it — we'll have 3:2 and 4:3 mixed on pages where images are pulled in from different users.

JBert wrote:I guess you meant to say Quality > quantity? :ugeek:

Yes :)

7bit · 14 Sep 2013, 19:38

Compgeke wrote:Just curious, is there a reason for the 4:3 requirement? All the cameras I have access to shoot in 3:2.

4:3 is more professional and looks better.

One more reason for me to use a 4:3 monitor.

There are a lot of items which don't fit into a 4:3 frame, but for the competion just concentrate on things (ie keyboards) which fit into it.

Notes to myself:
Need to buy these:
Nikon D800 (D600 is not sufficient as it does not come with 4:3 crop mode)
Nikon R1 micro flash system
Nikkor 200mm AF-D 1:4 micro
Nikkor 28mm Ai-s 1:2.8
Sexy photo models to hold the keyboards
plus some studio strobes ...

Dubsgalore · 14 Sep 2013, 19:50

I have a D90, but i'm not sure if i can contribute much here...most of the items needing photos i do not have

7bit · 14 Sep 2013, 20:01

Dubsgalore wrote:I have a D90, but i'm not sure if i can contribute much here...most of the items needing photos i do not have

D90 with buil-in flash should be OK. Just add some light from the ceiling.

I still use a D90 too and I'm quite sure Daniel means me when he says "no distortion". The 20mm AF 1:2.8 is a great lens, but at close range, especially with a half frame camera, it has quite some visible distortion. I'm quite sue the 200mm plus the sexy girls (to hold the keyboard at perfect angle) plus the studio strobes (to put everything into perfect light) will do the trick.

What's the prize you say?

Daniel Beardsmore · 14 Sep 2013, 20:05

With regards to distortion, I had one of my own banana-shaped photos in mind :(

7bit · 14 Sep 2013, 20:42

At least I don't put the keyboards on the floor, like others do ...

Compgeke · 14 Sep 2013, 20:42

I wouldn't be too worried about what camera you guys have; I use a Canon 300D (Digital Rebel) that's 9 years old and a Canon Speedlite 199A or old Vivitar flash from the 80s and I get halfway decent results using guess-n-check exposure.

Daniel Beardsmore · 14 Sep 2013, 20:49

7bit wrote:

That's just over-cropped :P The sliver of unidentifiable background around the subject looks weird.

7bit wrote:At least I don't put the keyboards on the floor, like others do ...

Depends on the floor — webwit's floor makes for a great background. It also helps that his house has bright and even lighting. I have nowhere with light coming from anywhere but one direction, which is a pain.

Findecanor · 14 Sep 2013, 21:04

How do we use the Imagedesc template?

A wood floor can be a great background. Many times you can't tell whether it is on a wood floor or a wood desk.
BTW, I have used wooden floorboards as background on a desk for pictures for the Wiki.

7bit · 14 Sep 2013, 21:13

Daniel Beardsmore wrote:...
Depends on the floor — webwit's floor makes for a great background. It also helps that his house has bright and even lighting. I have nowhere with light coming from anywhere but one direction, which is a pain.

Sorry, but webwit'as floor is the same crap lameinate as mine.

If a keyboard must be put on a floor, I prefer Half-Saint's exquisite parquet floor!

Findecanor wrote:... or a wood desk. ...

For the competition, I will put the keyboards on my Cherry-wood kitchen table ...

webwit · 14 Sep 2013, 21:33

Crap laminate is correct, because it's perfect when you have pets.

Muirium · 14 Sep 2013, 21:39

Re: barrel distortion (aka bulging keyboards) is purely a function of focal length. Shorter lenses do more of it. Boo. But they are more convenient to use without resorting to the floor.

Cameras are like telescopes: they produce a flat image from a spherical light space. The shorter / wider the lens, the more of that sphere it samples, and so the more squeezing goes on in the form of distortions. Long lenses are optically simpler things, better suited to this, if only you have the distance.

Everything's a balancing act. Especially when we're all shooting with old cameras. I'm usually sneered at for my 2005 350D, but apart from Nikon crazy 7bit, that's not an issue here for a change!

By the way: those Nikkor micros are well worth lusting over. My Nikon friend has a mid range one and it is quite the trick lens. I also prefer Nikon's name for them: these are microscopes. Macro = landscape, surely. Silly industry.

Daniel Beardsmore · 14 Sep 2013, 22:25

webwit wrote:Crap laminate is correct, because it's perfect when you have pets.

There's more dirt on the table at work that I was using, than on your floor! The only issue I have with bare floors is that they're about as grippy as walking on banana skins, but for me personally it makes a great background, and it's not all that different from a nice wooden table (you've seen the wooden table I've used — webwit's floor wins out hands down in terms of visual appeal, as it's such an even tone and completely flawless and spotless … and large — I can't take a fully-open photo of my Necam keyboard as there's just no room anywhere).

Daniel Beardsmore · 15 Sep 2013, 02:25

The important question is: what do you think the prizes should be?

Muirium · 15 Sep 2013, 02:34

Clacks, natch.

Oh, sorry, this is the Deskthority Wiki photography competition. Hmm. Something valuably obscure…

002 · 15 Sep 2013, 03:38

How about a moderately used (but well-travelled) Realforce 104? I was planning to donate it as a prize for the DT awards this year anyway...but I'm really not sure if I should keep it on the move for future DT members? Maybe I should start a poll?

Daniel Beardsmore · 15 Sep 2013, 13:24

The thought of giving away my Realforce did cross my mind. Of course, you might find that the winner despises ISO and only wants ANSI :)

I was not expecting anyone to donate anything except ideas — I intend to cover the prizes myself. (So it needs to be something that's actually obtainable, too :)

002 · 15 Sep 2013, 13:49

Your call man -- this is your canoe. Just floating the idea as the tour is nearing an end and I don't really know what to do from here

ISO is probably going to be the more popular choice here though I think.

Daniel Beardsmore · 15 Sep 2013, 13:56

It depends — a lot of people prefer ANSI for both the design and because getting used to it means you can use a lot more keyboards. Personally I stick to ISO. It's hard to think of something that everyone is guaranteed to want :P

002 · 15 Sep 2013, 14:06

"Your choice of black lasered or white sublimated Realforce" sounds pretty enticing

damorgue · 15 Sep 2013, 14:06

Does it have to be photos? Some of them might be better explained through a diagram or schematic.

I began making some switch animations a while back which were going to be 3D with greater detail and feature all MX switches, not just red, black, blue and brown as those old animations did.

I prefer ISO (but dislike Topre)

Daniel Beardsmore · 15 Sep 2013, 14:19

Diagrams and photos serve different purposes — for example, with Cherry MX, an animation is really useful, but it's still important to see what a real switch looks like. You can also sort out the click collar, which moves far too slowly in LethalSquirrel's animation.

Out of fairness, I think it's best not to try comparing photographs with diagrams, but diagrams are nonetheless very valuable, and there's nothing stopping you adding them anyway. There should still be the official Wiki Award 2013 in December to aim for. Also, feel free to replace any of my diagrams with better-drawn ones, e.g. [wiki]Key[/wiki] (my isometric Cherry MX switch looks a bit ropey, and the PCB is upside down) — especially if you can get 3D to SVG going, so that the diagrams on the wiki are nice scalable graphics.

damorgue · 15 Sep 2013, 14:24

Daniel Beardsmore wrote:e.g. [wiki]Key[/wiki].

Took me while before I realised that the word diode has been cropped.

This is what I began doing a while back but put on hold:
http://i.imgur.com/fApIFsZ.png
I was going to make all the MX and put force-graphs next to them which synced to the animation so that you could see the actuation points etc more clearly, as well as have all the other less known MX types.

Daniel Beardsmore · 15 Sep 2013, 14:32

Text in SVGs is broken on the wiki — long story. For very small quantities of text that is guaranteed to never change (e.g. keycap legends) I convert the text to objects: [wiki]Cursor keys[/wiki] but I don't bother with captions — they'll have to wait until the wiki server gets some working fonts that rsvg can read (it's a BSD flavour machine IIRC).

Nice picture though. (Though you might have trouble depressing that stem ;)

Muirium · 15 Sep 2013, 15:56

damorgue wrote: This is what I began doing a while back but put on hold:
http://i.imgur.com/fApIFsZ.png
I was going to make all the MX and put force-graphs next to them which synced to the animation so that you could see the actuation points etc more clearly, as well as have all the other less known MX types.

Impressive! Synced force curves with this calibre of graphic would be most nifty.

Daniel Beardsmore · 15 Sep 2013, 16:43

Incidentally I've idly considered the idea of a {{TODO diagram}}, for example for pages like [wiki]Actuation[/wiki]. I guess maybe I didn't figure anyone else was ever likely to draw any. I'm still waiting for the SVG text rendering to get fixed, which I don't imagine will ever happen.