Update: This giveaway is now over. We’ve randomly selected a winner and posted it here. Thanks to everyone who entered! Check back again soon for more great stuff.

It’s time for another PetaPixel giveaway! This week I’m giving away a Streetwalker backpack by Think Tank Photo.

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

If you could photograph anywhere in the world, where would you go?

There are two ways to enter this giveaway. You can send us your answer both ways to double your chances:

1. Leave a comment on this entry with your response
2. Tweet your response, and include the following link to this post so we can find it: http://bit.ly/ppsw. Here’s an example tweet:
   

   My dream place to photograph would be Cambodia! http://bit.ly/ppsw

This giveaway will end in a week on Saturday August 15th, 2009. We’ll randomly select an entry and send the Streetwalker to the winner.

Good luck! I look forward to reading your responses!

Update on August 13th, 2009 at 11:42 PST: Don’t worry if your tweet entry doesn’t show up in the reactions list below the comments. I wrote a script that automatically collects every tweet submission neatly into a table, weeding out multiple tweets and such. Just make sure the URL we gave (http://bit.ly/ppsw) appears somewhere in the tweet. This is what we search for to collect the entries. If you included it, we got your entry.

206 tweet entries so far at the time of writing this update.

Our giveaway for a free license to onOne Software’s Plug-In Suite 4.5 is now over. We received 93 entries total, with 59 through the comments and 34 through twitter. This is less than our previous ones, but is probably due to the fact that it was only open for four days instead of seven.

We were also intending to have all the tweet entries show up in the Reactions section below the comments, but we had a little trouble having all the tweets appear. We’ll have to iron this out for our next giveaway, but for this one we simply used a Twitter search to find all the tweet entries.

Anyhow… enough with the boring stuff. The randomly chosen winner of this giveaway is:

#61: vandymcnew (@vandymcnew)

Here’s his favorite experience:

My favorite photo experience was when I was in Australia. 2007 was a good year! :) Sydney, Cairns, Brisbane

Congratulations! Thanks for participating and sharing your favorite and most memorable photographic experiences with us! We’ll be posting another giveaway very soon, so stay tuned for more chances to win awesome photo stuff.

Here are some responses submitted by our readers:

Luc (twitter):

The top experience in my photographic adventures was the first time I taught pinhole photography to a class of children who lived under poverty. The spark in the kids’s eyes when they first saw the images come out of powdered milk cans with such a tiny hole on the walls, and the realization that beauty was present in the shanty towns they were living in, even though they had never noticed it was totally awesome. :D

olasis (flickr):

My most memorable photographic experience was hearing my first SLR’s shutter. I heard it and i was hooked to photos.

EmigrantMtChris:

It certainly wasn’t my favorite experience, but my most memorable was photographing our stillborn son. It was awful doing it, but I’m very thankful now that I did. It’s one of the few things we have to remember him by.

Adrian Park (twitter):

My most memorable photographic experience was a solo shoot on the Welsh Coast in December 2008. Personal tragedy earlier in the year had sent me into a spiral of depression I was desperate to escape. The weather that day matched my mood. I decided to go out and force myself to ‘see’ beauty. I was really happy with the results and that was a turning point in rebuilding my life. Photography is a great therapy!

This is what I found that day.

Chendur Venkatraman (twitter):

My most memorable moment was shooting for a school for Mentally Challenged Children in Hyderabad, India… Surrounded by 50 children who were in their own world…I was left wondering initially how i am going to shoot as spending time with those beautiful children brought tears to my eyes… The first visit inspired me to work with the school and raise few thousand dollars highlighting the school through photography….Now I visit the school few times a month and it has become a part of my life as i continue to work with them ….
Yamini Foundation for Mentally Challenged

janetmhug (twitter):

My most memorable photographic experiences was when I was getting ready for bed one evening in the winter and had to let my dog out, when I noticed a big “puff” sitting on one of the branches of my pine tree in the backyard. Being a birder, I grabbed my binoculars and found I had an Eastern Screech Owl hunting in my backyard. I retrieved my camera, put on a coat over my pajamas, barefeet in my boots trudging through deep snow and managed to spend 20 minutes photographing the owl on the backyard tree branch. An awesome experience due to the circumstances. The owl was extremely cooperative the entire time I was within 6 feet of the bird.

Eastern Screech Owl – Gray Phase, #9

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).

A big thank you to everyone who participated in our latest giveaway and shared your favorite photographers with us. We received 191 comment and tweet entries this time (a new record!), and I’ll share the results of the question in a bit.

The winners of a free Photomatix Pro Plus license, chosen using a random number generator, are:

#9: Max Vernon (@max_vernon)

my favorite photographer: http://www.flickr.com/photos/muzzlehatch

#14: riNux (@riNux)

My Favorite Photographer is Joe McNally @JoeMcNallyPhoto http://portfolio.joemcnally.com/ #Petapixel #Photomatix

Congratulations! Please drop me an email at editor@petapixel.com to claim your prizes.

A big thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway, and to all our loyal readers! We have a lot more awesome stuff lined up to be given away, so be sure to check back soon!

Now, onto the results of the question, “Who is your favorite photographer?”. The top three responses we received were:

1. Ansel Adams (24 people)
2. Joe McNally (6 people)
3. Sam Javanrouh (4 people)

I never would have guessed that Ansel Adams would have been the overwhelming favorite, and found that pretty interesting.

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!

Update: This giveaway is now over. The winner was randomly selected and announced here. A big thank you to everyone who participated!

A while ago I received a camera extender/hand held tripod to review on Photoblog. Here’s a photograph of my brother that I took while fooling around with it:

Yeah… that’s right. It was taken from above a regulation basketball hoop. Sadly, my brother wasn’t able to keep his eyes open due to the fact that he was staring straight into the sun.

Today, I’m giving away either a QuikPod Pro Kit ($29.95) for you point-and-shoot users, or a QuikPod DSLR ($49.95) for those of you who lug around a bigger camera.

The QuikPod Pro includes adapter legs that can transform it into a table top tripod, while the QuikPod DSLR is large and sturdy enough to be used as an ultra-portable monopod. Here’s what the thing looks like when used as a monopod:

You can also use them as a flash stand or extender. Click here to see what I mean.

To enter this contest, all you have to do is

1. Bookmark PetaPixel on Delicious
2. Leave a comment stating your Delicious username and which QuikPod you would like

One entry per person, please. Winners will be announced on the evening of July 4th, 2009.

Good luck!

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!

Update: This giveaway has now ended. The winners have been randomly selected and are posted here. Thanks to everyone who entered this first contest!

Something I hope to do regularly on PetaPixel is give away gear, accessories, and software to my readers. Today I’m giving away seven (7) free licenses to Unified Color’s HDR PhotoStudio, each worth $149.99.

If you don’t know what HDR is, check out the Wikipedia article on it or take a look at the HDR Flickr group. Here are some sample images showing you what you can do with the software:

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

What is your favorite camera or lens?

There are two ways you can tell us your answer (feel free to use both methods to increase your chances, but one entry per channel please):

1. Leave a comment on this post
2. Send @petapixel a tweet on Twitter. Please hashtag the tweet with #photography

Winners will be announced in a week on the evening of June 20th, 2009.

Good luck!