Photography Guidelines

Photography Guidelines#

Photographs are submitted to Wildbook as Sightings to identify Individual Animals. Here are the guidelines to follow for a successful identification:

  • The Animal in the photo is distinguishable (i.e. free-standing or clearly in the foreground).

  • The Individual takes the majority of the frame with decent resolution.

  • The Individual is located near the center of the photograph.

  • The Individual is in focus.

Here are what you need to AVOID for a successful identification:

  • The Individual is part of an overlapping herd or group of animals.

  • The Individual is relatively small.

  • The Individual is blurry and out of focus because of being too far or too close to the camera.

  • The Individual is located around the edges of the image.

  • The Individual is occluded more than 25% by other animals or objects.

  • A part of the Individual is off the edge of the frame.

Wildbook caters to multiple species. For best results, visit their Wildbook platform and navigate to Learn > How to Photograph.

Image Formats and Sizes#

  • Wildbook accepts photographs in a variety of formats, including .jpg, .jpeg, .png, and .bmp. (Note: Raw image formats are not supported)

  • Avoid using photographs of more than 1600px and less than 480px.

  • When running detection and identification, photographs smaller than 480px are sized up, which may cause blurriness.

  • A compression ratio of 90% is enough.

  • Uploading photographs with more than a higher compression ratio will not influence the identification process.

  • Photographs with bigger sizes put a strain on the server and cause identification to take longer.

Warning

While Wildbook allows you to upload video files, they cannot currently be sent through the Image Analysis Pipeline. We recommend that you take screenshots of your video and upload those images for identification.

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