This question was asked on the Team Strange Discussion Board, and is worth clarifying now rather than just before (or during) the rally.
Question: The rules say that cameras are permitted. They do not say that phones are not permitted. If I take my bonus photos with my phone, and transfer them to an SDHC card pre-scoring, does this properly satisfy the rules of photo submission?
Answer: Uniform Rule 11 K says “All digital photos submitted for scoring shall be in the format as originally recorded by the camera, with no post-processing, editing, manipulation, alteration, cropping, resizing, or enhancement applied.”
Copying a photo from one device to another is manipulation. It also can alter the internal file creation/modification dates. We expect you to turn in the memory cards from your camera that contain the original photos as taken by the camera.
If we permitted micro SD cards, you could use a phone and turn in the memory card, but we don’t permit micro SD cards, and we don’t want to get involved with all the extraneous stuff that your phone puts on your memory card.
And to the latter point, the Supplemental Rules state: “4) Only SD or SDHC memory cards are permitted. SDXC cards are not permitted. Mini and micro cards of any ilk are not permitted, not even in adapters. CompactFlash (CF), SmartMedia, xD, Memory Stick (MS), MultiMedia (MMC) are not permitted. ”
Butt Lite IX riders, govern yourselves accordingly.
Butt Lite - Fini 
I realize I’m no one, but copying a photo from one device to another does not affect the photo file itself. It may change the modification dates within the OS file tables, but the actual image itself contains the creation dates and that doesn’t change regardless how many times a file is copied from one place to another. Copying a file isn’t considered manipulation in any other scenario, and doesn’t alter the file itself in any way.
I realize it is your rally, your rules, your interpretation, but the reason provided here isn’t technically valid.
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As you say, it changes the modification dates within the OS file tables on the media. And when copied from one physical medium (the phone) to another physical medium (a memory card) the OS file tables pointing to and describing the file are different. The data bits within the file may be the same (although it would require a bit by bit comparison to determine that there have been no changes) and the EXIF data in the file may be the same (although it is trivial to alter EXIF data in any way you want) but some of the metadata has been changed. Therefore it has been manipulated under our extremely rigorous rules.
And the reason for the extremely rigorous rules is so that we don’t have to analyze EXIF data and do bit by bit comparison and do highly involved technical analysis to determine whether in fact the photo file itself has been altered. If it is presented on the original media, as it came out of the camera, alteration is much more difficult than if it is presented after having been copied from one medium under one OS to another medium under another OS.
You may be correct that a simple digital copy from one medium to another does not alter the contents of the file, if the copy is made by standard means and in good faith. We do not presume that the copy is made by standard means and in good faith. The intent of the rules is to reduce the risk (a risk that can only be reduced, not eliminated) that the copy is NOT made by standard means or NOT in good faith, but instead that the image has been subjected to an inadvertent or deceptive alteration during the transfer.
A digital duplicate may be admissible as an original under the Rules of Evidence (and I have recently written a long brief and argued that point in a hearing at some length) but under the TeamStrange Uniform Rules, it’s not.
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