Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Grampians Fortress

The Fortress, Grampians National Park[edit]

A panoramic view of part of the Western end of the Grampians National Park, Australia. The large rock formation to the right is known as The Fortress. The name of the central formation is unknown.

Reason: This panorama came out nicely. There are interesting things to look at (specific rock formations, rather than just "countryside"), and just the right amount of foreground to keep things in scale. The major defect in the image is that the fortress is not really in prime position. Perhaps someone knows the name of the other formation? The original image is 8400 pixels wide, but that seemed excessive here.
Articles this image appears in: Grampians National Park
Creator: Stevage

A higher resolution (8400 vs 3300), less compressed (90% vs 70%), unprocessed (softer shadows) version. Hopefully someone can adjust the levels, contrast etc better than I can :)

Support as nominator — Stevage 04:40, 11 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
question - I like the image, but do you have a slightly less compressed version? 600kB for a 3MP image is pretty tiny, and I can see a lot of jpeg artifacts along the edge of the rocks and the sky? Debivort 05:39, 11 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral too much of the image is in shadow, also this version is too lossy. -- drumguy8800 C T 06:48, 11 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral for now per Drumguy8800. Too much shadow, artifacts, and the sky is almost blown at the left-most horizon. The shadows might be too much to overcome, but if a larger, less compressed version is made available (always keep the unedited original!) I'll take another look at it.--Here T oHelp 23:25, 11 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose artifacts are pretty heavy. -Fcb981 05:03, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Support full version Better -Fcb981 01:10, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support full version, oppose small version I like the full version just the way it is; less shadow, tons more detail, still a few jpeg artifacts, but tolerable for me. Some images just cannot be improved by editing. J Are you green? 16:02, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Another poorly-lit submission, with ugly shadows and burned-out highlights. Worse, the various frames seem to have been shot at different times of day, such that the RHS third is lit from the right/overhead, while the rest of the scene has the sun to the extreme left, making it uncomfortable and unconvincing to look at. The fact that this adversely affects the subject - the Fortress itself looks flat and marginalised even more than it might - is the real killer. There are other faults and flaws but the lighting is more than enough for me. mikaul^talk 16:31, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But as a wide angle panorama - the light on the left will appear to come from a different angle than the light on the right. Inevitable in all wide panos. Debivort 20:29, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a question of camera angle, the sun is in a different place. Look closer at the two main rock formations in the center: the large (nameless) one has some dark, shadowy detail on it's near-vertical face, while the Fortress is lit almost straight on, with no shadows in the (very similar) vertical faces. This is over about 5 degrees! More obviously, the left of the scene is clearly side-lit, while the right is lit from above; couldn't possibly be the same time of day. Or maybe I've had a glass too much wine... mikaul^talk 22:45, 13 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hehe. Honestly? Maybe it's the wine - the way I see it, on the left the rocks are shaded on their right side, on the left they are shaded on their right. If I had to guess, I would say the pano spans about 90°, throw in a 5-10° CCW rotation on the left outcrop compared to the right one, and their phase angles are off by about 30° which seems totally consistent with the shading. Moreover, if the images were taken at significantly different times of day - the color matching and stitching was done remarkably well. Debivort 04:33, 14 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And on the left the rocks are shaded on their right side, yup, its the wine ;-). No seriously, why would anyone stake out a day at the same spot to shoot images for a single pano? Of course the pohotographer rotated around to shoot the succesive frames and that means the direction of the sun relative to his viewline changed. This can be seen in every wide angle pano. In many it's just not that obvious. --Dschwen 06:29, 14 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would take a pretty interesting subject to make me want to return 4 times to exactly the same spot, just to achieve an unpleasant effect. I've thought of doing that, taking shots at dawn, midday, dusk and sunset, but I would make do so to get an interesting effect, like having two suns or something. If the lighting looks odd, it's just because of the wide angle - you often end up almost looking into the sun at one end, and looking away from the sun at the other end. And also because on the camera I used, you can't lock the exposure settings without also locking the focus. Incidentally, which "burned out highlights" do you see? The little patches of white rock in the sun? Are they really blown? I don't have access to software atm to tell. Stevage 06:43, 14 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Only because the sun is right overhead/behind the camera in some places, so to get any shadow detail at all they almost have to blow. For me, dramatic scenes like this are all but mis-represented if they aren't shot at the very best time of day, and they don't really get to be great photographs unless there's "something else" happening at the time of the capture, even if that only amounts to a nice cloud formation in the sky. This just seems a rather inopportune and not very well considered capture overall. Sorry! Oh, and I'm quite happy to accept the "shadows" explanation, which do seem more feasible in the <ahem> sober light of day.. mikaul^talk 22:50, 14 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, not bad comments, thanks for the point of view. I do have another panorama from a similar area which I took at dawn. You can see less of the landscape, but it's aesthetically more interesting so I might upload it. This picture here was taken during a hike, so I didn't have a huge amount of time to get the best possible composition, lighting etc. But compared to several others I took during the hike, the landscape itself is interesting. The problem with many landscape panoramas is there are no major features of interest, leaving the whole thing a bit flat. Even if it was breathtaking to be there, the composition comes out dull. Stevage 08:44, 18 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Oppose The camera is focused on the closer rock, but the photo is mostly illustrating the more distant trees, which are slighly noisy and out of focus. SquareShot97 21:00, 21 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted (less than four support votes despite extra week). MER-C 08:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]