Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:Brown Treecreeper.jpg

Brown Treecreeper[edit]

Reason: High quality image of an interesting Australian bird
Articles this image appears in: Brown Treecreeper
Creator: Fir0002

Support as nominator --Fir0002 02:40, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose original, weak oppose edit Many minor problems: lack of sharpness, noise, sharpening artifacts, harsh lighting, unbalanced cropping. I could probably forgive any two of those, but all together, it's a no-go for me. Thegreenj 04:43, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Attempted some denoising but refer to my comments below --Fir0002 05:28, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - The edit is certainly better. I'm not sure I agree with your reasoning on why subjects like this should get more leeway because of equipment restrictions, though. The FP standard is set with a heavy emphasis on technical merit and much less on pure photographic. That alone is enough to make FP, to some degree, "elitist"; technical merit relies on the photographers proficiency and, more importantly, the equipment's limits, and it definitely shows. Compared to, say, Commons FP, which has a relatively lower technical standard and a relatively higher artistic standard, the proportion of FPs taken on SLRs to P&Ss is lower than here. With the WP standard, the mere existance of high technical possibility is enough; that, for example, Mdf can take such technically pristine photos for WP is enough to set a bar for FP, even if his equipment is, to say the least, inaccessable to most. But I digress... basically, this is a good photo that doesn't quite reach the (admittedly extreme) FP technical standard. Thegreenj 04:53, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Thegreenj unforunately. I suspect you didn't get close enough to get a really high quality image, unfortunately doing so is difficult. Fill flash would have been of benefit for this one too. It is an easy valued picture though. Noodle snacks (talk) 13:35, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Yeah it was impossible to get any closer and this is pretty much a 1:1 crop. I tried with the 400 + 1.4TC but the gain in size (and the ability to downsample) was minimal and didn't offset the reduced resolution with the TC. But while I respect your opinion I would say that ramping the technical requirements up on bird shots like this is only going to make FPC ever more "elitist" simply because of the cost of equipment you would need to get any better. I mean should you expect the same flawless sharpness for a stationary and easily accessible flower as for a wild bird? --Fir0002 05:28, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Nope, not at all, that's why I don't bother nominating or even uploading many of my own bird images. By volume I produce more than flowers etc by far. I know exactly how frustrating not getting close enough is though. By some agreement the technical requirements for wild birds like this could be loosened, but I have had a few of my own nominations denied for very similar reasons (ultimately not close enough). In other news I spotted a Shining Bronze Cuckoo the other day, they are pretty rare down here. I occasionally use the TC with the 400, but you need a bucket load of light, to stop down and a tripod to get any significant gain in detail. Noodle snacks (talk) 05:43, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support--Avala (talk) 00:29, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I find this image vastly superior to the previous one by Fir0002 which was approved. I suspect this bird is also much less common and/or harder to photograph, adding to the 'value' component being discussed on commons right now. Tomfriedel (talk) 04:44, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Do you mean Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/File:White-winged Chough nov07.jpg? It didn't successfully pass it's nomination if so. Noodle snacks (talk) 05:06, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - I was referring to "Yellow-faced Honeyeater nov07.jpg". The treecreeper photo has reasonably sharp eye/head and feet pixels and is lit more or less from the front. The featured picture in my opinion had none of those features. Ok, someone below is making the exact same point. Tomfriedel (talk) 03:39, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - Being lit from the front isn't a feature in my book. Most of the sharpness in this image comes from (over) sharpening, not actual detail in my view. Noodle snacks (talk) 05:00, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support IMO this picture is better than the one recently promoted Muhammad(talk) 20:20, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- How so? The treecreeper is blurrier and noisier, besides lacking the nice backlighting of the honeyeater. Thegreenj 22:31, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - This has better details of the head and does not contain any twigs to distratct from the subjects. I also find the colours in this one more pleasing. Muhammad(talk) 05:19, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support I fail at my attempts of understanding how the minimal (and they are minimal - the noise is now gone; the crop to isn't a real issue as the empty space that frames the bird keeps it in a pretty balanced center point; and the sharpness is a moot point - what would be gained, in terms of encyclopedic value (and that's supposed to be the point of FP, yes? To ensure that the maximum encyclopedic value is added to whatever article the image resides in by maximizing the technical qualities it possesses to the extent that they affect this value) by being able to count each separate filament in the birds feathers? At the end of the day, this is a fairly high quality image, in that it meets the necessary technical bar to provide maximum value for the encyclopedia, and indeed provides great value to the project in that it quite clearly demonstrates what a Brown Treecreeper is - a position not taken by any other image and one that is essential for an article with such a visual nature. Mad Tinman _T _C 21:32, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Thegreenj. To me, the lighting is what really hurts it. Makeemlighter (talk) 05:18, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No Consensus --Noodle snacks (talk) 01:31, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]