Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/CH-53E Helo-cast

CH-53E Sea Stallion conducting a helo-cast
I regularly peruse http://www.navy.mil/view_photos_top.asp and came across this image. Once in a while, navy.mil comes up with a beautiful, high-quality, illustrative photograph. I think this is one of them. When I found the image, I went to the CH-53E Super Stallion article and found the images there to be lacking the action/unfolding drama (if only a training evolution) this image implies. I also found there to be no correlating Commons category (and thus created one). The article on the helicopter refers to it having the nickname "Hurricane Maker". I think this photograph helps visually depict how this helicopter picked up the nickname.

I did some color balancing on the image, but found this original version to be better than the color balanced version (which was really just slightly different anyways). I was originally thinking this image could not qualify due to it being only 800 pixes wide (per criteria) but the image is 1200 pixels high, so it clears that hurdle. I did not perform any jpeg compressions on the original; what you see is an exact copy of the source. I've had two other images receive FP status (1,2), but this is my first nomination. I hope you enjoy.


 * Nominate and support--Durin 15:58, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose - The quality of the image is not that good (Jpeg artifacts), and it is too tightly cropped. I also find the sea in the foreground distracting.--Diniz 20:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: The image was not compressed with jpeg. What you are perceiving as jpeg artifacts are possibly effects of sea spray surrounding the helicopter. The sea in the front is important to the image to show what the helicopter does to it, in support of the helicopter having the nickname "hurricane maker". This is why I did not crop it down. --Durin 20:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Since the source file is a .jpg, it was almost assuredly made with some jpeg compression. There might be artifacts in the original navy source. Debivort 22:50, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The cropping remark seems to have been misunderstood as well. Too much cropping, not needs more cropping ;-) --Dschwen 23:26, 20 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Oppose My hate is sloping pics and this one's sloping (look at the sea "horizon" and the sand against the cliffs). Most people probably wouldn't care about a minor slope but I do - Adrian Pingstone 23:34, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
 * With occaisonal lapses: Featured picture candidates/Radcliffe Camera, Oxford :-) --Fir0002 00:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Withdrawn: I'm rather surprised the standards here are so high. This picture is rather unusual, is of high quality, and depicts aspects of the helicopter not depicted by any other image. What others are seeing as artifacts is spray from the helicopter. So apparently what the helicopter is doing, by way of being itself, utterly precludes the possibility of this image or any similar image from being a featured picture. Such an image like this, by definition of the nature of it will not be crystal-clear-utterly-sharp. It can't be. I'm also surprised at the cropping comments. The only thing cropped out is the tips of the rotor blades. Come out any further, and the helicopter is less and less the main part of the picture, and the swimmer dropping from the helicopter becomes less apparent. That would detract from the image, not enhance it. C'est la vie. It's an awesome image and it's on the article, and that's all the good it need do for the encyclopedia. If getting a picture to FP status is this arduous, it just isn't worth the effort of trying. I've wasted my time nominating it. *shrug* --Durin 01:49, 21 November 2006 (UTC)