Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Fulmer Falls Closeup 3000px.jpg

Fulmer Falls

 * Reason:Beautiful waterfall picture, featured at Commons. Pretty much dominates its article page. Admittedly slight loss of quality at 100% zoom.
 * Articles this image appears in:Fulmer Falls
 * Creator:User:Ram-Man


 * Support as nominator &mdash;  C e n t y   23:48, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak support The motion-blurred tree is really distracting. The water is blown to white in places, but I guess that's unavoidable in places. Looks okay overall.--HereToHelp 02:00, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Let me copy what I wrote on the commons: "...Any darker and you lose the detail in the darker regions. I even had ideal lighting to eliminate even more contrasty lighting: taken in the evening near sunset on an overcast day....I've made large prints of this waterfall and the white water looks more than natural in this case. The water of the falls already spans ~65% of the image's tonal range." Can't argue about the blurred branch other than to say that it isn't where the eye is drawn into the image and people I've showed the print to haven't notice, FWIW. -- RM 03:43, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Support as author -- RM 03:43, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak Support. I can sympathise about blown highlights in waterfall photos as it is very tricky to retain the whole luminance range, particularly when the surrounds are dark. My FP isn't any better in that regard. That said, it is very soft at full size and has a big square white hot pixel near the bottom of the falls that should be removed. Diliff  | (Talk)   (Contribs) 08:02, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Support - Minus the hot pixel. I think the softness at full size is a function of the camera (probably the lens) rather than anything else; there're also some sharpening lines around the rocks at the bottom of the falls, which are probably from in-camera sharpening. At near-screen-filling size on my 19" monitor it looks pretty good and I think any more sharpness with that kit would require mosaicing... don't think that'd come off very well with a moving subject like this. Nice shot, Ram-Man. --YFB ¿  22:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Stitching waterfalls usually works quite well - Eg this and this. Moving branches might cause slightly more problems though. Diliff  | (Talk)   (Contribs) 17:31, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I do not have the technical skill and/or time and/or software to perform stitching like you do, so I take normal pictures with the equipment that I have. I've run into moving branches issues when I tried to do a few HDR images. Same basic issue. -- RM 04:39, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * It can be a little time consuming to stitch panoramas but when you're putting the effort into a photo that you want to consider a keeper, isn't it worth a bit of time to maximise the quality? As for software, there are freeware panorama stitching programs out there, and as for equipment, why did you use the Coolpix 8700 instead of the D50 or D200? The difference in image quality is enormous. Diliff  | (Talk)   (Contribs) 18:17, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I take so many pictures that processing them in the computer becomes a severe bottleneck. Taking the time to make 1 picture perfect in post-processing means a dozen or so more that may never get uploaded that will mostly be placed in actual articles (depends if the species article exists and if I make it).  I have a few panoramas, but the photoshop panorama function doesn't always work too well.  I'd be happy to let anyone take a stab at doing a better job at it.  I do not own a D200 otherwise I would have used that.  Since I have a D50 and 8700, there are a few reasons that I made the choice.  If you test chart the 6MP D50 and the 8MP 8700, it has a little more real spatial resolution.  I make poster size prints often, and the 6MP doesn't stretch as well as the 8MP does in real prints.  It has different control of contrast and other aspects, but it should show more detail.  The other reason is ISO.  The 8700 has 50 ISO, the D50 only 200 ISO.  I wanted the slow shutter speed for the water blur, so the two stops difference is a big deal.  The third reason has to do with depth of field.  It's my understanding that if you keep the field of view constant, the DoF is constant, but the distribution is not.  Thus, the wider focal length of the 8700 keeps the foreground sharper than the D50 would for the same field of view.  Images from my 8700 just look sharper.  That said, I don't post-process my images as much as most people do, so they don't look as good for FPs, since I don't want to make the post-processing decisions for the users who may one day use the image for any purpose.  The fact that this image has done so well without anything but simple post-processing is a testament to the quality of the source image.  The fourth reason is noise.  For some reason, the 8700's sensor has remarkably low noise at ISO 50 for long exposures.  The fifth reason is that the 8700 has 5-step bracketing, the D50 only 3-steps. The sixth reason is mirror shake.  The D50 at this shutter speed would suffer from blur due to the mirror slaming, since it doesn't have mirror lockup.  The 8700 has no mirror, so it will be sharper. Lastly, it's soft because of the slight camera shake due to the breeze. -- RM 20:24, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I see your reasoning but I don't agree with most of it. The D50 may have only ISO200 but its lenses will stop down FAR more than the CP8700 can. This results in longer length exposures and has the added benefit of increasing DOF to probably similar levels to the 8700. As for noise, I think you would find that the D50 at ISO400 has less noise than the 8700 at ISO50. Certainly the noise levels aren't particularly good in this image. Not enough to ruin the photo but hardly what I would consider clean. I'm also not convinced that the 8700 has more detail than the D50. Sure, it has more pixels but obviously that doesn't translate into real detail. I find the detail of just about every non DSLR camera has a sort of wishy washy look. The edge sharpness is usually not too bad, but the texture is diluted - probably from internal noise reduction algorithms. Finally, getting back to your reasoning that you take too many photos to spend time post-processing them.. well fair enough, but I just feel that taking many average quality photos is less rewarding than nailing a couple of photos and spending the time to make sure they're looking as good as they could be. I think you would find that the absolute majority of people who use photos on Wikipedia don't take much time to post-process existing images. In any case, I'm an advocate of taking photos in RAW format for the reason that there is so much more control over the photos. Sure, most of your images probably turn out just fine, but to have proper control over white balance, exposure and curves is something that cannot be matched by even the smartest camera. For example, you probably would have had a much better shot at saving the whites from clipping in this shot with a D50 and RAW. Don't get me wrong though - I'm not saying your photography or this image is in any way a bad photo, I just take issue with some of the points you raise. ;-) Diliff  | (Talk)   (Contribs) 21:48, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, and your commons page says you have a D200. Thats where I got that impression from. Diliff  | (Talk)   (Contribs) 22:39, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I borrow a D200 on occasion when I can, that's why. I don't have it most of the time.  I've taken a lot of pictures with my D50 and 8700, often taking a shot from each on a photo shoot (always using a tripod).  On long exposures, they both look very similar to my eyes (in terms of noise).  I prefer the finer-grain noise produced by the 8700, all else being equal. I'll take the extra ~200 lines of resolution that the 8700 has, which I've seen comparing them side by side.  The D50 smokes the 8700 whenever there is harsh contrast, but that doesn't apply to this scene which had great lighting.  See here and here under "Resolution/Sharpness".  You may disagree, but my eyes tell me what they tell me.  You're probably right that stopping down will make both cameras essentially the same in terms of DoF and shutter speed (f/5.5 @ ISO 50 on the 8700 should be equal exposure to f/22 @ ISO 200 on the SLR)  I don't like RAW because it slows me down on the photo shoots and on the computer.  I use it occasionally. -- RM 23:25, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Per Yummifruitbat -- St.daniel Talk 23:42, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|15px]] Support Very Nice picture Booksworm Talk to me! Vote! Vote!  10:56, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * SupportAmazing photograph- moving water produces really interesting effect. If a particular photo of the two is needed I vote for version 1.  E l e c t r i c m o o s e - Electrifying talk 18:53, 5 May 2006 16:03, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 *  Weak oppose, I didn't notice the blown highlights in the fall until I read Diliff's comment, so that doesn't bother me... nor did I notice the hot pixel (which does bother me). It is not very sharp full size or even when I scaled it to 1500px wide.  The motion blur on the leaves to the left also bothered me.  Since this most likely will become a featured picture I highly recommend filling in the hot pixel with a less jarring color and marking it retouched. gren グレン 14:03, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose The entire image is a bit muddy my guess is from camera shake or possibly the very wide focal length. whatever the reason the sharpness is too lacking in my eyes. -Fcb981 04:34, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose The fall is greatly overexposed.--Mbz1 23:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)Mbz1
 * I'm not sure I'd say that it is greatly overexposed. The luminance of the falls covers a substantial range over the 255 discrete levels (approximately 65%).  At some point, the limitations of the media have to be considered. -- RM 12:18, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * True, but what actual dynamic range that 65% covers depends on the contrast settings on the camera just as much as the limitations of the media. Shooting with a DSLR and RAW would almost definitely have improved your ability to recover blown highlights. Diliff  | (Talk)   (Contribs) 13:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Recoverable at what expense? More DR in extreme highlights = Less DR elsewhere (and different detail/contrast levels). Why is it important? The water has little detail: people don't notice the highlights unless they're looking for it. Why sacrifice already low contrast in other areas to dedicate more to the water? You could process the highlights and shadows differently from RAW (like the Shadow/Highlight adjustment in photoshop), but this takes time and isn't "honest" since it changes relative levels of parts of the image so it doesn't match reality. It's personal preference: Where do we want the contrast and how much manipulation is ok? -- RM 18:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Raven4x4x 08:17, 2 June 2007 (UTC)