Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Hawk eye

Hawk eye




This image barely meets the size requirements (if it even does..), however, it is illustrative and stunning. I think more could be done with it than has been done, but I am no expert in birds, hawks, or such. My eye for artifacts is not very good, but while there appears to be some in the iris, the image overall is very clear and I haven't seen many macro images of the sort on Wikipedia or elsewhere. If the following, from Hawk, can be ascertained to be true for Buteos as well, it would make a better caption than the current one:
 * Hawks are believed to have vision as good as 20/2, about eight times more acute than humans with good eyesight. This is because of many photoreceptors in the retina (Up to 1,000,000 per square mm, against 200,000 for humans), a very high number of nerves connecting the receptors to the brain, a second set of eye muscles not found in other animals, and an indented fovea which magnifies the central part of the visual field.

Used on Created by Steve Jurvetson
 * Eye
 * Red-tailed Hawk
 * Nominate and support. - Keitei (talk) 17:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Support: great image Sotakeit 18:06, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose. Nice, but too small. -- Pharaoh Hound  (talk)  18:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose The iris itself, which is the apparent subject, doesn’t seem to be in focus. At the large size, the detail in the reflections becomes distracting. Spyforthemoon 18:49, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Poor quality and doesn't really illustrate the concept of high acuity as there is nothing particularly special about the eye of hawk in this view. Diliff  | (Talk)   (Contribs) 19:46, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I find the reflections very distracting. Stephen Turner (Talk) 20:24, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose - too small, grainy at full resolution and the reflections are very distracting. -- Countdown Crispy  (  ? 20:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose The reflection is too distracting, shame because the image is so good otherwise. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 00:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * If someone were feeling ambitious, they could blur the reflection and then reconstruct the iris's underlying texture. But that's a bit of work, and the resolution isn't so high.  --Interiot 03:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose, quality issues. - Mailer Diablo 19:11, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose. It's a shame about the reflection. -- Tewy  00:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Question What is the white stain in the right part of the eye? Doesn't look like a reflection. Alvesgaspar 20:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It looks like the reflection of a coffee cup lid. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 22:59, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Support If someone could dampen the reflections and make the eye look a bit clearer, it would be perfect. Otherwise, it definitely deserves featured status. Ilikefood 01:34, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Raven4x4x 07:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)