Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Melbourne aerial panorama

Melbourne aerial panorama

 * Reason:Probably the most complete view possible of the Melbourne skyline (short of hiring a helicopter), taken from the observation deck of the Rialto Towers. Sunny and clear conditions make visibility excellent. It replaces this image in the Melbourne article and this image in the Rialto Towers article.
 * Articles this image appears in:Melbourne, Rialto Towers and Hoddle Grid
 * Creator:User:Diliff


 * Support as nominator --Diliff  | (Talk)   (Contribs) 07:25, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Support great image, looks near perfect technically and illustrates downtown Melbourne very well, lots of great detail. --Leivick (talk) 08:09, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. Detail is great, but I find the distortion in the lower parts of the image very off-putting and not really representative of reality - the river doesn't curve like that, the grid doesn't curve like that... Is there anyway to reprocess without this problem? It's possibly due to a big variation in the vertical orientation of the camera as you took the photos? I'd actually prefer a far smaller field of view if it meant a more realistic representation of the location. --jjron (talk) 14:28, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Well you're right, it is simply the fact that you're practically looking straight down at the bottom. Straight lines and extreme wide angle images with ~180 degrees or above horizontal projection are simply mutually exclusive and something has got to give, so not much can really be done about it. It is perfectly representative of reality if you can visualise the projection. ;-) Well ok, there is one thing that I can do. Equirectangular projection minimises the perception of extreme projection by compressing the image vertically. In other words, the further the image deviates from the horizon vertically, the more compressed it is. I originally stitched it with cylindrical projection, which doesn't do this, as I thought it was actually a good thing that you appear to be able to 'look straight down', but you may prefer the equirectangular version, which I have just uploaded and placed alongside the original. Does this alleviate your issues? If not, I don't think there is anything that can be done, short of cropping out the bottom of it (and I don't think we should, personally, as we'd lose valuable detail). I do think that most viewers would be clever enough to appreciate that the city streets don't really curve like that though. All wide panoramas to some extent exhibit this issue. Diliff   | (Talk)   (Contribs) 15:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Since the image is on Commons just add to the page which will just give a disclaimer much like I've done to Image:Pomingalarna Reserve Panorama.jpg. Bidgee (talk) 10:24, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I just think that maybe this image is trying to do too much. For example, if we take looking east down the Collins St/Flinders St block as pretty much 'straight ahead' here, the Crown Towers (the tall oval building at far right for non-locals) is about 135° behind you (correct me if get this wrong). And the Yarra River that does a right angle turn at the right of this image in reality goes pretty much straight ahead. I've mentioned before that I don't like 360° panos, and it's largely for the same reason as this - they just seem to be doing too much and end up leading to confusion rather than clarity, thus costing EV. I may be particularly unimaginative, but I just struggle to (as you say) 'visualise the projection' on these things. Maybe a crop would help, say to the right of the Eureka Tower and a similar amount off the left, and a bit off the bottom. I know it would lead to a greatly reduced scope of view and would sadly lose some good distant info, and that's maybe not what you want, but I think it would be more comprehensible on encyclopaedic grounds. --jjron (talk) 17:46, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Support Original well done. —αἰτίας •'discussion'• 20:21, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. The cylindrical projection looks better at full size but it looks odd at any thumbnail resolution, stretching the buildings vertically. (including resolutions typical for the image page), my preference would be for the rectilinear. I think there is a levelling problem with both images though, all the verticals on the buildings lean to the right. Noodle snacks (talk) 05:54, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Rectilinear is impossible at or beyond 180, and impractical anywhere close to it. Thegreenj 21:55, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Apologies, I was half asleep, equirectangular Noodle snacks (talk) 00:40, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

--Noodle snacks (talk) 22:49, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Support I guess technically there's not much you can do about the bending, but as jjron mentioned I'd have preferred some cropping (particularly on the RHS to avoid the bending of the Yarra) at the expense of detail/scope. Nice day for it! I'm really interested too on your experience at the Rialto, as it's a venue I've been planning to visit for years - how good was it photographically? Eg were the windows clean etc? I'm also planning a ride on this when it opens --Fir0002 22:54, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It's a good building but the day I was there the windows were a bit dirty but it has open area on two of it's corners (IIRC). Bidgee (talk) 10:24, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I agree with Bidgee, the windows were quite dirty. It wasn't a problem though as you don't need to stop down as DOF isn't really an issue at infinity focus. As Bidgee said, there are two open areas (facing east, the direction this was shot from, and also west towards the docklands) with bars that you can shoot through (makes it slightly difficult to shoot through them at an angle though as they're only just wide enough for big lenses, I could just squeeze the 24-105mm and 17-40mm through and turn them enough to shoot this 180 degree pano). I tried to do a 360 degree pano but it really didn't work as there was too much parallax error, not to mention that I found that unless I shot literally against the glass, I got a bit of reflection/refraction in the glass. That was fine for a single shot but you simply couldn't stitch multiple images properly. Worth a visit, definitely (they let you re-enter so you can shoot both daytime and evening on the same ticket, although I didn't have time to do that unfortunately), but not ideal shooting conditions. Diliff  | (Talk)   (Contribs) 11:21, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Fir, it could be worth trying the Eureka Towers. Since you're looking from across the Yarra you get a better view looking north right across the city centre from a quite different angle and you're higher up, and also fairly good photo ops across to the east and south-east of the city. Something like this may work OK from there if you can get the camera right. Negatives - it's more expensive, the outside area is, I'd say, even more limited than this (there's only one out on the eastern side with a bit of a northerly aspect, and if I remember correctly it's fully caged so you have to shoot through the 'grid' rather than poking the lens thru), and from inside the windows are heavily tinted so it's tricky to shoot thru them, much as Diliff mentions for the Rialto. It's not great for photography, but could be worth trying if you want something different. --jjron (talk) 18:03, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Support Original: The alternative makes the buildings too small, also, I don't really like the low level buildings/houses in the background, but if you crop it, you would lose the sky. – Jerry  teps  00:50, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Support Original: Been up there and know how hard it can be and not much can be done to fix it (Unless you spend some time in Photoshop). Bidgee (talk) 10:24, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Support Alternative 1 looks much better as thumb and at full res. —Krm500 (Communicate!) 01:45, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Support both are fine.--Avala (talk) 23:58, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Support Original: The alt-1 shows unusually small building sizes. Gr8 work! -- GP Pande  13:55, 17 December 2008 (UTC)