Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/StSophiaChurch-Sofia-10.jpg

Hagia Sophia Church, Sofia (interior)
Voting period ends on 5 Feb 2011 at 14:42:10 (UTC)
 * Reason:A rare quality photo of the interior of the old basilica which gave its name to the capital of Bulgaria. The church is one of the most valuable pieces of Early Christian architecture in Europe.
 * Articles in which this image appears:Hagia Sophia Church (Sofia)
 * FP category for this image:Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Places/Interiors
 * Creator:MrPanyGoff


 * Support as nominator --MrPanyGoff (talk) 14:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Support personally can't see any reason to not support... Looks technically fine to me and the darkness of the shot reflects the solomn(?) nature of the setting... gaz hiley .co.uk  15:25, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I dunno, I would have preferred more lighting in the foreground. That big piece of furniture is just black on the side facing us. Picture seems very red as well, but that could just be how it is there. Matthewedwards : Chat  04:10, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose:The picture does appear pretty murky at first glance, but perhaps that's the best you can do without setting up special lights. What I'm really not getting is the EV here, it's basically a hallway with arches so not really something to inspire interest in the subject. The other picture in the article is better, imo.--RDBury (talk) 15:00, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * comment: It is not "a hallway". It is the nave. Rmhermen (talk) 17:35, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think EV would be higher if the article were a bit more informative. It would be nice to know more about the architectural techniques that we're seeing here, including how much of this is original and how much reconstructed.  For example, the brickwork looks significantly different to me than the early churches I've seen in Italy, but I don't know enough about it to know whether those differences are significant. Chick Bowen 01:26, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: The image is not so dark when you open it from the thumbnail. This is one of the most beautifully and informatively reconstructed temples of this kind which you can see at all. Furthermore, it is almost imposible anyone to obtain photo of the interior with such a quality without explicit permission from the diocese and this makes the image itself extremely valuable. Since you mention some other picture in the article I would say that, in general, the exterior photos are something different and cannot be compared with the interior ones. If the arches are not so impressive to you RDBury this not define the evaluation of the image. For instance, a standart fragment from the elevation of the Empire State Building is not impresive at all but doesn't an image of the building deserve FP status... The brickwork in Italian churches is supposedly in Roman style while this is the Byzantine one.--MrPanyGoff (talk) 20:24, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Support I think the EV is quite good. The picture is sharp and looks quite good at full size. I would have liked more dynamic range, but given the difficulty of obtaining such a photo, it's fine. Notice that they have some speakers and fluorescent light bulbs on the walls. I wonder why those lights weren't turned on? The only technical deficiency in the image is the purple lens flares arranged in an ellipse around the altar. I spent some time staring at those until I realized they were lens flares. I'd really like someone to remove these lens flares. Purpy Pupple (talk) 00:20, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Conditional support, so long as the purple lens flares are fixed. I think the photo does well to capture the interior of the church. The detail is remarkable for such a low-light situation. While it's admittedly not exactly striking, it's a solid, encyclopedic image of great illustrative quality. The article does need an expansion, and I might just go about doing this as soon as I have enough free time.  — Toдor Boжinov — 20:00, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The purple lens flares are fixed but I don't know how to proceed with the retouched version. Since this photo obtained QI and VI status then obviously, I cannot upload the retouched one over this image. After all, is this correction so necessary? I believe it won't affect the A3 format print so much. --MrPanyGoff (talk) 09:57, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Please reupload the corrected image as an alt, like in other nominations. Yes, me and Purpy Pupple clearly believe the correction is necessary.  — Toдor Boжinov — 13:45, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Support The picture seems to be very clear, and visually useful. I can zoom in on it and see lots of detail.  The lighting is slightly dark, although I don't know if you can expect much from the location.  You can see in the picture that there is insufficient lighting, so I think that the darkness isn't that derogatory.  Like someone said, when you see the thumbnail it doesn't look so dark.   It would be nice if you could brighten it somehow. You might want to show it in a bigger format on the page to help with the lighting.  Overall, I think it's a good image that is Featured Picture class. --Nanoman657 12:00 AM (UTC), Jan 31
 * Support - Looks worthy too me. --Kumioko (talk) 15:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose I have to go against the mob here, but although the exposure and stuff is pretty damn good for such difficult conditions, I find the composition awful. To me, it looks like it's tilted to the left, the chandeliers aren't centred, and the foreground is boring to the point of distracting. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 12:48, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Compare to Featured picture candidates/delist/Old saint pauls 2.jpg, nominated for delist, because of compostion (plus other stuff), when its comp is much nicer than this one's. Aaadddaaammm (talk) 12:52, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment Personally, I think the picture is better than Old Saint Paul's. The sharpness is better than the St. Paul's, which reveals a lot more detail. St. Paul's picture is also pretty small, whereas most of the featured pictures I've seen are usually pretty big, around the size of this one.  I still think it's a pretty good candidate for featured class.-Nanoman657 14:54, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

--Makeemlighter (talk) 05:24, 9 February 2011 (UTC)