Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Urban Explorer Hobart CA Edit.jpg

Urban Explorer Hobart

 * Reason:Seems to meet the technical standard, high resolution, free license, accurate, adds value to an article (urban exploration) and clearly illustrates the subject. Main technical problem is some blowout in the top left of the image which has been treated with image editing software. If this is problematic a scaled version could be used which would still meet resolution requirements.
 * Articles this image appears in:Urban_exploration
 * Creator:Noodle snacks


 * Support as nominator --Noodle snacks (talk) 11:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment This looks like a mine field. Noodle snacks is one of two recent main contributors to the article, the first half of which is entirely unreferenced and possibly unverifiable. It's not clear to me how "draining" can redirect to "urban exploration". It makes me think of lettuce. Noodle snacks may also be the person shown in the picture, which for me raises further questions over the motivation behind this nomination. As for the picture itself, it is speckled with noise and artefacts, with some hint that the original image may have been severely underexposed, with retouching to crank up the brightness to the max. Perhaps what I'm looking at are the previously blown white areas, but I also find some evidence of this in center bottom of image. Once the picture is cropped to avoid these areas, and denoised, it may not have much merit as an FPC. What we'd be left with is a man standing in a sewer. If the figure wasn't in the image, I might say that it's a reasonable illustration of graffiti, although not an FP in my eyes. I'd say that any "wow" that the thumbnail may have, but the full size image lacks, is in large part due to the graffiti. I'm going to raise some POV concerns about the article on its talk page. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 12:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thought I might mention that a more careful examination of the edit history would reveal I haven't done any significant editing to the text of the urban exploration article. Noodle snacks (talk) 13:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Oppose-Shadow in top right, you can barely see the man in the drain. Definitely not an FP. ~ Me ldshal  42  20:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC) Oppose I would have to agree with the above persons comments. First of all the image lacks wow factor. Then we have blown out grainy sections and the man in the drain cannot be seen quite clearly. There is nothing impressive at all with the content. It is speckled with noise, it also looks as though it has been brightened to make up for under exposure. This image was uploaded twice, the first version being darker than the other. I say nay . Adam (talk) (talk) 00:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Support Thumbnail piqued my interest, had to check article... ;-) Slight grainyness doesn't matter, fits the subject. --Janke | Talk 12:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose Technical problems: blown out sections, very grainy. Clegs (talk) 18:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose It's got a lot of noise on and to the left of the person in the picture. There are jpeg artifacts to the left of that, and the railings have fringing issues too. It's a great snapshot, and retaken with a good camera, a tripod and long exposure it would look amazing. Easily reproducible however, hence the oppose. bad_germ 21:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose I agree with the other comments above. The image is a little to grainy and a bit underexposed.  Plus I detect a little too much highlighting and contrasting.  The are I am highlighting as a slight problematic area is that spray painted face by the bars.  It has a too artificial quality to it (Sorry if I don't use more technical terms!).  Brothejr (talk) 00:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It was taken with a tripod, longish exposure (0.8) seconds, remote shutter release and an EOS 400D/Digital Rebel XTi. I am not sure what the source of the graininess is. The blowout was unfortunate, The brightness levels in the shot varied from pitch black to quite bright sunlight, a balance is difficult to find. The picture could benefit from HDR processing if recreated (and a still subject was found). The second upload was not darker than the other, the difference was some processing to reduce some visible fringing in the top left quadrant, it is attached now. The technical problems would probably be hidden at 50% size, but then the subject is too small to be seen clearly. I used some fill flash to even out the light in the scene, a pure long exposure would have either blown out in the middle or left the edges very dark. I think the artificial looking face referred to by brotherjr is most likely the result of the flash reflection. Silver or White spray paint makes a very good flash reflector. The darkness in the top right is mostly because that is what the natural light is like at that location. If the shot was recreated at a later date I suspect that a flash that could be aimed towards the right hand side would improve the lighting quite a bit (but I don't own one). It might also be wise to pick an overcast day (to soften the light through the grill). I might try again one day If i ever get an after market flash, however the subject of the photograph in that case would have to be someone I know (it'd be unlikely to meet someone down there at that spot who doesn't mind being photographed), but i don't see that happening for a long while at any rate. Noodle snacks (talk) 03:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Why not try taking the picture at night. You could use more time exposure, use a flash and you could use torches or candles as an additional light source. It would probably be easier at night due to the fact that you wouldn't have to worry about light coming in through the grill and causing that part of the pic to become over exposed. Also if you did take the shot again I wouldn't mind seeing a wider shot. It would have been good if you included the tunnel on the right hand side that is slightly visible.  If the tunnel is to dark for you to photograph you can place a few torches or candles in strategic places within allowing the tunnel to fill will light. This would work well with time exposure. With some of my tunnel and fort panoramas I used a flash and while the shutter was open for four seconds I waved a torch about to create extra light. It seemed to work well with some of the images, even though they are not the best. If you were to go down there again I don't think it would be necessary to have someone in the picture. If you wanted to have people in the picture you should make it look as though they are exploring the tunnel.


 * Oppose Very low quality. What's in his hand? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Crassic (talk • contribs) 07:05, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's a torch. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 13:49, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Support Yes, I know, the technical quality is not perfect. (If you view it at 50%, which still meets size reqts, it's much better btw.) But regardless of its technical flaws, which are relatively minor in my view, it has the je ne sais quoi that makes it a fabulous photograph. I like the light streaming down from the side, the atmospheric graffiti, how the subject is dressed, and the interesting shapes of the underground passageways.  Immediately after seeing this photo I had to read the article. If that's not a great photo for the intro (and hence FP), I'm not sure what is. Mangostar (talk) 07:43, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Love the photo, but I get the feeling that it is more of a portrait of the person than an encyclopedic image demonstrating urban exploration. J Milburn (talk) 20:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

MER-C 07:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC)