Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Wild Pandion.jpg

Wild Osprey

 * Reason:A quality photo which has encyclopedic value for the detail it shows of an Australasian Osprey. Please note that its value is added to by the difficulty involved in getting a close up of a wild raptor.
 * Articles this image appears in:Osprey
 * Creator:Psylexic


 * Support as nominator &mdash; Psylexic 14:00, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I've also added it as the header pic at Bird of prey. The existing one was tiny and grainy. We have only one other raptor FP, [[Image:Bald.eagle.closeup.arp-sh.750pix.jpg|30px]]. I've not decided on a vote, it's a good picture but looks a bit oversharpened and lacks detail compared with most of our bird FPs. ~ Veledan • Talk 16:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

MER-C 02:45, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose There's nothing hugely wrong with the picture, but the grainy bits (right wing primaries) and an overall lack of sharp detail bring it down.  The bar for bird FPs is set extremely high due to the large number of very good pictures that have been promoted.  This is a fine picture, but isn't close to the quality for the other bird FPs. Matt Deres 18:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose Unexceptional and theres some moderate to severe graining in the image, most abundantly where the wing joins the blue of the sky. Its a great angle and I'm sure a very challenging picture to take, but in my opinion it doesnt meet FP criteria. I personally feel a FP should also appear in more than one article unless its really breathtaking. WikipedianProlific(Talk) 18:31, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose Grainy. 8thstar 21:43, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose Grainy, halo/diffraction outline, probably from oversharpening, as overall it doesn't seem to be too small an aperture. (Though honestly, the other FP Veledan linked seems to have been oversharpened a bit too, mostly visible in the bokeh.) I like the composition, though. --Peter 02:38, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments, I think a tripod might be in order if I ever get another chance like this. - Psylexic
 * I just noticed you took this with a point-and-shoot... wow, that makes it more impressive. Forget a tripod--by the time you set it up, the bird would be gone. You'd need image stabilization, but really, the shutter speed was fast enough that you wouldn't even need that. Have you considered investing in an SLR (which you'd almost have to do to shoot in raw as Zakolantern suggests)? --Peter 15:56, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - Psylexic, I'm glad you're taking the opportunity to learn from feedback. My advice - next time, shoot the image as a RAW format image, or the highest quality JPG image possible, and be very careful to now lower the quality of the image when you save it as a JPG.  Your image shows JPG compression artifacts - look at the border between the wing and the sky for example.  Zakolantern 06:39, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds as though an SLR might be a good idea. If I can shoot in RAW then I could play with HDRs as well, which might be fun. I do have some other osprey photos taken at the same time. If I can fix that halo difraction and grain, then I'll post a couple of alternatives. Thanks for your suggestions. -psylexic
 * You could play around with HDR shooting JPG; there's very little you can do with raw that you can't do with JPG. The main reason you'd want to shoot raw is to have the sensor data exactly as it was shot, before any processing was done (even white balance), and in the case of JPG, before it was compressed (which throws out some of this data and degrades quality). If you shoot JPG, then need to make changes to it, it's like making a copy of a copy, and quality will degrade quickly (per Zakolantern's comments above on compression artifacts). --Peter 15:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. I only shoot raw to have absolute control of WB and to get the maxium possible dynamic range. What you need to keep in mind is that this picture is outstanding at 800 pixles, which is as big as most people will blow it up. I get more satisfaction from a perfect exposure and stunning composition than a mediocur picture that is sharp at 8000px. An SLR will give you somr more potential at this end and therefor a better chance at an FP. But, if you are shooting to have some really visualy nice photos. 800px is fine. -Fcb981 23:32, 21 July 2007 (UTC)