Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Whale Shark

Whale Shark

Reason: Very Beautiful picture that appears in three articles.
Articles this image appears in

Creator: User:Zac Wolf (original), User:Stefan (added cropping)

Support as nominator — St.daniel ^Talk 21:09, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support That's just about the best quality possible for shooting a fish through several inches of plexiglass. Nice saturated colours. --Pharaoh Hound (talk) (The Game) 12:52, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Nice pic Ba'Gamnan | Talk 19:25, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support There seems to be a vertical line just left of where the shark's forward left fin splits off. I think this is a seam in the Plexiglas (the kind that's filled with translucent, but not transparent, gooey material). Oh well.--Here T oHelp 17:40, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support, good. -- Phoenix2 ^{(talk, review)} 18:45, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support. Some artifacting around the edges, but well composed. --Tewy 18:50, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. The original file shown on the description page doesn't have these artifacts, if someone wants to perform another crop. --Tewy 18:54, 26 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  Actually the 'artifcats' you can see is sharpned noise, I have blurred the whole picture except for the actual shark to make it stand out more, the shark have been sharpened, but I need to have some 'buffer' around the shark so now you see some sharpened noise around the shark. Maybe I should have used less sharpening, please feel free to improve the process. Stefan 00:13, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support, Since I did this version I obviously like the picture. Stefan 00:13, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - not sure what everyone else is seeing. It's so obviously an aquarium pic that it comes out looking really snapshotish. There's nothing remarkable in the composition - side on to the camera. No interesting background, and the backlighting leaves the shark in shadow with a very bright glarey background at the top. And of course due to the glass and water, the whole subject is slightly blurry. Compare this to the mandrill that got rejected last week - a much, much stronger image. Stevage 02:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Ramblings to be ignored: - Interesting how different we are as humans. Here I see one of the best pictures of a whale shark I have ever seen (and I have seen a lot), sure it is in an aquarium, it is not 100% sharp, it has a seam, it is a bit artificial but it is a VERY good shot as a species shot, it is a bit over manipulated but is high res so it is still good enough. Compare this to the mandrill, (where I did not vote) which had severe oversharpening effects which disturbed me a lot, it was a bad species shot but much more artistic, OK so far not so strange, then we have Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Green sea turtle which is a IMHO a VERY messy picture with a very disturbing background, IMHO the worst of the three pictures, only good thing about it is that it is underwater and that is 'excotic' for people, this picture is 'only' from a aquarium, therefore 'snapshottinsh'. OK take this as a ramble, no offense, nothing personal, I'm not trying to change your opinion just wondering how different we are, we are all entitled to our own opinions, the green turtle will become featured, mandrill did not, here I do not know, the world is strange, have a good day! :-) Stefan 00:43, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - The original shot is actually better IMO. Wow factor due to size comparison, nice composition, and it doesn't try (and fail) to hide that it is an aquarium shot. --Dschwen 08:21, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Yeah, I was about to say that. The original is far more interesting - I really like the composition with the people in silhouette as a shark swims over their heads. Perhaps not an FP either (though conceivably for something like Aquarium), but the original image is so contextless and dull. It does explain why the cropped version is so fuzzy though: too far from the glass, and too far (with insufficient telephoto) from the subject. Stevage 00:09, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - Just as a explanation, I made the crop to have a good picture to put in the taxobox in the whale shark page, there it is at least IMHO the best picture so far, there you want a picture ONLY of the shark. Also a comment abou the shape of the fins as per below, I think it is because it is a juvenile, but not sure. Maybe it was hurt when captured. Stefan 01:29, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - Comment I aggree wih Stevage, but, as per the suggestion above, I have added the original uncropped picture to the Public aquarium page, where I do believe it adds real value. I think the uncropped version is the only suitable one for consideration as FP to which I would give support. The picture also appears in Georgia Aquarium --McKDandy 16:25, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I fail to see the problems that Stevage mentioned. I think this is a great image for FP. --ZeWrestler ^Talk 14:22, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, ack Stevage. Wierd vote. There even is a visible seam of two glass panes running through the image. --Dschwen 19:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, I agree with Stevage... and the seam right on the head of the shark is not so good. gren グレン 20:30, 27 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Sadly, oppose. I was really excited as I first looked at this nominated picture on the main FPC page. I didn't even know Whale sharks could be kept in captivity! However, there are numerous problems with this image. 1) Artifact rostral to 1st gill slit looks like a gill slit; I promise you, Whale sharks have only 5 gill slits as they are not a member of Hexanchidae. 2) Area just rostral of artifact is very blurry, and the rest of it is quite grainy; you really don't get a good idea of what the shark looks like 3) The impression of the shape of the pectoral fins you get from looking at this image is misleading; they both look very blunt, and the one in front maybe even injured. Compare the shape of the pectoral fin in this picture with the shape in the drawing, the picture from the maldives, and aquarium image with two whale sharks. 4) Previously mentioned sharpening artifacts around the shark. 5) The blurriness of the background is actually really distracting to me, probably because the small fish in front of the shark and the jacks under its pectoral fin are not blurry. 6) Least importantly, the previously mentioned aquarium joint is distracting. Personally, because it conveys the size of this species, doesn't mislead about shape, and because a small image in a taxobox doesn't have to be particularly high resolution, I'd actually prefer the whole-shark shot from the Maldives in the taxobox to the nominated image. I know this is not the place to discuss which image should be in the taxobox, but I just want to emphasize that this isn't the most encyclopedic of the current images of whale sharks. Enuja 03:36, 28 May 2007 (UTC) I don't support any version; color enhanced crop (version #2) still has problems 1, 2 (although not the last half) 3 & 6 and has the new problem of being too altered to be a featured picture. Enuja[reply]
Oppose per other oppose comments listed above. -- Moondigger 13:03, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support I really like this picture. It is a sharp picture. Wikipediarul e s 2221 23:00, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I added another crop from commons, which has better color depth --Bleh999 05:42, 30 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted . This one took a lot of thinking about; it's rather close but I'm not quite able to call this consensus to promote. Raven4x4x 08:05, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was too hasty here. And too harsh. I'll move this to the 'requiring additional input' section. Raven4x4x 14:06, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Oppose – Feels to artificial to me. Centy – reply• contribs – 19:52, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted MER-C 08:21, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]