Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Lantana flower and leaves

Lantana camara flower and leaves

Flowers, leaves and buds of *Lantana camara* (Verbenaceae family), an evergreen shrub native of tropical regions but common in Europe and America, growing up to about 2 m high. The small flowers are held in umbels up to about 5cm across, with colours varying, in the same plant and also with time, from white, yellow and orange to rose and pink. Stem and leaves are covered with rough hair. Leaves emit an unpleasant smell when crushed.

Reason: It is a clear and sharp illustration of the flower, bud and leaves of the species, adding value to the article it appears in.
Articles this image appears in: Lantana
Creator: Joaquim Alves Gaspar

Support as nominator — Alvesgaspar 15:23, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose such a beautiful flower but I don't think this is "wikipedia's best work". I feel that it should be a little tighter cropped, since the top is all dark. Also a lil' grainy. ~ Arjun 17:29, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support original, weak support version 2. I think it is Wikipedia's best work, and I love how not just the flower but the leaves are also in focus. the bud is nice, but it would be good if it wasn't cut off!--Here T oHelp 20:28, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Good picture, well focused, nice how you have both the open flowers and buds. Graininess is limited to out of focus areas, doesn't seem like it is obvious enough to warrant oppose. Lorax 01:24, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support original, support version 2. Both suffer from some grain, but I really like the composition of version 2. I'm forced to employ the rule that the difficulty of becoming featured is inversely proportional to the difficulty of the shot. --Tewy 02:08, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support either Superb lighting, although the original should've used a larger aperture. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support original. The alternative has a less pleasing composition. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:35, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support. Great composition and lighting but the image quality is slightly lacking. Lots of image artifacts, noise and the detail isn't what it could be. The textures are a bit wishy-washy at 100%. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 11:54, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - You are quite right, but this is close to the best I'm able to achieve with my Konica Minolta A200, whose known sins are soft images and quite a bit of noise in full resolution. I also suspect that diffraction has some visible effect in these kind of macros, which represent a limitation in terms of DOF. I cannot aspire to a EOS 1D, but I intend to offer to myself a DSLR as soon as possible. Thanks for the support. Alvesgaspar 12:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - A good idea. You certainly don't need the EOS 1D though unless you plan to get into photojournalism or sports photography because really the only benefit of those over any other DSLR is speed and durability. Any entry level DSLR is more than capable of great images. The biggest factor is what lens you twist onto the front of it, of course. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 13:19, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support both I prefer the colours of the original and the composition of the alternative, but they both seem pretty encyclopedic to me and any technical issues haven't spoiled it for me. Terri G 14:58, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose. Two beautifully composed pictures of two pretty flowers. Everything is nice about them... except for the technical side: too little detail at the given resolution. I'm sure once you get your DSLR you can retake a similar pic with perfect quality. I've been pondering for quite a while about this vote and although it might be arrogant or cruel to punish people for ~~cheap~~ consumer grade equipment we immediately shoot down cellphonecamera pictures as well, don't we? And I somehow feel that we owe the end user the best quality possible. --Dschwen 18:37, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose both. The shots are more aesthetic than encyclopedic: I've seen many similar pictures of flowers and this one, while perhaps particularly colourful and well-composed, just isn't unique enough to justify FA status. Theonlyedge 23:26, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I agree with Dschwen but I love both images. I hate these dilemmas. Compacts sometimes turn out fabulous detail at full res for some colours (the leaves in these shots are superbly rendered) and then other colour ranges/saturations go into a posterised mulch almost devoid of anything approaching detail. Why, I don't pretend to know. Both flowers look quite a bit better downsampled, but I'm kind of getting tired of suggesting it for compact shots. Ho-hum. mikaul^talk 23:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - But these images were downsampled from 3264x2448, which is the maximum available resolution (8 Mp)! By the way, the A200 is a bridge camera, not a compact, and not cheap at all. Two years ago, it was about the same price as the EOS 350D, which had just arrived to the market. What made me decide for this type of camera was the superb anti-shake machanism, now adopted by the new Sony DSLR. Alvesgaspar 08:18, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - I have to be honest with you though. The better quality image and much higher ISO sensitivity of a good DSLR would probably more than compensate for the anti shake mechanism (and would obviously have other benefits in addition to that). The main downside with DSLRs is having to stop down considerably to achieve a large depth of field. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 09:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Over saturated color and what looks like more color problems throughout. dithering and a bit of posterization or possibly artifacts, but mostly I don't like the blown, plasticy colors. -Fcb981 04:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually, I took another look and I believe that grain is what at first glance looked like overcooked color, I cant imagin why there is grain with an ISO rating of 50 and there is also some slight chromatic aberration. -Fcb981 04:49, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support version 2 only. I agree with diliff and dschwen that a DSLR in your hands should be a great benefit to Wikipedia :) Blieusong 21:34, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support either. Interesting photographs that really do a great deal for their article. —Gaff ^ταλκ 00:31, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Both are very good although the second one is lacking the color of the first and the first is lacking the light of the second --St.daniel ^Talk 21:34, 21 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Question - These pictures have been here for more than 3 weeks and the last vote occurred 10 days ago. Still there seems to be a clear consensus to promote the first version. Anything wrong with the nomination? - Alvesgaspar 00:10, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted Image:LantanaFlowerLeaves-3.jpg MER-C 03:14, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]