Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Mazda6

Mazda6/Mazda Atenza

Reason: OK, so like with recent noms some people will say 'it's just a car', but I personally think this goes beyond requirements for car photos - please view fullsize. Sharp across the vehicle at 17 megapixels, clean car and photo, good setting, good composition, good use of DOF, good details (you can see individual flecks in the metallic paint!), pleasant reflections on the vehicle, etc, along with full encyclopaedic details of car (model, year, etc). Far higher res than I usually upload - you could print this as a poster - but I'm guessing the only people likely to use this commercially are Mazda, and surely they'd take their own photos :-).
Articles this image appears in: Mazda Atenza
Creator: jjron

Support as nominator --jjron (talk) 13:17, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment There are a few dust spots/birds that need cloning: Above and slightly left of the antenna, left and horizontally inline with the rear spoiler, two either side of a line going vertically up near the RHS intersection between A-Pillar and bonnet. There is also a faint stitching? band in the sky just to the left of the front mazda logo with another splodge on its left. You also probably need to tastefully apply a little blur in the foreground to hide the stitching lines due to the change in focus point with each shot. All easily fixable. I'll support after that, my only real criticism is the front of the car being in shade. Noodle snacks (talk) 20:31, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree about the couple of dust blobs, but I don't see a stitching band in the sky. What I do see is a stitching error on the driver's side pillar. Not a significant one, but probably worth fixing. Also, I find the shadow detail on the bonnet a bit dark (more so in the thumbnail than at full res though). Did you shoot RAW and if so, could you perhaps lighten it? None of this is enough for me to oppose, but hey, they're fairly easily fixed so I can ask, can't I? :-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 22:22, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Here is a small contrast enhanced version which highlights the band. I can't see the drivers side error, I can only see possible a stitching error on the passenger side A-Pillar but I think it is just the intersection of two trim pieces. Noodle snacks (talk) 07:41, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Ah yeah, I see it, very slight though. Stitching error on the driver's side B pillar is here. Oh, and what are those three blobs sitting on the top of the bonnet just to the left of the clouds? They don't look like dust as they're not quite circular, and it would be a coincidence for three to be sitting in a row on the bonnet like that. They look more like the effect of the clone tool clipping the bonnet, but I could be wrong. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 11:38, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support. More than enough detail, good angle. Very reminiscent of Capital Photographer's baptism of fire nomination, actually. ;-) Good luck, product shots seem to attract a lot more scrutiny than the average FP. I guess being easily shot, they need to be almost perfect. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 22:22, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Diliff. Was it taken on sloping ground? Durova^Charge! 18:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Agree with above suggestions on exposure: the hood (bonnet?) seems too dark, and I can just barely make out the metalwork of the lower grille - some of it may be altogether black. Otherwise would be inclined to support. Fletcher (talk) 04:35, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment What's with the focus transitions on the ground? Was the focus adjusted between shots? Thegreenj 06:09, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support Good quality, resolution and EV. Is it tilted or shot on a slope? Muhammad(talk) 15:42, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support, but support nonetheless. A pretty image, and certainly valuable as a hi-res image. But I don't like how the car is tilted down the hill. I assume that the steering wheel is on the right-hand side of this car since it is in Australia, but I can't tell from the angle of this shot. Spikebrennan (talk) 14:41, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Replies - sorry, had not been on since nominating this until last night. Thanks for comments (and pedantic observations!). Have uploaded a 'corrected' version over the top of the original (I don't think that's a problem since it was just touching up minor errors). From the top:
- I don't think the spots identified by NS were that significant but have fixed them regardless - FWIW they weren't dust spots, there were a lot of insects about and the 'spots' were mostly out of focus bugs flitting through the shot, some frames (I took more than just this set) had birds in the bg too as suggested, I fixed some before uploading, but must have missed those ones, so well picked out.
- Re the stitching band in the sky I honestly can't make that out without cranking the contrast right up (perhaps you have a 'contrastier' monitor or something), and even then it's minor, so in the end I haven't changed that because I can't see it.
  - If you could be bothered (and I doubt you can), you can use an adjustment layer in photoshop to jack the contrast so you can see what you are doing, without effecting the image itself. I believe my monitors are accurate and fairly well calibrated. Noodle snacks (talk) 02:33, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Yeah, I thought of that today actually, but uploading this takes about an hour on my connection, so you're right, I can't really be bothered :-). Your monitors are probably fine, but nonetheless different well adjusted monitors can display a bit differently seemingly. That Diliff couldn't really make it out either indicates that it's pretty minor. Or maybe you've just got sharp eyes. --jjron (talk) 14:14, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Not sure what you wanted done with the foreground, I didn't find it too significant, but have applied a small feathered Gaussian blur across the bottom to try to make it a more consistent transition. Re Thegreenj, yes focus was adjusted across the shot, otherwise it would be like other car photos where the focus falls off across the image. Shooting from this angle relatively close to an object and then stitching is quite a different matter to a 'normal' stitch where you're usually distant from the object and/or stitching lengthways across the object.
- Yes, Diliff was right re the stitching error on the B-pillar (dammit, I actually fixed another one just near that so don't know how I missed that one!), I have fixed it up, hopefully to your liking.
- Re the shadows, yes it was shot in RAW, but I find lightening it up makes the brightly reflecting parts too bright, and I'm not really expert enough in editing RAW to alter just the shadow areas. Lifting them much beyond this in Photoshop tends to bring in too much noise, so this was what I eventually settled on. As Diliff said, I think it 'seems' more of an issue at smaller sizes than it really is.
- Re the proposed stitching error on the passenger side A-pillar, as suggested that is a join in the interior trim (I saw that before uploading the first time and actually went and rechecked not the just the original photo but the car itself).
- Re the three blobs on the bonnet to the left of the clouds, I'm not sure what you were referring to - there were three grey blobs/streaks which were there in both the original photos that overlapped in that section of the stitch, I wondered what they were too, but I think it was some grey cloud just poking up behind the bonnet, they did look a bit odd even if natural, so have edited them out.
- Re the ground, yes it was sloping slightly, I don't think the shot's tilted (the clouds look level). As can be seen this is at the top of a hill. To get the background I wanted without distracting trees etc there was only a pretty limited angle of shot, and using the 100mm I was already back in the bush heading down the other side of the hill. Bringing the car forward onto flatter ground meant I couldn't take it with that lens and thus lost the effect. This limited angle also affected the lighting. I agree I would have preferred the front around a little more into the sunlight, but doing so meant that either I took the car almost front on, rather than the preferred 3/4 front/side angle, or I shifted the camera around and lost the clean background. And this is about as good as I'm going to get it there, this is looking north/north-east and was taken late afternoon within a day or two of the summer solstice, meaning that this as far south as the sun's going to provide the ideal lighting. I would have used some fill flash if I had the gear, but atm can't shoot flash off-body.
- Re Spike - yes right hand drive. In fact you can see both the instrument panel 'hump' in front of the driver (even at image page size) and the steering wheel itself, and I think you can tell which side they're on (but then again I know where they are).

Thanks again for everyone's time. --jjron (talk) 12:07, 9 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support Still one splodge on the sky seam line though :P Noodle snacks (talk) 02:33, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted File:2003 Mazda6 GG Classic Hatch, McMillans Lookout, Vic, 21.12.2008.jpg --Wronkiew (talk) 05:07, 10 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]