Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Syringa vulgaris panicle

Syringa vulgaris panicle

Reason: Good clear shot of the flower panicle, individual flowers, and sample leaves for added encyclopaedic value. Nice colours, and sharpness and DOF seem right.
Proposed caption: A common lilac bush (Syringa vulgaris) showing a panicle with multiple flowers in bloom, and typical leaf structure.
Articles this image appears in: Syringa vulgaris
Panicle
Creator: jjron

Support as nominator jjron 08:27, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support either Nice picture! Almost feels as I could smell it.--Mbz1 19:04, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support I guess I could quibble about a slight lack of sharpness here, but that's picking a very small nit. Nice shot. Matt Deres 01:37, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Samsara (talk • contribs) 09:28, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral A good clear capture with nice lighting,. Odd-looking bokeh and dull composition kill my outright support, unfortunately. --mikaul^talk 11:14, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Can I ask what you mean by "Odd-looking bokeh"? I actually thought it was nice myself; it's a result of the dappled sunlight through the leaves on the far side of the plant, but (IMO) cleverly avoiding the overexposure that often results from those sort of conditions. But if you think that's all dull, you're welcome to your opinion. --jjron (talk) 12:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - "Nice" bokeh is generally taken to mean smooth, uniform gradations of tone in OOF areas; this has odd, hard-edged areas in the background, thanks to the lens design, rather than anything you did yourself. I'm not sure I referred to it as "dull" though. --mikaul^talk 14:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Fair enough, but how the bokeh looks will also depend on what is actually in the background and how far it is from the object in focus; given the background here is relatively close and made of the hard edges of leaves and twigs against the bright light, that will be a significant factor. This lens does produce the bokeh you describe in other situations. --jjron (talk) 23:58, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - It probably does, at other focal lengths, just not at this one. It's a function of lens design rather than distance, and ultimately choosing the most appropriate lens/focal length for the situation. --mikaul^talk 00:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        Shrug. Maybe you're right. I took a number of basically identical shots a couple of months ago of this other image with this lens at 210mm, partly to experiment with the bokeh using a simple subject and fairly consistent background. I just varied the aperture from f/5.6 through to f/32 (and altered shutter speed to match). The bokeh altered significantly, starting supersmooth at f/5.6, so to me there's more to it than just the lens/focal length. In this nominated image for example I could have reduced the DOF to get a smoother bokeh, but then there's consistent complaints at FPC about DOF being too shallow in these type of photos (I actually intentionally increased the DOF in this shot for that reason). Oh well, it's hard to please everybody. --jjron (talk) 07:30, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, DOF, sharpness, composition. --Aqwis (talk – contributions) 23:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Lacks the WOW factor necessary for a FP of such a mundane subject. --Janke | Talk 10:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Edit1 uploaded. An enhanced sharpness version for those who like extra sharpness (if I remember correctly I didn't sharpen the original at all before uploading). --jjron (talk) 12:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, artificial "sharpening" does not add detail to a picture. Software sharpening can improve pictures significiantly, but only ones that are already relatively detailed, which this is not. --Aqwis (talk – contributions) 13:11, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks to have plenty of detail to me, but clearly you dislike this shot/subject/whatever. --jjron (talk) 13:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Determining how sharp (detailed) a picture needs to be to be sharp enough can be very difficult - I feel a subject with a lack of "wow", such as this one, needs to be almost perfect technically to achieve FP status. However, we all have different requirements for featured pictures, and I am aware that my personal technical quality/sharpness requirements may appear somewhat extreme. --Aqwis (talk – contributions) 23:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support Very nice and encyclopedic shot. The colours may seem a bit dull to some but jjron is not to blame if the actual flower is that way. Did you want him to paint it another brighter colour before taking the picture? :) H92110 (talk) 16:32, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support nice picture. I feel I have to agree with Mbz. Muhammad Mahdi Karim (talk) 13:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support for either - guess I'll go with the original if forced to choose. Sharp, nice, encyclopedic. Oscar (talk) 18:34, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support both: It's okay. Not accurate focused, but in all it's enough to be feautered. —αἰτίας •discussion• 13:46, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted Image:Lilac Flower&Leaves, SC, Vic, 13.10.2007.jpg MER-C 04:26, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]