Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Echinocereus reichenbachii

Echinocereus reichenbachii edit

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 21 Sep 2015 at 23:33:32 (UTC)

 
OriginalEchinocereus reichenbachii (var. reichenbachiiis) a perennial plant and shrub in the cactus family. Its popular names, lace or hedgehog cactus, refer to the appearance of the spines. The species is native to the Chihuahuan Desert and parts of northern Mexico and the southern and southwestern United States, where they grow at elevations ranging from 0 to 1,500 meters (0 to 4,921 ft). It earned the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Reason
This is a focus stack of six images. It's technically sound, high resolution, and has good EV.
Articles in which this image appears
Echinocereus reichenbachii, Echinocereus
FP category for this image
Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Plants/Others
Creator
RO
  • Support as nominatorRO(talk) 23:33, 11 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Same as last time- could you identify the subspecies/variety/cultivar? Josh Milburn (talk) 13:17, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Added to the article and description at commons. RO(talk) 15:42, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks- I'm leaning support at this time, but I would like to hear the opinions of some people who know a bit more about photography than me. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:45, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The rim of the pot looks a bit weird; is this some side effect of the focus stacking? Or my eyesight? Also the background looks like something out of a horror movie. The cactus itself looks great though. Belle (talk) 01:11, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Boy. I'm not sure what you mean. The rim and background look good to me. RO(talk) 18:04, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, girl ;) The rim looks a bit like it has been added by CGI later; the shadows look like a computer's idea of how shadows would appear (there's probably some photographic technical term for what is going on but I have to make do without, so sorry if it comes off sounding like a stoned wolf-child seeing her first photo) and the background looks like it is green rock or the Swamp-Thing. Maybe it looks odd to me because normally the focus stacked images we see here are very tight shots or have the subject isolated against a neutral background. I'm not opposing anyway, the cactus itself is spot on. Belle (talk) 22:04, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The shadows are even because the lighting is even, and they show up in the same spots in the pre-stacked images. I spent several hours getting as much focus in the pot as I could, but I could easily blurr it, or crop the image tighter if need be, but I thought it was nice to see more context. The background is blurry leaves, BTW. RO(talk) 22:20, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I could also make a stack where only the plant and rocks are in focus, but that probably wouldn't resolve your concern about the background, because it would still be blurry leaves, but I might be able to make a much darker background. RO(talk) 22:51, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No, ignore me if everybody else thinks it is OK; as much as I like having my whims pandered to, I'm only going to insist if there is chocolate involved. Belle (talk) 11:01, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you Belle. I suspect it is a (minor) issue with the focus stacking. You can see there are areas of the rim where the focus stacking has failed to apply properly. The most obvious is the foreground of the rim nearest the camera at the bottom of the frame. The blurriness of the rim actually 'bleeds' onto the rocks behind it, which should be sharp. The rocks themselves have the same problem, where there are patches of blurriness in an otherwise sharp area. Rationalobserver, this suggests to me that there are gaps of focus in the stacked set. You've perhaps shifted focus too much between frames. It's hard to be certain though, it could also be a problem with the focus stacking algorithm instead. Either way, it's a relatively minor problem but one that is visible and obvious if you look carefully. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 10:30, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not Promoted --Armbrust The Homunculus 03:44, 22 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]