Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Grey Heron

Grey Heron

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 30 Jan 2012 at 16:46:35 (UTC)

Original – A wild grey heron (Ardea cinerea) in London Zoo.

Alt - alternate crop with less space above the head

Alt 2. Less distracting background and wider crop.

Alt 3 Edit as above made from orignal RAW file, and greater resolution than all previous.

Reason: A sharp image of a healthy specimen that's had an easy life stealing fish from the penguin pool at London Zoo. The close crop shows details in the plumage that would be less visible in a full body shot.
Articles in which this image appears: Grey Heron
FP category for this image: Birds
Creator: User:God Emperor

Support as nominator --God Emperor^Talk 16:46, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Sorry, but the focus on that head just isn't doing it for me. Pteronura brasiliensis 16:04, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Not enough of the bird is in view Hariya1234 (talk) 03:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it would make a good portrait because the plumage detail was indeed nice, but I looked at the article and saw that 1) would be better with erect neck IMO 2) there's much more important plumage detail in wings and features that are not visible in this image. Otherwise good, and eyes are pleasing. ZooFari (talk) 07:33, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per above and unnatural looking background colouring. Nik thestoned 11:13, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral. Very good photo and good quality, but as per Zoofari's comment I was actually a little confused when I went to the article due to the contracted neck; I thought you'd got the bird wrong for a while, suspecting it may have been some type of kingfisher. IMO that compromises EV a little too much. I guess you could argue this is actually good for EV as it shows the bird can have the neck either contracted or extended, but the extended neck seems more typical. So at the moment I'm sitting on the fence, but thought I would at least add a positive comment and give some food for thought. --jjron (talk) 04:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support. We've promoted portraits of birds before. And as for the neck erect versus contracted, both are typical poses for any heron, and neither is more "encyclopaedic" than the other, in fact herons flying do so with contracted necks (this is a diagnostic feature) so as a rational for opposing it makes no sense. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:59, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose It's pretty good and the neck isn't a problem for me (contracted position has EV and anyway some herons do in fact have "short" necks: eg the Nankeen Night Heron). However compositionally it doesn't quite work for me as it's cropped too tight to the tip of the beak IMO --Fir0002 04:34, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - composition leaves a bit to be desired. Background makes it look like the bird was shot in front of a green-screen, and I don't like that the beak almost bleeds off-frame. Juliancolton (talk) 16:39, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~Neutral~~ High-quality picture, but the background is distracting.--♫GoP♫_T ^C _N 09:53, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Added Alt 2. This edit might be quite unorthodox, but I think it's an improvement. O.J. (talk) 22:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support Alt 2 Background is less distracting, the crop makes it much more aesthetically pleasing. Clegs (talk) 09:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Suport alt 2 I like this crop better --Guerillero | My Talk 15:08, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Move to alt 3 --Guerillero | My Talk 01:47, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support Alt 2 --♫GoP♫_T ^C _N 16:30, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Added Alt 3. This is similar to the edit that O.J. did, but made to the original RAW file. There was actually space to the right of the beak in the original, but I cropped it out because I was set on making it a standard 16:9 aspect ratio for some reason. I also sharpened it a bit better, which allowed me to reduce the size to 2/3 of the original rather than to 1/2. I did my best to make the colours and saturation right, but working from a laptop with a really reflective screen here and having to bob my head up and down like an owl on speed due to the ridiculous viewing-angle dependence of the colour. God Emperor^Talk 23:50, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support Alt 2. Alt 3 is very sharp, but the extended background to the right of the beak looks like sloppy cloning. O.J. (talk) 15:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not Promoted --Makeemlighter (talk) 22:33, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]