Commons:Featured picture candidates/Image:Stone Steps Wide Angle Perspective 1933px.jpg

Image:Stone Steps Wide Angle Perspective 1933px.jpg - not featured

•  Info created, uploaded, and nominated by Ram-Man. 12:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
•  Info Besides showing external steps, this image also highlights perspective and wide-angle distortion. Used in this article.
•  Support Another try at a non-animal, non-plant. -- Ram-Man 12:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
•  Support I like. Romary 12:55, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
•  Oppose sorry, all the beauty is in the simple things stuff aside, this is way over the line for me. Neither does it do a good job illustrating external steps (context is missing completely) nor does it illustrate wide-angle distortion (it would need an easily recognizable subject, like a face up-close where the distortion is apparent). Please don't take this personal but the pic does not wow me at all. With the rationale in the nomination just about any semi-artsy wideangle snapshot should become FP. --Dschwen 14:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
  • It doesn't illustrate wide-angle distortion well? The distortion is how the steps at the bottom appear to "tip forward" compared to the steps at the top which seem to be facing the camera. This is a perfect example of such distortion because it is uses simple geometric shapes (lines and rectangles) instead of something organic or other more complicated subject matter. The steps appear to bend a full 90 degrees from top to bottom (you can't see the top of the step at the top but you can see the side, and you can't see the side of the step at the bottom but you can see the top). Had this shot been taken to include more of the surroundings, it wouldn't have been the same angle and/or field of view and thus wouldn't have shown the distortion that this image shows. The human eye cannot see things from this perspective. I agree that it's not the best example of external steps, but it's also not being used to illustrate them (although it could be). The distortion that makes it a good example of a wide angle of view also make it look unnatural as a normal example because of the human eye limitation. I certainly don't take it personally, as I realize that range of possible subject matter for a featured picture is extremely small and I'm just trying out new areas. This nom is yet another attempt to take a break from my potentially dozens of flower and animal photo nominations. But I still completely disagree with your assessment: it's educational, artsy (The "Wow Factor" is about subjective, artistic evaluation), and strong technically. -- Ram-Man 14:37, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
•  Oppose per Dschwen. Jon Harald Søby 15:34, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
•  Oppose Sorry too, but I have to agree with Dschwen. If it had been concrete or modern wooden stairs, e.g., then the perspective argument might cut. In this case, with the nature stone slabs, I've seen old stairs that do just that: tilt and bend. There are some at the Zimbabwe Ruins if I remember correctly. Lycaon 15:40, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Your opposing because there exists some stairs that might really bend like that? 99.9% of stairs do not bend at 90 degrees, so I can't imagine why people would be confused. A simple image caption would make it perfectly clear. I find it hard to believe that my argument doesn't work because a very small minority of stairs may look like this to the human eye. Besides, your argument doesn't work either: If they were real, the relative size of the each step would be similar, as opposed to this wide angle image where the nearby steps are dramatically larger looking than the ones on the top. Also, you can clearly tell that the steps are not separating as they would if it were the deteriorating steps that you mention. These are obviously in good shape. If we have two flowers, one real and one silk, we wouldn't reject the real one because a plastic one might look very similar. I've seen photographs of glass flowers that I'd swear were the real thing. -- Ram-Man 16:34, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
•  Info Derek, if an image needs lengthy defence or explanations then it's likely it doesn't have the necessary wow factor to be a good candidate FP. --MichaelMaggs 17:14, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Correct me if I'm wrong: Except for one line of Dschwen's objection, the argument was that the distortion was not illustrative (useful/encyclopedic) enough, which has nothing to do with the wow factor. Lycaon mentioned that my technical argument was invalid for that same reason. I still maintain that it is useful and encyclopedic. I don't have a problem if people think it lacks a wow factor, but I do have a problem with opposition for the other technical reasons. If they really don't think it has a wow factor, they should say so. -- Ram-Man 17:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
•  Oppose Certainly no wow factor. And as for illustrating distortion etc, Dschwen is precisely right, we don't know what these steps are meant to look like, are all the slabs the same size & square, fitted at right angles? I can certainly visualise stone steps that I've seen that start off straight at the top, but then fan out towards the bottom. To illustrate distortion you either need something universally familiar or juxtapose an undistorted view next to it. --Tony Wills 13:03, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
  • If I took another image with a normal (50mm) focal length and created a composite image showing both images, would that really be an FP candidate? Or would it be better to show two separate images in an article showing (a) and (b)? I don't have access to the wide angle lens to reproduce this shot, but I can certainly do a normal one. -- Ram-Man 15:04, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

• It would certainly be more useful, but where's the wow? :-). Perhaps QI. --Tony Wills 22:40, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

• As always thank you for your well thought-out advice. -- Ram-Man 23:43, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

•  Its just too boring ;-) -- Ram-Man 23:43, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

 Withdrawn by nominator >> not featured - Alvesgaspar 07:23, 26 May 2007 (UTC)