Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Lasertests.jpg

File:Lasertests.jpg, featured

Voting period ends on 5 Sep 2009 at 12:27:53 (UTC)
Visit the nomination page to add or modify image notes.

Featured picture candidates/File:Lasertests.jpg Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Lasertests.jpg

•  Info created by The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Directed Energy Directorate - uploaded by Cody.pope - nominated by JovanCormac 12:27, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
•  Info A cool photo showing a scientist conducting a laser experiment. This picture contains the "essence" of what modern science looks like in the eyes of many people, and is therefore both highly educational and attractive. -- JovanCormac 12:27, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
•  Support As nominator. -- JovanCormac 12:27, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
•  Support--Two+two=4 (talk) 12:33, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
•  Oppose It's blurry. Even at that small size it looks upscaled. Lycaon (talk) 13:45, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
  • But isn't this to be expected from a picture that was taken under such extreme lighting conditions (low lighting contrasted with the extremely bright lasers)? Compare to the FP File:Vitrification1.jpg which was shot in similar conditions and is about as blurry as the candidate. -- JovanCormac 18:03, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Possibly, but if the quality is inferior, why do you nominate it for FP?? Lycaon (talk) 18:23, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
      • First of all IMO the blur isn't half as bad as you make it sound. Second, I think that the sheer visual appeal of the candidate (as well as the vitrification picture) easily mitigates the slight quality issues. -- JovanCormac 19:13, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
•  Oppose – Does not look like lens blur to me. Quite possibly extreme noise reduction. --Ernie (talk) 16:41, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
•  Neutral Cool composition, illumination and intetersting subject. Brings back some good memories of working in a laser lab as a summer student. Not quite convinced about the technical quality though. --Slaunger (talk) 19:52, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
•  Oppose Per Lycaon. IMO the blurriness is definitely worse than with File:Vitrification1.jpg. Plus there are artefacts, e.g. if you look at the red beams on top. --NEUROtiker ^⇌ 20:16, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
•  Support --Karel (talk) 14:25, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
•  Support --Curnen (talk) 16:01, 28 August 2009 (UTC) It's a difficult light situation and a appealing motif. Furthermore I think demanding quality for its own sake doesn't help FP in general. The quality should be as high as necessary to show what is to be shown with the image and I think this is the case here.

In general I have read a couple of FP discussions recently, where people seemed to search a little too desperately for any technical flaw in a picture, which to me is ludicrous. 99% of the people will anyway look at the picture in the context of a Wikipedia article and not in full size. Not everybody can afford high-end cameras with super noise performance nor knows how to photoshop the maximum out of a picture, but some of them might instead have the opportunity to take images at special places. I rather like to encourage these people to take nevertheless photos and upload them here, than scaring them off with too harsh criticism.

Please keep in mind that we are reviewing the candidates for featured pictures here. They are supposed to be some of the finest on Commons. Quoting from the guidelines above they should be of "high technical quality". If a nominated picture here is subjected to harsh criticism, that doesn't mean that it's not a good picture and it shouldn't be used. It just means that it doesn't meet the very high standards applied for featured pictures, which are necessary to maintain the high level of quality among them. Of course you don't have to be a professional photographer and possess a high-end camera to contribute to Commons (I myself never shot a photo I would nominate here). There are thousands of technically average pictures out there made by common people with standard cameras (I don't mean this one), which are a great benefit for Commons and the Wikimedia projects. Commons could not exist without them, but they still don't belong here. --NEUROtiker ^⇌ 17:58, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Well said. Not every image uploaded to commons has to end up on this page. There is also thousands of pictures taken with high-end cameras that won't stand a chance here (I regularly upload some of those myself) but are still valuable. There are also several FP's taken with point-n-shooters (I have some myself too). But in the end, as NEUROtiker said, we are here to select the finest on Commons. And it is the end result that counts, whatever the hardware, as long as it is very good. Lycaon (talk) 20:43, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

•  Support --≈≈ Cemg ≈≈ 17:42, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
•  Oppose Interesting, but bad quality --kaʁstn 10:01, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
•  Support, I don't think the quality is too bad. --Aqwis (talk) 12:25, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
•  Support --Brackenheim (talk) 20:25, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
•  Support --Wiki ian 04:27, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
•  Support --Lošmi (talk) 17:51, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
•  Support Fabulous, interesting, and well thought out. No anonymous votes please. Lycaon (talk) 05:17, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
•  Support Difficult to take this kind of image and I think the result is good enogh for me.--Korall (talk) 18:53, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
•  Support per nom --Jklamo (talk) 22:23, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Confirmed results:

Result: 11 support, 4 oppose, 1 neutral → featured. /JovanCormac 13:13, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

This image will be added to the FP gallery: Natural phenomena