Wikipedia:Picture peer review/HeidelbergTun

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[edit] Heidelberg Tun

I took the photo, it appears in the Heidelberg Tun. It's probably not good enough for FPC, but I'm very keen to one day get a FP, so I'd appreciate any comments on what's good, bad etc about it.

For myself:

• Good: lighting (I have another version taken with flash, much less good), people's heads show the scale of the barrel, but are blurred enough not to be distracting or identifying). Subject is at least relatively interesting.
• Bad: Can only see half the barrel (there was a wall to the left), motion blur of people's heads is possibly excessive? Also image is more cropped up the top than I would have really liked. Light in top right is bright, but could probably be photoshopped?

For comparison, a "professional" photo of it [1].

Ok I had a crack at photoshopping it. A bit amateurish... Stevage 15:40, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• Not nominating just yet. :)

Comments: (be as harsh as you like, I have thick skin)

• I've never been to Heidelberg, so this may sound like a dumb question, but would it have been possible to photograph the entire barrel (or at least more of it)? The framing seems cramped, but I don't know what the space is like there. Mooveeguy 18:31, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
  • There's a wall immediately to the left of shot, and yeah, the area is quite cramped (it's under a medieval castle after all). With a ladder and tripod you could probably get a better result. Oh, also I was hampered because I had to lean the photo on the right hand wall to get enough stability for the long exposure time (0.25s). Stevage 08:28, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
• Good subject to photograph, and a worthy contribution to the encyclopedia. Yours is much better than the 'professional' example of course, but in my experience of FPC it would need a few more improvements still before it could pass. They are essentially the same points you've raised yourself:

1. The main subject is cut off: the whole of the barrel front should ideally be visible
2. The lighting would have to be more even. No flash was a good idea, but too much of the barrel is in shadow and the contrast between the lit area and the darker areas is too high
3. The people are distracting. Something to give an idea of scale is good, but if it's going to be a person it should look like the person is meant to part of the picture. He or she should be in focus, interacting relevantly with the subject, and should not be cut
4. The edit looks a bit too saturated on my monitor, and the editing out of the people would be controversial. Many pictures have been opposed in recent months for having had unwanted elements photoshopped out: this isn't officially a criterion and isn't likely to become one (because of a lack of consensus in the various discussions), but there are members of the community who feel strongly about it and will vote accordingly

I do like the picture, but we've enjoyed an extremely high standard of nominations for indoor architecture and monuments recently! I hope you don't think I'm giving you too tall an order: these are simply the negatives I believe would be mentioned if this were nominated ~ Veledan • Talk 22:23, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I really appreciate the comments - hadn't thought of the variation in shadow. Probably couldn't have done much about that one, the lighting in there was, well, ordinary. With a bit of effort I could have got the people out of the way, but not sure what to put there to show scale. Anyway, I'll keep trying on other subjects :) Stevage 08:28, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

• Interesting subject, however to get a good encyclopedic pic you need to show how large it is, the only way I can think of doing that is to have a person in front of it standing up, however that makes it look un-encyclopedic. I dunno how to fix that :) -Ravedave 03:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

  Yeah, it's a tricky one :) Stevage 08:28, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Seconder: