Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Amanita muscaria 2

Amanita muscaria

Original - A mature Amanita muscaria near Wellington, New Zealand, with a distinctive ring

Edit - Downsample (no loss due to the diffraction softening), Curves, Sharpen, Selective NR on background

Alternative edit Sharpen on stalk only, no other changes.

Reason

Currently a featured picture candidate on Commons, and will almost certainly be listed. High resolution image of a distinctive mushroom, particularly useful for showing the ring. Displayed as it actually looks, rather than as it looks on when fairies are sitting on it. Looks great at high resolution, clear shot of the fungus itself and looks very natural.

Articles this image appears in

Amanita muscaria

Creator

Tony Wills

• Support as nominator --J Milburn (talk) 18:13, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support Looks very real. Lighting is also quite good. I wanted to nominate this myself but felt too lazy. --Muhammad(talk) 04:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose It has blown highlights (not severely so), a noisy background (not to bad), chromatic aberration (mostly in the background), lacks contrast and is soft all over. I don't really understand why stuff like this passes commons QI. More aesthetically speaking, the background very distracting. Most of these problems are caused by stopping down too much on a point and shoot. The edit helps a couple of the problems, but I've often seen images that size opposed on size grounds. Noodle snacks (talk) 05:49, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
  • IMO the background is quite informative. If I am correct, it shows ferns which require soil rich in organic matter and shady areas, conditions which are also required by mushrooms. --Muhammad(talk) 19:14, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose foreground and background objects distracts very much and mushroom is torn. Lee2008 (talk) 11:34, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
  • The slight damage to a very delicate structure is perfectly normal for this stage in development, and likely happened when it came free of the gills which it formerly protected. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:45, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support We have very few good fungi pics, and this is amongst the best of what we have. When standards are raised by people going out and showing us what they are capable of, it would be reasonable to delist this one, but I think it reasonablew to accept this as amongst the best we have, then seek to improve the situation. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:45, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I plan to go fungi hunting in a couple of months when the time of year is right actually. Noodle snacks (talk) 01:02, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
    • Well, then, I'm ure your work - which is always excellent - will greatly raise the standards of fungi on Wikipedia =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:43, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose per Noodle Snacks. Spencer^T♦C 20:50, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose A good contribution, but I don't think the quality and composition are up to snuff. Fletcher (talk) 00:01, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
• Comment IMO the only thing that needs sharpening here is the stalk, so that's what I've done in the alternative edit. Feel free to re-apply any other changes that you feel are necessary. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 01:03, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I'd still do a curves adjustment, contrast is still lacking on the edit. Noodle snacks (talk) 06:56, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support I was pleasantly suprised to find this had been nominated here :-). I took this photo to give as detailed a view of the classic features of this mushroom as I could. Starting at the top we have the white universal veil remnants, and small bits of debris from the forest floor on the slightly glutenous (when wet) bright red cap. Under which you can clearly see the gills, then the partial veil which has dropped away from the gills and clings to the stalk. And below is the white stalk. The only major visual feature missing is the bulbous 'root' which is in the ground. Surrounding the mushroom can clearly be seen the pine-needles from the pine tree in the background - a very common association of these species. As usual under pinus radiata there is little undergrowth, just a few very small plants.

@User:Noodle snacks the time of the year is right, you are just in the wrong hemisphere ;-).

@User:Lee2008 Yes the partial veil is 'torn', it may well drop off all together just leaving a ring - my intention is to depict real mushrooms :-).

There are technical compromises in the background, but the background is for context not the main subject of the photo.

I see the Amanita muscaria article is currently a featured article candidate, I will try and provide a photo of a mature mushroom as well (I'll go check if there is already a good one available). --Tony Wills (talk) 11:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Not promoted MER-C 08:19, 12 March 2009 (UTC)