Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Bank of pink clouds reflected in the roof of a blue car.jpg

File:Bank of pink clouds reflected in the roof of a blue car.jpg, not featured

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Featured picture candidates/File:Bank of pink clouds reflected in the roof of a blue car.jpg Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Bank of pink clouds reflected in the roof of a blue car.jpg

• Category: Commons:Featured pictures/Natural phenomena#Reflections
•  Info On my way home I pulled over just to photograph this magnificent bank of clouds, illuminated by the sun setting right behind me. When I leaned on the car to steady the camera, I accidentally noticed the reflection. Luckily I have a blue car. :) (This photo explains it.) All by me, -- Cart (talk) 22:03, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
•  Support -- Cart (talk) 22:03, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
•  Support - I don't know whether the buildings on the right are leaning or not, but that is indeed a beautiful bank of clouds and reflection. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:35, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

• I think that any leaning is so slight it can be ignored. I didn't want to do any perspective correction since it can disrupt the symmetry of the reflection. --Cart (talk) 22:57, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

•  Oppose Beautiful clouds, awkward reflection. It would be a lake, maybe. But there are 3 problems now with this mirror effect : 1) the DoF is too shallow because the car is close to the camera, so at full size the reflection is completely out of focus and not pleasant at all, 2) What makes a reflection beautiful in general in a photo is produced by the surface, and the texture of the material, subtle waves for example with water or polished tiles. Here a roof of a car doesn't make this elegant reflecting surface. It's a creative shot (giving the illusion of water at first sight), but deceiving when we start zooming, 3) The contours of the reflecting plan and the intersection with the horizon are unclear and make this car, which doesn't belong to the landscape, intrusive. Sorry, this is not working for me. I also find the image rather dark with uninteresting black silhouettes in the middle. So nice colorful clouds certainly, but not a successful composition -- Basile Morin (talk) 01:13, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
•  Regretful oppose per Basile's critique. A great idea that was worth trying, nevertheless. Daniel Case (talk) 03:54, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

• Not so much an idea as that I saw something different and took a picture of it. :) But worth a try as you say. --Cart (talk) 08:47, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

discussion on DoF and mirrors

Comment Just to point out the laws of physics state that "For all planar mirrors, the object and virtual image are positioned equal distances from the reflecting surface". So the clouds and the reflected clouds are essentially equidistant from the camera wrt DoF concerns. The car roof paintwork is not acting as a perfect mirror and is slightly convex. The DoF is not "too shallow", and greater DoF would not bring the reflected clouds into "focus", but would bring any dirt or scratches into focus. -- Colin (talk) 11:49, 3 October 2018 (UTC) Dirt and scratches yes, but also more details of the clouds. Laws of perfect mirrors are not valid here, since the surface is diffuse. For a better approximation of the optics in this particular case, here are some basic principles concerning the surface reflectance. I'm not saying this surface would be pretty to look at (that's in my second point), but at least the reflection would not be blurred like that. I studied physics and optics at the university and worked in illumination systems for trucks dashboards in Siemens VDO in Germany for my final project -- Basile Morin (talk) 12:30, 3 October 2018 (UTC) Guys please, let's not overthink this. I photographed something different that caught my eye. You either like it or you don't, simple as that. --Cart (talk) 12:35, 3 October 2018 (UTC) In which regard does it matter that you studied "physics and optics"? --Code (talk) 12:39, 3 October 2018 (UTC) Since we're talking physics and optics -- Basile Morin (talk) 12:45, 3 October 2018 (UTC) Forget physics and optics, it all comes down to that I should have washed my car better. I need to keep this in mind for future photos. ;) --Cart (talk) 12:50, 3 October 2018 (UTC) Exactly , if this car had been polished like a crystal ball, the reflecting clouds would have been perfectly identical to those above, whatever the DoF. But since this paint is certainly partially opaque, it can never be assimilated to a perfect mirror, and thus a larger DoF would have shown the wonderful texture of this roof, to give a clue about its reflectance. Now, unfortunately you just have the diffuse part of a semi-reflecting material out of focus and that's not, in my humble point of view, extremely sexy :-) -- Basile Morin (talk) 13:41, 3 October 2018 (UTC) This explanation in picture : File:Variation_of_DoF_on_mirror_vs_diffuse_surfaces.jpg -- Basile Morin (talk) 08:47, 4 October 2018 (UTC) Well I think FPC can be a place to learn, as well as see pretty pictures. The surface is only partly diffuse, otherwise you would not see a recognisable refection with detail. The reflected clouds really are kilometres away, not 2m away. The scattering of light by the imperfect surface is not something that any degree of focusing or increasing DoF can recover, so the unclear reflection cannot be fixed by better technique. If one focused on the car roof, say, one would see the orange-skin paint surface texture, or dirt, and the clouds would be even less clear. It is possible to get an image on a diffuse surface that is at focus at the diffuse surface itself -- this occurs when you watch a film at the cinema. In this case, the image has been focused with a lens onto the surface itself. That is not the case here. For what it's worth, I like the clouds and the reflection is fine, but the middle bit is rather dark. I think this is a good idea for a photo, and it could be tried another time (with clean car!), which is also why I think it important to understand that "shallow DoF" is not the problem here. -- Colin (talk) 13:04, 3 October 2018 (UTC) If you want this color on the clouds, the surrondings are bound to be on the dark side since this was just before the sun set. I could brighten the center, but I like to keep my photos as much as what I saw as possible. --Cart (talk) 13:13, 3 October 2018 (UTC) No, I wouldn't fiddle (too much) with reality. Woodland is a light-sink at night and not much can be done about it. I guess I'm more looking for either the middle to be so thin you don't care about it, bright enough to be interesting (light coloured buildings or illuminated city?) or silhouette (File:Arran sunset.jpg). -- Colin (talk) 13:21, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

•  Support Very nice idea. Great clouds, lovely colours. At least something different. I don't think there's a DoF issue, the surface might not be perfect for a clear reflection but reflections are rarely perfect. --Code (talk) 12:36, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
•  Oppose The grain is too high for me.--Peulle (talk) 17:48, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
•  I withdraw my nomination --Cart (talk) 08:55, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Confirmed results:

Result: 3 support, 3 oppose, 0 neutral → not featured. /--Cart (talk) 09:00, 4 October 2018 (UTC)