User talk:Colin/Archive/2017

Infinite Megapixel camera

	Infinite Megapixel camera
	I built this camera specially for you, a perfect camera that does not expire in time. Thanks for your support The Photographer 13:42, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks User:The Photographer. I note that "Generic Camera Icon" has a Nikon red swoosh. Your bias is obvious :-). -- Colin (talk) 15:00, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I removed it. --The Photographer 15:09, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

No need to apologise, The Photographer. The red swoosh is quite stylish. -- Colin (talk) 17:44, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, however, We can't do nikon promotion in the main page --The Photographer 18:05, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Good morning Colin,

Format changed to 16x9. Thank you for the advice.

Sincerely,

--Agnes Monkelbaan (talk) 06:40, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Signature

Hi Colin,

I think something went wrong with your signature here. -- Slaunger (talk) 11:12, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi Colin, you forgot your signature, please, feel free to remove my comment here --The Photographer 18:32, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

File:Great hornbill.jpg

Great hornbill

Hi Colin, this hornbill photo is taken by our friend who has a great collection of such works. We bring him to Commons. His works are initially processed for large size printing; and so highly upsampled. I advised him to re-upload in actual size and he made a sample attempt here. I think it looks good; but seems underexposed. Please review this photo and give some suggestions on improvement in some basic processing. (Hope some more people are watching this page and expecting their comments too.) Jee 03:16, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree the upsampled images aren't suitable for Commons and best to use original size. I noticed one also had noticable JPG compression (blocks) which is another thing to watch out for. Wrt exposure, it is difficult to recover the blacks unless the raw file is available, as they will be already lost in the JPG, and posterise if you push things. I'm no wildlife/bird-in-flight expert. The sun is behind/above the bird, shining through the white wing tips. It may well be correctly exposed (there's no way to use a white/silver reflector to lift the shadows of a bird in the sky, unlike with a flower). If the raw is available, I would try to lift the eye a little to make it more visible, and perhaps bring out the shape of the body, but would be reluctant to lift the shadows much as that might just make the black feathers grey. There is a good contrast between the sunlit yellow feathers and the black, just a shame the head is in shadow. You probably want to message some of the FP crowd who take this kind of photo. Perhaps post on talk FPC and ping a few people. It would be good to get processing advice before nominating any at FPC. Well done on your recruitment. -- Colin (talk) 08:09, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. He has the raw; but I agree that the black may change to grey when shadow is lifted. I'll try it in QIC to get some input. It may be declined as eyes in shadows and wings overexposed. ;) Jee 08:41, 5 January 2017 (UTC) Or better post at Commons:Photography critiques? Jee 08:53, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I didn't think many people were active at Commons:Photography critiques. If it were me, I'd directly ask someone who I know takes great bird/wildlife photos of the sort he is doing. -- Colin (talk) 09:20, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Agree. And after some thoughts, I came to arrive that it may be a waste of time to ask too much for help as I can't re-process his works. Better let him know about this discussion so that he can decide. Meanwhile pinging Frank Schulenburg for some comments. Jee 10:21, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

It looks like the sun is behind the bird which is unfortunate. I don't think there's much you can do in this case. I like the idea of bringing new bird and nature photographers to Commons, though :-) --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 19:04, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Frank. Jee 06:18, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Suggestions about lens

Hi, I come to you for some suggestions about buying a new lens. I have a Nikon D7000 and a 18-70MM F3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX ZOOM NIKKOR lens. Some of my pictures were not sharp enough for QI, I think it is probably due to the lens. I also have a 70-300 zoom. What do you suggest? Thanks in advance, Yann (talk) 16:17, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi Yann. Can you point me to some of the photos you found failed QI or you were disappointed with. Also perhaps some that passed or you were very happy with. What sort of photos are you mainly planning to take? -- Colin (talk) 23:22, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I didn't understand why File:Fresque Genève, cité de refuge avec Lénine.jpg and File:Autoportrait de Fabrice Gygi, cimetière des Rois, Genève.jpg failed, while most of Category:Exposition Open End were OK. Regards, Yann (talk) 21:11, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry for my break, I know that this question is for Colin and I want listen his answer too. Exposure time is very slow (you could up the ISO or use tripod with your current lens), my first recomendation is a Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G, this lens is cheaper, fast and basic for any situation. If you want a portrait lens, you could buy a Nikon AF-S FX NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8, and if you want a zoom lens a[Nikon AF-S FX NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G is a good quality vs price, however, it is my personal recomendation because I allready used that lens more info A hug --The Photographer 00:02, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions User:The Photographer. Yann, the first image is soft but I suspect your focus is fine if it really was about 10m from you (as the EXIF claims) -- it is hard to see how your autofocus could be so wrong and the DoF is quite large. I see Ikan suggests it is out of focus and could be sharpened -- he doesn't really know much about cameras I'm afraid, and at times I think he thinks sharpening is a magic cure. Sharpening can only really help a small amount and if the image is already quite soft (as it is here) then the only way to crisp it up is to downsize and apply some sharpening. Then it could look really crisp but of course would be less megapixels. A downsize to 6 megapixels would not have given you any problems at QI wrt sharpness/focus. This is one of my problems with QI, especially, as it focuses too much on pixel peeping comments, and forgets that a 6MP sharp image is pretty good and could print A4 quite satisfactorily.

I think the actual problem is a little camera shake. The 70mm focal length is equivalent to 105mm in a full-frame camera. The normal rule-of-thumb for hand holding a sharp image is 1/focal length so that would be at least 1/100s and often a bit more to be safe (especially with our high-resolution sensors and pixel-peeping reviewers). This photo was only 1/60s. So you'd benefit from a lens with VR as that would let you get one or two stops extra of stability -- though it can always be a good idea to take a couple of shots in case one is still a little shaky. Additionally, you might benefit from a lens with a larger maximum aperture, so you could open it up and use 1/200s.

The second issue with the image is chroma noise, and the sharpening you did only emphasised that. The image is only ISO 100 so I am a bit puzzled to see so much noise. Did you get the JPG straight out of camera, or use a raw converter? If the latter, what did you use? I can strongly recommend Lightroom, which can be rented along with Photoshop for about £8.50 a month (though you will need a reasonable computer to use it).

Also this image has AdobeRGB colourspace. Please set your camera/software to output sRGB colourspace.

For the second image the focus does appear to be on the grey stone rather than further forward on the marble figure. There is no EXIF in this JPG (which indicates also that whatever software you used isn't optimal) so I can't judge what you might have done wrong or do differently. If you had your camera automatically pick the focus point then perhaps it chose badly here. You could instead pick a mode like "flexible spot" or whatever Nikon call it, where you can move the focus point around. Then pick a spot in the middle of the figure, which if you have enough DoF will ensure the whole body is in focus. I think your exposure was probably fine, though a good raw converter like Lightroom, would help you manage the extremes of light and dark we have here.

A prime lens, as The Photographer suggests, will offer good sharpness and is faster (brighter) than most zooms. But you may be disappointed at the lack of flexibility. If you have to crop significantly because your 35mm doesn't reach as far as the 70mm end of your zoom, then you lose a lot of quality. You could consider something like the "Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 EX DC OS HSM" which is faster at f/2.8 and has optical stabilisation. Also the "Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM C" (note the C at the end) which has a slightly longer reach but is still fairly fast lens. The latter is slightly newer and probably the most usefully flexible option, covering a great range of focal lengths. I could look some more at lens choices, but am not very familiar with Nikon. -- Colin (talk) 09:29, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

See also Best lenses for the 24M-Pix Nikon D7100: Best standard and portrait primes and zooms and click on the "standard zoom" or "standard prime". Ignore the 24-70 lenses as they are for full frame and are not a good focal range for APS-C and tend to be very expensive and heavy. This seems to confirm my recommendation for an optical stabilised standard zoom, and The Photographer's prime choices. -- Colin (talk) 09:41, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

CreateVoting and Voting codes for photo pairs

Colin, Commons:Photo challenge/2016 - December - Home appliances will be done soon and we will need your codes for photo pairs. I published your "single" photo codes at: Commons:Photo_challenge/code/voting.cs and Commons:Photo challenge/code/CreateVoting.cs, may be you can do the same with the "pair" codes. You are welcome to process that one or I can give it a try first. --Jarekt (talk) 13:19, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Jarekt, I wanted to check that program out before uploading it. But I'm having to reinstall developer software, etc, which is taking all my time this evening. Will look at it again tomorrow. I'll make sure it works for this month's photo pair challenge (I can prepare it) and then upload the working source files. -- Colin (talk) 22:27, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

That is great. Thanks. --Jarekt (talk) 00:19, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Jarekt. I've uploaded it to Commons:Photo challenge/code/CreateVotingDuo.cs. For the Commons:Photo challenge/2016 - December - Home appliances challenge, it is running through to January despite the name, so I've got a maxUploadDate = new DateTime(2017, 1, 31); line inserted to force the end date. I've tested it on the current challenge and it produces the voting page OK. I'll run it on Tuesday 1st Feb to create the page then. -- Colin (talk) 13:30, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Advice needed

Hi Colin, may I request your advice once more? I've made a stitched HDR picture of a famous museum in Berlin and now I'm not sure which crop to choose for to upload it here. What do you think? You can find the pictures here. Anybody else reading this is invited to give their opinion, too, of course. --Code (talk) 14:20, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Prefer the 2c photo. The building on the right of the 2e version isn't adding anything imo. The cut-off road sign and metal framing are messy. The far left also has some distracting street furniture. I've taken a 16:9 crop of the 2c here. It takes away most of the road, which I don't think is relevant, a tiny bit off the left, and some sky. This I think focuses on the building without removing anything important and still a good margin round. You may, unfortunately, get some complaints about the noise in the sky. -- Colin (talk) 14:43, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much. In fact I feel quite the same althouhg I thought it might be interesting to add the surrounding buildings to the picture to get an old vs. new contrast. Regarding the noise: I think in situations like these you only have the choice between posterization and a little amount of noise. I remember that Diliff once advised me to add some noise here to avoid posterization. But yes, not everybody here will understand the problem, I think. We'll see, I'll upload the 2c version here and nominate it at QI. Thank you very much for your quick response! Regards, --Code (talk) 16:24, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks

This is 'out of nowhere', in that I've lately been working on issues that are not apparent unless you watch the right esoteric places. However, I saw your comments at Commons:Village_pump#Women.27s_March_mass_deletion... I think it's worth noting, for the sake of possible having a more collegial level of interaction in the future, that this is a case where I think you are arguing a completely correct point of view... the PDM is not a 'license' (and CC says it is not), it is merely a 'statement of opinion' on the part of the person that applies it. When that person 'is' the copyright owner, it 'might' be considered an abandonment of copyright, but there is a level of doubt (and a lack of international applicability) that makes such a statement useless for us. - Revent^talk 05:09, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Revent, I have been involved in, and re-read some previous discussions in this matter. Some people who are far more knowlegable and wise about copyright law than me have claimed that a verified PDM tag on Flickr could protect an uploader should there be a legal issue later. But, as you note, others point out that in some countries, the law does not permit such a statement/abandonment. It is possible, even then, a court would be sympathetic to someone using this image in good faith. I don't know; much of this seems untested in any court; and copyright law rarely seems to have any rational basis (hence different attitudes globally). I take the Wikipedia attitude to sourcing wrt the copyright situation. A user who applies the PDM tag to an image that is not already PD has self-identified as an unreliable source.

There seems to be a frequent issue with Flickr2Commons, whether this is bulk upload of photostreams that contain out-of-scope images, or upload of images that are immediately identified by our software as requiring manual correction/information to permit us to host them. Nobody seems interested in fixing it, or restricting its use to wiser, more careful people.

This is a hobby, and nobody pays us, nor is there a protection fund if we get sued. I cannot fathom why someone would be so enthusaistic about uploading other people's photos that they would place themselves in any legal danger. I cannot understand why people would rather argue and insult others on Commons, than ask the Flickr user to fix their licence tag, or to up-vote or comment positiviely on my suggestion to Flickr about their bad UI (nobody has). This tells me much about Commons, or at least, about those who are here to curate and collect "free" works, rather than make them themselves. -- Colin (talk) 08:21, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

You're probably correct that a court, at least in the US, would probably not sanction a re-user for 'willful infringement' if they relied on a PDM from the author in good faith, but that's really not the standard of evidence we are supposed to apply.

I'll freely admit that the vast majority of images I have uploaded are not my own work, but would hope that you would agree that it's useful to upload historical images from places like NASA and the Naval History and Heritage Command, or high quality photos of art from the Getty Museum. Those are all 'blatantly' PD sources, and usually I'm replacing existing lower-quality copies when I do so. I think, however, that many of the people that take images from places like Flickr are just looking for illustrations for 'their' wikipedia articles, and really don't care much (if at all) about Commons. - Revent^talk 12:28, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Camera advice

I know you are more competent about this than me, by far. My experience with having a decent camera dates back to the 'film' era (90's)... while I know the basics of photography, I have never owned a decent digital camera.... instead, I have used (on and off) rather terrible digital 'point and shoot' cameras, cringed at the effects, and not uploaded them to Commons unless they were of something particularly interesting. I am now in a situation where I would like to buy a 'real' digital camera, but something on the lower end... a 'basic' digital SLR, that allows the use of multiple lenses (there is much useful stuff that I 'could' photograph, but have not, on the grounds of not having a decent camera).

What I used to use (and still own, but have not used for years) was a en:Canon EF camera... what I would like is something equivalent, around the USD $500 range. I'd appreciate any suggestions...I would mainly be using it for either 'architectural' or 'landscape' images. Thanks in advance. - Revent^talk 05:27, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Revent, $500 is not a huge amount of money for a DSLR or a mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera. If you are looking to buy a current model new, then you will only afford a basic entry-level camera with kit zoom lens. You can save a good amount of money by buying last years's model (and sometimes, even the one before that) since for the last few years, the improvements made to consumer DSLRs have been quite small and mostly irrelevant to picture quality. What's your attitude towards buying second hand, or whether via ebay or from a local camera shop? And also whether you want to buy from a real shop or via the internet. IIRC you are in the US? I think B&H photo video are well respected. Can you visit their store, or a local shop to have a play with some models?

By "architectural" do you mean photos of buildings outside, or photos of interiors? If the latter, then a tripod will often be required. Can you give some examples of images you'd like to take? Is this purely documentary or do you feel an inner artist wanting to burst out?

You mention multiple lenses, so do you think you will have budget in future to buy more, or is this already stretching what you want to pay? This can quickly be an expensive hobby, though a lot of people by a DSLR + kit lens and never buy anything more for it. Would you use it for video?

Do you aspire to take "satisfactory" photos for Commons, or to reach the level where you take QI or FP quality images? If the latter, then the kit lens that comes with many consumer cameras might disappooint you wrt its sharpness and its relatively dark maximum aperture. If you can stretch to the sort of lens I recommend above to Yann, plus buying "body only" either second hand or an older model, that might give you the best "bang for the buck", but will exceed your $500 budget

My first DSLR was a basic model, but I choose a good quality zoom lens for it, and later bought some cheap prime lenses. With that I was able to take FP quality images. I've upgraded the camera since then, but the lenses are still used. So, IMO, it is more important to get a reasonable lens, than to by the latest-and-greatest camera. You'll also want to budget for a camera bag, memory card, spare battery and some software such as Photoshop Elements or Photoshop Lightroom. The latter would be my recommendation and can be bought outright, or rented (when it comes with Photoshop CC too). Lightroom will help you get the best out of what your DSLR is capable of, provided you have the time to learn it.

All camera manufacturers make great cameras. There is a degree of "you get what you pay for" and variations on what is the best deal for a given price level. Canon and Nikon dominate and will give you the most choice of accessories, lenses, and second-hand market. I use Sony, and there's also Pentax and Fuji. With a bit more info, I could help make a more specific recommendation. -- Colin (talk) 09:05, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not interested in buying 'this year's model new', and I'm aware that I'm looking at the low-end of the 'real camera' range. At the same time, I'm aware of exactly what you mean about 'irrelevant to picture quality'... I have no desire to pay extra for frills like Bluetooth. It's my intention to also buy a tripod, and to invest in more lenses over time, as I need them... a lot of my concern, really, is to start back out with a decent body, and a 'lens mount system' that will let me have a decent range of options for both lenses and for possibly moving up to a better body without having to 'start over'. I probably will buy a body and lens separately, though, instead of one of the 'bundles', but I'm really just starting to look at this point.

I'm located in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the US, so there is a 'vast' range of local camera and electronics shops, though the one you mentioned is very much 'not' nearby (well over a thousand miles away, actually).

I don't think an 'inner artist wanting to burst out' is the right description... 'documentary' would indeed be far more accurate, I will probably mostly be taking photos of things such as museum exhibits and interesting buildings. As an example, I think our collection of photos of of this ship absolutely do not do it justice, and it's basically 'in my neighborhood', and somewhere I could easily visit repeatedly for different lighting.

I'm not especially concerned with taking FP or QI quality photos, I'm far more concerned with the ability to take ones that are actually 'technically competent', as opposed to the terrible results you get from the typical 'point and click'. At the same time, going out any buying something that's 'way over' my skill level (and I'm 'quite' out of practice) would not be helpful. - Revent^talk 13:28, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

I'll have a think, based on your answers. I'm busy tonight so may have to be tomorrow. Since you mention "museum exhibits and interesting buildings" I'll ping User:Jebulon who does a lot of that sort of thing. Many museums do not allow tripod use (unless you can arrange out-of-hours access) which may influence your choice of lens. Compared to many compact cameras, a standard zoom on a DSLR is only about 3x zoom, which might be fine for you or might be limiting. It won't magnify an awful lot. It sounds like you don't need a long-telephoto zoom, such as for birds/animals, to begin with at least. And if you are prepared to change lenses, then buying a super-zoom (which covers both standard and telephoto zoom ranges), is unlikely to be wise as there are compromises for image quality then.

Most DSLR ranges come in two kinds: those with full-frame sensor the same size as the old 35mm film and those with "crop" sensor that is approximately APS-C sized. The former are much more expensive (well out your price range), both for the bodies and for the lenses, and are bigger and heavier. But that is what the professionals often use and can give the best image quality provided you have deep pockets and willing to haul it around. The latter are sometimes used by professionals but also have bodies/lenses aimed at the consumer market too. This matters wrt your "moving up to a better body without having to 'start over'". You can certainly move up to an excellent body within the "crop" sensor range, but if you intended to go full-frame, then it is likely that some (or most) of your lenses would not be appropriate, as they are designed for the smaller sensor. In my view, unless you think you are going to want to spend £3000 on your photo hobby any time soon, then just forget full-frame. I use a crop sensor camera and very happy with that choice: I have a bigger range of lenses than if I had bought full frame, and I'm happy with the image quality. Even if you did change systems, your lenses, if you buy well, will have a reasonable second-hand value. The camera body depreciates in value faster. -- Colin (talk) 15:32, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) When I read about your needs Revent I am actually wondering is you would be better off by some of the cameras in between DSLRs and compact cameras. Maybe portability and a good build quality is more important? I suppose that if the image looks really good when re-sized to fit a typical monitor screen, this fulfills your needs? That means that pixel light sensitivity is not that much of a concern because if you resize the full 10-20 Mpixel resolution to a full screen, much os the pixel noise visible in full resolutiobn dissapears. What comes to my mind is the award-winning mirror-less Olympus OM-D series. The first model in this series came to the market in 2012, it is the Olympus OM-D E-M5. This is still a very good camera body, and it has a very nice built quality. I checked on ebay, and it seems like second-hand bodies in good condition can be bought for 400-450$ in the US. For a mirror-less camera, there are less mechanics that can fail, and the camera can be made considerably more compact without the mirror system. I am not an expert on lenses for these cameras, but it is my impression that the price/quality ratio is very high. It is much easier to make a good lens for a slightly smaller sensor, thus you get a lot of lens quality for the money. There are also less expensive alternatives than the OM-D, which is like the baseline series in the intermediate camera sensor range. -- Slaunger (talk) 18:19, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

User:Revent, I agree with Slaunger that a mirrorless camera can be suitable vs the standard DSLR shape. Olympus and Panasonic jointly developed the micro-four-thirds systems and their lenses are most compatible between those two companies, though there isn't a lot of third-party lens support. The sensor for those is slightly smaller again than APS-C (it's a 2x crop rather than 1.5x crop vs full frame). Another option is Fuji who make excellent and lovely cameras and lenses for their APS-C cameras. Sony make a mirrorless range with their E-mount cameras which are available in crop and full-frame models. For a more traditional DSLR, Nikon and Canon will give you equally huge range of lenses and support from third-party lens and accessory makers. Sony (with A-mount) is quite a bit further behind, but still plenty choice of lenses. Pentax make some really excellent and good value cameras but their range of lenses and support from third-parties is considerably smaller again.

Unless you have a very specific need (e.g. automatic exposure bracketing for HDR, or great autofocus tracking for sports) then it is hard to make a bad choice. All the systems offer a choice of lenses and all feature excellent sensors if you choose a camera from e.g 2014 onwards. For example, the Nikon D5200, D5300, D5500 and D5600 are all very similar cameras with only small changes made each year. See this comparison for example. Canon also issue a new entry-level camera each year with negligible difference. The 650D and 700D are extremely similar, but the 750D is a larger improvement. I think generally Nikon's upper-entry-level models represent better value and better sensors than Canon's have. So I suggest you look at the D5XXX series with the 24MP sensors and see if you can get a body with a price you can afford. Also have a look at some mirrorless models from the last few years, as you may really like the smaller format. -- Colin (talk) 10:15, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

User:Revent, I've just been looking at replacement kit lenses for Nikon for a friend. It seems their kit lenses are actually considered quite sharp, with their main flaw being the small maximum aperture (e.g. ranging from f/3.5 to f/5.6 rather than a fixed f/2.8 in a better lens). The consequence of a smaller maximum aperture is that the lens image in the viewfinder is a little darker, the autofocus has less light to focus quickly with, and you need to use a slower shutter or higher ISO (risking shake or more image noise).

• AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR II
• AF-P DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR

The latter is the newest better model but watch the names closely otherwise you'll end up with an older model or a model without VR. Now f/5.6 is 4x darker (two stops slower) than f/2.8, which is quite a large amount. But that's the price you pay for a cheaper lighter lens. -- Colin (talk) 16:41, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I could donate this lens to User:Revent if he want take it. I have this lens, however, I am not using it because I preffer use my nikon 35 mm 1.8f (with the same cheaper price) or a Sigma 18-50mm (it has a fungus, however, it's working for the moment), btw, maybe I will change my camera and I am not sure if will take a DX or FX. --The Photographer 18:43, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

User:The Photographer, you need to persuade Revent to take a holiday in Brazil and drop off a shiny new Nikon for you when he visits :-) -- Colin (talk) 19:56, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm living in a room of a house where each room is rented and I think that if he comes I would do everything possible to have him sleep with me in the same bed, however, Beria would not accept. Let me think  :( --The Photographer 23:03, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

(comment) I just realized I forgot the : when I linked a category earlier, so my 'example' subject didn't show up. Fixed. I'll respond meaningfully later. - Revent^talk 18:59, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

I just came across this thread so, I suppose I'll use this tag: (talk page stalker) - Others commenting here have far more photography experience than I do, but I thought I'd chime in since I was in a pretty similar scenario just about a year ago. To me, having about the same ~$500 budget, the mirrorless cameras seemed to offer what I wanted -- a comparatively inexpensive body, many options for interchangeable lenses, and reasonable technical quality. I had been using a smartphone camera and a point-and-shoot digital camera from 2001 before that. I thought they were decent until my first few times through QIC taught me otherwise. :) After doing some research, I settled on the Olympus PEN E-PL6, which had dropped to $300. Came with the kit 14-42mm, plus I bought the cheap Olympus 40-150mm f/3.5-4.5 lens. I feel like there have been a couple times the body has been the weak link, but overall I've been really happy with it. The 40-150mm has disappointed me a few times, but there was significant jump in price to get one of the better similar lenses. It's yielded some good results when e.g. the light is right, though (part of it could be user error), and at $50, why not? (it was, I think $100-$150 when I got it). The biggest negative, which isn't that much of a negative, is that although it claims to be good for video, in my experience it's really rather terrible for video. I say it's not much of a negative because I didn't intend to use it for video. The danger of buying any such camera with a budget, of course, is the pull to buy additional lenses. It's gotten quite a bit more expensive since my original purchase... FWIW — Rhododendrites ^talk |  22:42, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Nick's talk

Nick's t/p has been archived, so I'm going to reply here. Just to be clear, I have no problem with Jcb, or anyone else, removing Russavia's comments and not replying to them... you're right, that Nick should not have put it back. That was not my point.

Jcb incorrectly deleted several in-use files, that were then undeleted. When they were undeleted, the usages should have been restored.... it should, honestly, have been done without 'anyone' needing to point it out. When Jcb found out, by whatever means, that he broke something, then he should fix it. If he wants to delete Russavia's comment and not reply, that's fine, but he should still take responsibility for his own mistake.

In case you are unaware, Russavia is by far not the only 'well known' person blocked or banned on one or more projects sho seems to have made it their mission to 'prove how much people will damage the project to make me go away'. Not fixing things that should be fixed anyhow (like not deleting copyvios, which has been a war a number of times, or 'restoring' misspelled words in wikipedia articles) just validates their 'belief'... when it stays broken, they 'win'. Such things, particularly when they are obvious things you would 'do anyway' if you noticed them, should just be quietly done without interacting with whatever troll, in my opinion.

To be honest, we don't really know if, or when, any of the 'this is Russavia' comments are actually him... there is really no way to tell. The odds of at least some of those comments being from other people trolling are pretty high. - Revent^talk 20:01, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm not going to get drawn into examining Jcb's actions. And I've had a conversation with Nick, both on and offline, and as far as I'm concerned that's resolved and he's archived it so I don't wish to prolong that. Human nature will mean that if the "wrong person" tells you off, or you are told off in the wrong way, you will dig your heals in, even if incorrect to do so. You are just going to have to accept that, Revent.

Russavia's ban is not one where he is permitted to request files be undeleted, or to open DRs, etc, etc. It isn't a "you are banned from doing anything bad". You can make the case that the project suffers if you like, but frankly we can do that for any banned user who sometimes/mostly/rarely contributes useful content or important messages. Jcb's total ignoring of Russavia (or someone claiming to be Russavia) is a valid response. You may wish differently or handle it differently yourself but you cannot insist he handles it differently. Russavia is well aware he can make his requests via an intermediary, yet chooses not to. The actions I saw today encourage him to not do so, to harass Jcb on his talk page when he has made it clear he does not wish to hear from him, and to take pleasure in watching admins stick up for him and edit war on his behalf. Russavia is capable of caring about the content on this project, but not about the people on this project. A quiet word from you, in your own voice/opinion, politely suggesting a mistake may have been made, could have resulted in a better outcome. The "it might not be him" argument is pretty lame, and not relevant anyway.

Revent, you have strong feelings about what is in the project's best interests, and you perhaps place them above some other concerns such as people issues. It might be worth reflecting that it's just one's and zeros, that serious concerns about content can be made directly to WMF, that almost anything us volunteers do is by nature not legally or morally vital, and important issues involve the copyright owner, the subject and the uploader -- everyone else isn't that important. Commons hosting any individual file is really, really, not important. One might jump up and down and think that undeleting a file is the most important thing in the world. It absolutely isn't. Ever. -- Colin (talk) 21:47, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Suggestions for improvements for Wiki Loves Monuments

Hi Colin,

I hope you are well :)

The Wiki Loves Monuments international team is working on preparing the next edition. After many years of organising the contest, we believe there are still a lot of ways to make the project run even smoother, for everyone − organizers, participants, and of course the Wikimedia Commons community.

I am looking for the feedback of Wikimedia Commons users − not necessarily involved in the organisation/participation of the contest − on how WLM can better interact with Commons. As I do somehow recall several instances where I saw comments from you regarding WLM, I am coming to you :)

Feel free to drop me a line privately or to write on Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments 2016/Feedback.

Jean-Fred (talk) 10:53, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Line scan camera

Hi Colin, you may remember me from FPC and QIC.

I'm applying for a Wikimedia grant for a line scan camera. This is a high-speed camera that only captures a single column (or row) of pixels, and I hope to use one for capturing scenes similar to the work of Adam Magyar [1], as well as rollout photos such as [2] (but of a much higher resolution than can be achieved with a typical video camera).

If this sounds exciting to you, I would really appreciate if you could endorse my grant proposal: meta:Grants:Project/Rapid/dllu/Line_Scan_Camera. Thanks! dllu (t,c) 20:28, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Camera options

Hi Colin,

While I'm waiting for Wikimania Canada, a time ago that I'm thinking what to do and I know that you don't like my choice to use FX format, however, Diliff talk is not clear for me because every user in the discuss preffer FX format because it's the cheaper option quality vs price.

I was thinking about buying a good camera FX like a used D750, for example and ask a GRANT for a fisheye lens to take interiors images. Thanks --The Photographer 13:33, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

User:The Photographer, I think you misunderstood that discussion. Code wrote "I fully agree with Colin" when I argued that a DX + many lenses was better than an FX with one lens. Benh was mostly arguing about the scientific analysis but agreed that APS-C has advantages which led him to buy his Fuji X-Pro 1 camera (APS-C). I think we concluded the only advantage FF had was that it was easier to procure an f/1.2 or f/1.4 lens for extremely shallow depth of field for portraits and similar, but even then, with a Metabones Speedbooster, one can actually achieve exactly the same light/DoF effect on APS-C. Christian_Ferrer explained why he chose a FX camera -- he has the money to afford the best -- and agreed it might be a better budget option to choose DX. So on the "quality vs price" argument, there is no contest and DX wins every time. The FX cameras are more expensive and the FX lenses are more expensive (by quite some distance) and they often don't produce noticeably different results. And wrt the Samyang 8mm fisheye, it only covers an APS-C sensor. If you use that on FX then there's a dark vignette/circle and you'd have to eliminate (crop) that before stitching -- so you'll just end up with an APS-C crop!!! -- Colin (talk) 14:20, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

The FX cameras are more expensives and the FX lenses are more expensives too, however, if you can buy a D750 with a 50 mm 1.8f or a D7200 with a 30 mm 1.8f. I can see cleary the winner. I don't need a tele lens, I think do only building and interior photography just like now I am doing. And maybe ask for a fisheye lens to WMF. The other option is buy a D7200 with the same current lens selection (35mm 1.8f, a sigma 18-55mm (with fungus) and a sigma 70-300m that I never will use (because focus problems with this lens (only one of 50 pictures are in focus with this lens))). I want ping here @Diliff: ,@Benh: ,@Code: and @Christian Ferrer: . Thanks --The Photographer 16:45, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

In the UK:

• The D750 costs £1500. Add a Nikon 50mm f/1.4G AF-S at £350. Then a Samyang 12mm fisheye f/2.8 at £390. That's £2240.
• The D7200 costs £650. You already have a 35mm f/1.8. Add Samyang 8mm fisheye at £250. That's £900. So 40% of the cost of going full frame.

Even if your 35mm is broken, another one costs £150 bringing the total to £1050 = 47%. Instead of buying that prime, you could buy the Sigma 18-35 f/1.8 DX for £520. It's sharper than the Nikon 35mm DX, just as fast at f/1.8 and gives you a wide-angle lens too for interiors, though it is quite long which might be an issue on some pano heads. That would instead cost £1420, still only 63% of the full frame and you've got a wide angle zoom option.

In the future, if you wanted a standard zoom along with your 35mm prime, pick the Sigma 17-50 f/2.8 OS DX for £275. If you wanted a standard zoom for full frame, you are looking at the Tamron 24-70 f/2.8 VC for £775, so that's £500 more expensive for the same option.

If you want the best primes then the Sigma Art 50mm f/1.4 is the sharpest 50mm at £570 and their 35mm f/1.4 is the same price. They are big heavy lenses, though.

You can replace your broken standard and telephoto zooms with better newer lenses for around £600 combined. So, the DX option would give you a 35mm prime, a 17-50 standard zoom, a 70-300 telephoto zoom, an 8mm fisheye and still come to £1500. In other words, in addition to the standard prime and fisheye, going DX also gives you optically stabilised standard zoom and optically stabilised telephoto zoom and still comes out £750 less than full frame.

Of course the full frame option is capable of sharper and less noisy high-iso images, but it's photographically a much more limited kit, for more money. And as an APS-C shooter myself, I'm not finding any quality issues when I nominate my images at FP. They are only limited by my ability. -- Colin (talk) 18:08, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

• Firstly I want to say that I started photography at the same time than I started to contribuate here, and I'm not sure to be the best person to give advices to someone. Colin, and also the other users pinged above, has obviously much more knowledge and experience than me. It is a fact that the price of a D750 is near than twice the price of the D7200, and when you look here, if you forgot the pro-level cameras (D3, D4...), the D7200 with (87/100) is just behind the D750 (93/100), however the D750 is not not twice as good! I never used a Nikon APS-C camera, but when I see some of the photos in the QI and FP pages, I can only agree with Colin that APS-C camera can have very good results, and can even have better results than full frame cameras. If one compare File:Rio de la Crea a Cannaregio Venezia.jpg and File:Mülheim Ruhr - Wasserkraftwerk Kahlenberg - Rechenreinigungsmaschine 02.jpg, by testing blindly without reading any infos or the photo sizes nor knowing anything of the photos, just looking at full resolution in a small part, I'm not sure I will chose the full frame camera... it's just to say that the price is not all, and in all cases there is much more difference between the price of the a FF with an APS-C, than the difference of quality between the both. I don't think the high-end range is a magic step, this is a kind of luxury, enjoyable when one has the means, but not necessarily necessary to make good and satisfactory photography. Of this I am absolutely persuaded. But it is up to everyone to make decisions, changing equipment is not often done. A good photographer can also compensate the lacks of expensive material with good photographic technique (light, carefull composition, knowledge of the potential of his material....). I play guitar and you can give the most expensive guitar to a horse, he will not win a Grammy awards... :). Christian Ferrer ^(talk) 19:10, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Christian. I can only say how I'd choose to spend my money (or grant money). The Photographer, if you have enough money to buy a D750 and a Sigma Art 50 and a Samyang 12mm fisheye, then I will be very jealous of your kit and of course expect absolute perfection from you when you nominate at FPC :-) :-).

I'm reading "Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision" by David duChemin. He comments on the conflict between the artist and the geek in all of us. The geek worries about the equipment and the technique, which is of course essential to a degree. But too much geekery produces "a glut of photographs that are technically perfect but lacking in emotion, depth, symbolism and passion. They appeal to photographers who gawk in stunned awe at the bokeh, but to the world beyond...they just want to see something that moves them." Does that sound like Featured Pictures much of the time? He goes on to say "By all means, geek out on the gear, but don't forget that without vision the whole thing falls apart and devolves. It stops being photography and just winds up as an addiction to expensive, soon-to-be-obsolete gear. Your vision, and the photographs you take, will last much, much longer. No one cares if you create your images with a Canon or Nikon; they care if the photograph moves them.". duChemin takes fantastic photos and used to use a full frame Canon but shifted to APS-C Fuji mainly for the portability but also because the quality was more than good enough. I do not wish I had his gear, but I sure wish I had his talent. -- Colin (talk) 20:57, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

"Hear, hear!!" Go artists! :) --cart-Talk 21:06, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Ha, I've read du Chemins book, too and I really loved it. Most of what I know about photography I learned from this book. Regarding sensor sizes: Personally I would always prefer full frame because of less noise, higher ISO capabilities and overall better image quality. Also the focal lengths of the lenses are accurate (you don't have to consider the crop, so a 12mm lens is covers really 12mm, not 12 x 1,5 = 18mm) and you have much more room to play around with the DoF which is very important when you're interested in portrait photography. I don't know much about Nikon but I really love my Canon EOS 6D (although I hope the Mark II will have somewhat more megapixels and a better shadow recovery). However, full frame is not that important if you're mainly interested in let's say: street, wildlife, sports. Full frame can be very helpful when you're focusing on portrait (DoF) and architecture (focal lengths, better low light abilities for interiors). Of course, everything is heavier and more expensive when you decide to use full frame and in many cases you certainly will get sufficient results with an APS-C camera, too. As the others already said: In the end it's your skill that counts. --Code (talk) 06:53, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Code, the focal length's of my lenses are "accurate" too. It's like pounds and euros -- both are perfectly valid measurements but one might want to convert so that people used to another system can understand what you mean. For the images The Photographer is doing, most of the "advantages" of full frame are not present -- he'll be using base ISO, an aperture with good DoF like f/8, and can tile as many frames in his panorama as he likes. And with HDR, the noise is further reduced. If I had unlimited budget for photography and didn't mind carrying 2x the weight, I'd probably go full frame too. But from my point of view, for a given price, say £1500, you can get a great crop camera, two primes and two good zooms. With full frame, £1500 only gets you the camera body. -- Colin (talk) 08:26, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

@Colin: I fully agree with what you say. What I wanted to say is that I personally prefer full frame for several reasons. I have no doubt that The Photographer will be able to take excellent photos with a D7200 as well. And of course not everybody wants to spend so much money for their gear like I do. I believe by the way that you understood me quite well regarding the focal lengths, didn't you? --Code (talk) 08:56, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, no, I'm not sure I understand your point about focal length. There's a difference, sure, but I fail to see any advantage. Sure, I do have to do a bit of "translation" when an article talks about a 50mm lens being a standard focal length, when really that for me would a 35mm lens, but those things don't affect my ability to take photos. -- Colin (talk) 09:22, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the "translation" is the main point. The other point is that you'll technically never cover such a wide angle with APS-C like you can cover it with FF. Of course it depends on your lenses but an 8mm fisheye lens will cover a much wider field of view on FF as it will cover on APS-C. This can be important for architectural photography. But of course it doesn't really matter if you can use a panorama head. --Code (talk) 09:59, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

In terms of extreme wide angle, my 8mm fisheye provides 180 degree diagonal field of view that fills the frame. If used on a full frame camera, with the hood removed, it produces almost a circular fisheye effect (see this). The Sigma 8mm fisheye produces a circular image on full frame (see this). I'm not sure a circular rendering is useful for any purpose, to be honest. If you cropped it so that it was a usable rectangle suitable for tiling on a panoramic image, you'd likely end up with an APS-C sized rectangle and lower megapixels. I believe the equivalent to my 8mm Samyang is their 12mm fisheye for full frame. Sigma do frame-filling 10mm and 15mm fisheye lenses for crop and full frame respectively. The Canon 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye Zoom is unique in offering both circular fisheye and diagonal-frame-filling fisheye in one lens, for full frame only. So, in terms of a rectangular frame-filling image, one can get to 180 degrees in either format. If one wants to use circular images, then I agree full frame is the only one that offers that, but I can't imaging the utility of such an image. -- Colin (talk) 10:15, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

The Photographer, I think this once again demonstrates that 5 photographers will give 5 different advice. There isn't a bad camera choice. All these cameras are great, and the D750 is a fantastic camera. I think the current sweet-spot in terms of cost / size / quality is the APS-C format. If you pay 2x as much it will be 2x as heavy but not 2x better quality. But it is up to you if you want to spend all that extra money, for a more limited set of lenses, to gain that small improvement. -- Colin (talk) 08:52, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer Colin, I want share this table using Amazon prices. It's showing the lens that I'm thinking use, however, let me know if you think that I can fix something. Also I want add a link to dpreview, comparing a D7200, D750, D500 and D5500, only for comparison purpose, however, the real options there are the D7200 and D750. IMHO D750 have a better quality on hight ISO pictures very useful in low light conditions or in fast shoots (where I up the ISO to get a faster obturation speed). I can see the 1000 $ of differences, however, using a D500 the difference could be of only 200$ using how reference body only price. I do not know the equivalent of lenses, however, I would like to add a 35 mm DX and some zoom lens for a more accurate comparison. I do not know how much the price grows too much with the value of the lenses. I am willing to sell all my equipment and other things, so I could get those extra $ 1000. The determining factor would be the price of the lenses, the greater in percentage could be the value of the FX lenses based on a similar lens DX.

Table comparison

	Price $ USD	Price $ USD
Nikon D7200	1000	1900	Nikon D750
50 mm 1.8f	200	216	35 mm 1.8f
ROKINON 8mm f/3.5	230	389	ROKINON 12MM F/2.8
	1430	2505

• Dpreview image comparison

--The Photographer 11:22, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I thought your 35mm DX lens was fine. I don't understand why your table has a 50mm for the 7200 and a 35mm for the 750? Surely the comparison is a 50mm for the 750 which will be equivalent to your existing 35mm for the 7200? It isn't a fair comparison if one column has more or different lenses.

I don't know what lens DPReview use for their studio shots. The D7200 doesn't look as sharp in the corners, but this may be due to the different lens or they didn't focus as well. Their main use for that test chart is looking at ISO noise. You have to go past ISO 800 to see any difference. If you think you will be shooting above ISO 800 regularly, then sure, going full frame is going to give you at least a stop of advantage. But this is only advantage if you are already shooting at the max aperture of your lens (e.g. f/1.8). Per the long discussion on Diliff's talk page (and this article) if you shot at f/13 on a full frame camera, the equivalent aperture would be around f/8 on a crop sensor, and because that is brighter you can use a lower ISO. So when you make all things equal, if you are shooting between f/4 and f/16 on your lens, then there is really no difference between crop and full frame.

If you are shooing in low light situations, and need a fast shutter speed, then spending more for a f/1.4 lens might be an advantage, and using primes rather than zooms can be an advantage. Also consider optical stabilisation gives you perhaps a couple of stops advantage provide camera shake is your issue rather than subject movement. There are optically stabilised primes but they cost a bit more. But also remember if you are shooting at f/1.8 on your full frame camera in low light, that the depth of field is really low, and so you might not get the focus as sharp as it needs to be, or too much of the frame is out of focus. So then, for all the fancy lenses and cameras, you still have a blurred image. So if you are hand holding the camera in low light, you might be better off with the f/2.8 stabilised zooms or one of Tamron's stabilised primes (e.g the 45mm f/1.8 VC at $599).

Also, if your aim is for best image quality, and are prepared to spend for it, then I'd be tempted by the Sigma Art lenses, or Tamron's new primes. -- Colin (talk) 12:28, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

They used to use the manufacturers' own 50mm f1.4 lenses for DSLRs for dpreview tests, both FF and APS-C. Yes I inverted the camera lens 35 and 50. Excellent recomendations. For the moment my first option is the D7200 and try repair my fungus and focus problem (here repair the lens is more expensive that the lens itself, for the moment I think learn how open the lenses and repair it by myself, however, it look like a complex solution). I need confess you that I love the night photography or photography in low light conditions, a stabilised lens could be a nice solution, btw, Sigma Art lenses are expensive and have severals problems with the micro configuration (I don't know what is it, I just was reading the amazon reviews). I need be carefull in not fall in "love", there are a big industry of marketing and seduction in the ads, for me is very easy see how D7200 is a better camera than a D500 in 90¨% cases. Well thanks for open my eyes, I know that it was a difficult decision to me, I really have an obsession with sharpness in low light condition. --The Photographer 02:35, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

The Photographer I think the feature you refer to is "AF micro adjust" which tunes a lens (not just Sigma but any lens) to your particular camera body for optimal focus precision. A D7200 or D750 will have that feature, but cheaper consumer models like D5200 won't. The Art lenses also have a USB dock that lets you do even better AF Micro Adjust in the lens rather than in the camera, though the dock is another $40. I don't know how easy the fungus repair would be. If you can find a website showing how to safely dismantle that lens, but many lenses require special tools to open them, and are easily broken. Sometimes, parts of the lenses in groups are stuck together and you can't really separate them at all. For low light photography, also consider taking multiple photos at the same exposure settings, and then blending afterwards to reduce noise. But if that's the sort of photo you take often, then I agree the full frame sensor has an advantage if also using the lens wide open. -- Colin (talk) 16:52, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Your multiexposure tip was actually amazing and it's the secret in my news FPC (and a way to clean the "crazy noise" of my camera) and also I'm using Neat Image evaluation version to do test and the result is insteresting. In this first moment I'm thinking in buy this 7200 only with a ROKINON 8mm f/3.5. This weekend I will be looking for a small screwdriver for lens, I will try to save that sigma lens and I have been watching some youtube videos that have left me quite scared due to the level of complexity to clean it. Btw, I find ´this video today and he look like you telling me the same. With regard to night photography, in Latin American countries it is really dangerous and sometimes deadly as in the case of Venezuela (not an exaggeration). Night photography is one of the things that I love, however, stress to be docked kills creativity. Btw, how you are a sigma art lover I think let you this comparison --The Photographer 22:23, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Your new lens

I see you made some shots with your new lens. Very nice. However, I wonder if the lens tends to produce green CA because I see some of it around the moon. --Code (talk) 08:34, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Code, mirror lenses generally do not suffer from CA. The image uploaded was produced from a set of 18 frames that were aligned and merged and then sharpened. Looking at one of the source JPGs I see a green tinge on patches of quite a lot of the moon surface, not just edges, and am a bit puzzled about it. This photo was taken on an evening with rather poor weather for photographing the moon, but I was out anyway after photographing a Moon halo we had earlier (photo coming soon). I was just experimenting with multi-frame shots to improve noise/sharpness and it turned out better than I expected and worth uploading. I hope to be able to improve on it given some good weather and with the moon higher in the sky (less atmosphere to shoot through). I'll investigate why this colour appeared. -- Colin (talk) 08:56, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Quality Image Promotion

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Moon 2017-02-17 UK.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments Good quality. -- Ikan Kekek 01:31, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

--QICbot (talk) 05:29, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

About FPC

It's only me or severals pictures ever mine, not should be FP?. My question is about the image quality and wow is going down. IMHO recent Featured Pictures look very "normal" like a sharp shoot --The Photographer 19:23, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Quality Image Promotion

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Moon Halo 2017-02-07 2.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments Good quality. --W.carter 13:26, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

--QICbot (talk) 05:16, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Philips Series 7000 shaver head.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Philips Series 7000 shaver head.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 13:03, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

News about the crowdfunding

Dear Colin, A few days ago, I got the camera at a "smuggling" price, so I decided to buy it. I can't underestand why this low price, maybe some ilegal?, I don't know. The camera is at present in my hands and its small plot contrasts enormously with its quality. I did some tests that I could not do if this was not done with a tripod with my D300. A big surprise was the really fast focus system, the noise practically does not exist, The shutter sound is hardly heard (very soft). The camera also has a huge number of functions. Previously I had read the manual, however, it was a little confusing to find some manual controls. I know that It was 10 years practically in nikon technology and maybe it is normal to feel that change. I'm sure without you I would never have gotten this camera. I have been thinking of many things to do with it impossible to do with the ancient camera. I am Latin and maybe this sounds like a Mexican novel, however, I feel a great love for this camera and an emotion that I can not explain in words. --The Photographer 17:56, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Your D300 was a pro camera, even though old, so perhaps you will miss some things? Moving from my A33, which is a beginner's DSLR, to my A77ii, which is a serious model, was also quite a leap. I found the same things as you with better noise and focus. You should also notice better dynamic range too. The A77ii was bigger than my A33, which was one of the smallest DSLRs ever made, but I am used to it now. Wrt to your earlier comment about FPC standards... well now you can wow me with your amazing photos. I am looking forward to what you can produce. -- Colin (talk) 18:07, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Let me think how wow you. --The Photographer 18:09, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

You will think that it is stupid, however, I miss the weight and size of the camera. The old camera felt heavier and with a more protected body even stronger than a D800 (I've tried this in some stores). The D7200 has a smaller body and a round control on the left side that looks like a toy, however, with the same functions. --The Photographer 18:12, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree the D7200 is not so strong or weather resistant but still should be well built - have you got a wrist or neck strap for it? You could always buy a cheap battery grip for it which will make it larger and heavier, as well as being much more comfortable for portrait shots. -- Colin (talk) 19:06, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I think that I don't need a battery grip because the weight habit is only a bad habit that which was initially a problem fir neck. In this moment, my main concern to clean the fungi in the sigma lens before use it in the camera. Yes, I discovered how to uncover the sigma lens, however, I have found with a screw type for which I do not have the proper screwdriver size and theses days I have been walking around of São Paulo downtown searching for it. Btw, I am so excited about this camera and for this raison maybe I haven't many ideas to make photographs and I can't explain you it because it's a bit strange feeling. I am open to hearing any ideas from you. Thanks --The Photographer 12:30, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

User:The Photographer, what equipment do you have that works well right now? A 35mm DX prime and the D7200? I assume you haven't yet bought the panoramic head or other lenses such as the 8mm fisheye? Are planning to get them from a visitor to Wikimania Canada? Or some other route?

You could look at this month's Commons:Photo challenge themes -- you like street photography. Or do you have a good location to take some light trails photographs? -- Colin (talk) 12:50, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

In this moment only 35mm DX is working fine, however, it has severals very small things (I don't know what is it in the lens), non visible in the photography I think so. Also, I was thinking get a scholarship to go to Canada, however, I sent the scholarship application very late and gave an error on the page, I actually need that fisheye and the nodal ninja, however, I don't know somebody going to Wikimania Canada here --The Photographer 13:36, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

User:The Photographer, Wrt small things in your lens, see Lens Rentals Blog and this one too. I think the only time such spots might show up is in bokeh circles, but not normal images. Have you asked anyone in WMF if your scholarship application got submitted successfully? It would be a shame to miss out due to a website issue. Are you still going to ask for a WMF grant for equipment? -- Colin (talk) 14:24, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes I allredy asked to WMF, however lamentably, the e-mail not was received. It would be excellent to ask for a Grant, especially for some good quality lenses and appropriate equipment. I have been doing some drafts, however, I can not find a way to better explain the ideas and, in addition, there is another drawback, there is no local chapter. The dirty inside of the lens is like tiny beads of light (balls) with small branches. --The Photographer 14:46, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh I hope those "branches" aren't fungus filaments? Btw, I found this article. -- Colin (talk) 15:13, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

The branches look very similar to fungus (baby stage) and I think do the same like the article, however, i need find the proper screwdriver size it's 0mm and I have it, however, I need it with a big handle because the inner screw in the sigma lens is very difficult to remove without a handle. Maybe it could work for the 35 mm. I'm looking for someone in free market too, however, it's difficult know exactly which one work without see it --The Photographer 16:56, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Yesterday I got the Phillips 0mm screwdriver "PH000" (cheaper chinese version). Uncovering this lens needed an overwhelming force, however, today it is a clean lens

I have the same problem in others lens, however, in minor scale

--The Photographer 00:06, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Ooo. I want to go have a wash after looking at that. I'm not sure I want lens fungus on my talk page ;-) Is your Sigma fully back in business? Autofocus OK. Sharp? -- Colin (talk) 08:58, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

The main problem that i have now is stop the fungus that now are in all my lens. The focus problem is with the 70-300 sigma (not tested jet with the new camera), this one is the 18-55mm. I used a simple cloth with alcohol to clean the lens, however, without any special chemical fungus killer. You'd be surprised to look how wet is this city. The city name is "Terra da garoa" -->> something like "The city with constant microscopic rain" --The Photographer 14:37, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

We don't have such humidity problems. All I can suggest is to Google for ideas. -- Colin (talk) 14:57, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) You could check at some store that sells paint and stuff. We have fungus problems when we repair and paint our buildings here, so before we paint our houses again we wash the walls with fungus killing chemicals sold at the same place as the paint. Perhaps you have them where you live too and they might be useful to wash the lenses with as well. Just a thought and congratulations on your new camera. :) --cart-Talk 15:34, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

What I've read (such as this guide) is that alcohol might be fine to clean the lens, but won't kill all the fungus so it may grow back. They use a 50:50 mix of ammonia and hydrogen peroxide, which is fairly nasty stuff. Then cleaned in distilled water. All the lens surfaces are coated so you need to avoid chemicals that might destroy the coating. But I'm no chemist so couldn't advise which are safe, but would be worried that chemicals suitable for painting over might not be safe, or leave a residue. The author of that article seems fairly sure his technique is safe. A bad fungus infection can apparently remove coatings or even etch the glass, which sounds rather permanent.

This reminds me of a food scare we had in the UK many decades ago, that involved eggs contaminated with bacteria, making people concerned about eating eggs that weren't fully hard-boiled. One comedy TV show suggested viewers should boil them in Dettol just to be sure! -- Colin (talk) 16:04, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, I've used the painting chems many times and I'm still alive, but you should always be careful when using them. They might leave some small residue tough, true, but that might be prefered since such minute residue is there to keep future fungus away. Not sure how it would interact with the coating of the lens though, hmmmm... --cart-Talk 16:34, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

If the lens is re-assembled then perhaps just see if the alcohol did the trick. And if it comes back then try something stronger. I don't think I'd have been brave enough to take a lens apart. -- Colin (talk) 17:38, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to wait for the fungus to grow again (I deeply hope that it does not happen again). This lens is perfectly clean, it is important to remember that I stole this lens from user Beria and it was originally from the user @Jastrow: , around of 50 Featured Pictures were thanks to this lens in addition to thousands of high-quality images. Thanks @Jastrow: --The Photographer 18:37, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

The Photographer: When you are not using the camera then how about packing silica gel packets or small bags of dry rice next to it and put it all in a sealed plastic bag? In that way moisture cannot enter, and if you have a bit of moisture after use, the silica gel should help dry it out. -- Slaunger (talk) 21:35, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

I read mixed opinions about the silica gel. One suggestion is that ventilation helps discourage mould so a sealed container would be bad. Others suggest the silica gel can only absorb so much then is useless. But it is commonly used when packing such equipment. Certainly if the gear gets wet then it is a good idea to dry thoroughly in a ventilated area. I wonder if taking it indoors after being outside can cause condensation much like one's glasses steam up, and it would be necessary to allow this condensation to disperse before packing anything away. I wish there was better advice I can find. Perhaps your local camera shop has advice? -- Colin (talk) 22:13, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Ventilation could be a bad idea here a city with a weather 80-90% hummity almost always. I know about silica gel, however, it look like a placebo effect. I have been trying to creaty manually a vacuum technique. Thanks Slaunger, In this moment I am using this with a sealed plastic bag. Maybe the chemical @W.carter: Technique could work too. --The Photographer 13:10, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

The Photographer: I also looked around on some Swedish camera sites, they are very prone to eco-friendly solutions and found some new tips after the usual/initial clean with ammonia and hydrogen peroxide. One way to keep the fungus from growing back is to exposed the lens to UV radiation/sunlight. It will not kill the fungus, but it makes it harder for it to grow back. Sunlight sounds like something a lens is built for dealing with. They also recommended that a previously infected lens should be kept separately from the rest of the equipment so the spores did not spread to other things. After using it on the camera they also recommended that the area that came in contact with the camera should be wiped off so the spores didn't spread to the camera house. --cart-Talk 13:49, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

The pollution in this city are large that rarely gets to see the sun, however, I will try to take advantage of the few moments of light. How can sunlight enter if the outer lens blocks a large percentage of UV rays?. BTW, All zones and lenses of the new camera are compromised. I tried to clean the lenses as well as possible, however, I'm sure the fungus is there and alive. I have observed the birth of the fungus on all lenses in the form of white dwarfs. --The Photographer 13:56, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I've yet to read any high quality pages on the topic. There are a few documentations of what people have done to treat it, but most of the other stuff seems like speculation and old wives tales. Sure direct sunlight kills mould, but how do you regularly expose the whole lens to it for any length of time, would it reach the inside past the glass, and then there is the risk of pointing a lens at the sun and catching a fire, or of cooking the lens with heat and damaging it. That's also what seems to happen if you try to create too dry an environment. If the regular environment is that damp, then there will be mould spores in the air anyway. Honestly it seems the best thing you can do is stay in Canada when you visit for Wikimania. I hear they are quite friendly up there :-) -- Colin (talk) 14:23, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I sent the wikimania form in the last day and it showed a error page. I wrote a letter to the Wikimania committee and they replied that they did not receive anything. BTW, Canada does not allow people to stay that way as it is illegal. --The Photographer 14:33, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

It's a big country. You could get lost. Just a joke. -- Colin (talk) 14:44, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Despite this very bad joke indeed :). I promise to seriously study your advice of imigrate to Canada --The Photographer 14:53, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

The Photographer: I was there for a few days two weeks ago. Nice country, I like the people there. Maybe, just maybe, you would feel a little cold there in the winter time :D. I was there for business and regrettably I was very busy doing that and only had like 30 mins on a sunny morning to take a few pics in Downtown Toronto. A thorough (but friendly) interview at immigration. Lots of papers needed to be in place to get in on a business visit for just a few days. -- Slaunger (talk) 22:41, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Slaunger Remember that I come from a Caribean Island called Margarita and of course I will feel cold, however, not something that a polartext can stop. You are not the first person telling me that the people there are very nice, however, because my language (I'm C1 on french) i could preffer Quebec (Btw, I'm reading that the inmigration procedure could be easier in comparison with Toronto). Let me know what you are doing there, maybe, just maybe, I could help you :D --The Photographer 16:17, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

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Quality Image Promotion

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--QICbot (talk) 05:11, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Quality Image Promotion

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Photoelasticity - TDK Head Cleaner - Black background.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments Good quality. --Poco a poco 16:35, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Photoelasticity - TDK Head Cleaner - White background.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments These are really great pictures! Good quality. --Basotxerri 14:53, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

--QICbot (talk) 05:11, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Photo contest Art and Feminism

Hi Colin, The French speaking group fr:Projet:Les sans pagEs (equivalent of en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red) who has created an association in Geneva, and plan to organise a photo exhibition next year on Art and Feminism. If we could have a small contest on Commons about this theme, we could select the best 10 pictures for this exhibition. We are already making a budget, so we will have the possibility to print and display these pictures. What do you think about this? Would you help organising such a contest? Thanks in advance, Yann (talk) 23:01, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi, A bit more background: this is part of en:Wikipedia:Meetup/ArtAndFeminism. Regards, Yann (talk) 13:25, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Yann, possibly, though I'm not sure for what. I don't speak French (my school French doesn't cover much more than "Where is the railway station?"). I am cautious about using Commons for promoting an agenda. I'm also cautious about introducing money prizes to our existing forums (e.g., Photo Challenge or FP). Are these photos of works of art? If so, wouldn't most such works of art still be copyright? What kind of contest were you thinking about? -- Colin (talk) 19:15, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I am thinking something like Photo Challenge you started. That's why I am asking you, and also because of your photographic skills (we'll need a jury, unless we do a popular contest). I don't think any knowledge of French is needed. In many places, FoP applies, so it is possible to publish art displayed in public places. And I expect people to find original ways to express the idea. See what we have been able to do this year, which include works published with an OTRS permission: Category:Art+Feminism Geneva 2017. Regards, Yann (talk) 19:20, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Yann, Photo Challenge submission page isn't really much more than a gallery with some instructions in various languages. We still have problems with people not understanding how to enter because they are newbies. Is this event aimed at newbies or established Commons/Wikipedians? Most of the work is involved in arranging the voting and counting them afterwards, which wouldn't be necessary if you had a jury. The image-entry mechanism for WLM is better in my experience, as there is a dedicated upload wizard that automatically categorises the image as it is entered. I think it is possible to create new customised upload wizards, though I don't know who to ask about that. In terms of my reviewing skills, you may have noticed I don't review as much of the artwork images at FP vs the original photographs. I do find it hard to separate the qualities of the artwork from the qualities of the photography, and don't feel FP has really got great criteria for that. I think I might struggle to judge a mix of images containing artworks and new photography. It would certainly be outside my comfort zone. You will know there are other people on FP much more interested in photographing works of art, and perhaps some who are talented artists themselves. Btw, I thought France didn't have FoP and in the UK it only covers 3D art permanently on display to the public. -- Colin (talk) 19:42, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, France has no FoP, we are in Switzerland. Nothing is really fixed at this stage. I am a bit fishing for ideas. ;oP I think I would open the submitting period (say images uploaded in 2017), but require that images pass QI, so we don't have to check quality (although QI standards are a bit too strict IMO). Another possibility might be to suggest this theme for Photo Challenge. Regards, Yann (talk) 19:51, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

So would it be restricted to just people in Switzerland? That might not be so attractive to the existing Photo Challenge forum, which is global, though there is nothing stopping you creating any page on Commons. You may see on talk photo challenge (archives) there were repeated requests to run "Wiki Loves Pride" photo challenges. We did one the first year and it wasn't really a success -- with few entrants and few good images compared to most other challenges. So I resisted running it again, particularly as there are 10001 people-related themes one could choose for a challenge. I think the challenges work best when it inspires a wide range of people to have a go, rather than being aimed at people who already have a particular interest they want to promote. I agree QI is often too strict for its own good. You are welcome to suggest it as a theme for Photo Challenge -- I'm not very active there at the moment. Alternatively, if you are fishing for ideas, then a post at talk FP and talk QI might bring some. -- Colin (talk) 20:12, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Of course not restricted to people in Switzerland. I will follow your suggestion, and post on FP and QI talk pages. The idea is to 1. get 10 first class images on "Art & Feminism", 2. promote Wikimedia Commons and free content. We will certainly get some media coverage, and some people might appreciate to have their work displayed publicly (at least I do). Regards, Yann (talk) 21:00, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Referential language

Hi Colin, with referential language I mean a language that lacks at all of rhetorics, figurative speech, methaphors and so on, thus a language used only to describe a fact, even though at the borders of boredom (A square is a geometric figure shaped as regular quadrilateral with four equal sides and corners...). The equivalent in Italian is "Linguaggio referenziale". I suggested it because people of different cultures might not be able to recognise one another's figurative speech and problems might arise. -- SERGIO ^{(aka the Blackcat)} 18:48, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
PS As for the public lecture, I was also talking to my fellow countryman (even, cityman as we both are from Rome) telling him not to respond to anything he might find offensive or demeaning (though it is not meant to be so, of course). I know that in a multilingual project is often easy to be misunderstood even beyond one's intention, hence my request to avoid potentially "warmongering" speech.

Blackcat I don't think that term directly translates how you think it means. Nor is the problem here is what you are suggesting. While language features like metaphors can fail to translate, deliberately using over-simple language when talking to one's colleagues can also cause great offence (i.e. "do you think I'm stupid?"). I have seen too much of Livio to know that even the most careful and plain language causes him to "take offence" -- he is simply trolling the dicussion and being difficult with anyone who criticises him. I don't think your lecture is polite, particularly from someone who is not a regular at FPC, and who has been invited there by a troublemaker. Nor is it fair, when someone trashes another person's nomination with uploading rubbish-quality images they know do not meet our criteria, or when one of our best photographers (Code) advises Livio about the processing, and gets insulted for doing so. So, in summary, I don't think lanugage problems are the issue here, it is the attitude of your fellow Roman. -- Colin (talk) 21:01, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

But are you always crying? What code is one of the best photographers here you say so, I do not think, respect the opinion of others you'll make it? The nomination was not yours but moheen and did not complain,do you want talk (insulting) for others? The others who have put me negative votes did not bother those who make it in a rude I reply. Then I think it is a problem of education if one is rude may not know what is education! Because they are educated I leave you to cry and write rivers of unnecessary words. Good Sunday (I go to take pictures)--LivioAndronico ^(talk) 07:42, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

It does not matter what Moheen did or did not do or say. It is not their photo, nor had they edited the file page, so they probably did not have it watchlisted to notice that you'd trashed it. I'm sure if someone trashed one of your nominations with an incompetent edit/replacement you'd be very upset. As for your behaviour on the dome nomination, I am surprised you are not blocked again. You will be, I have no doubt. -- Colin (talk) 08:15, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Technical Barnstar

Because your hight technical comments and recomendations on FPC section. Thanks for supporting us guys on Wikimedia Photographer group in the trenches with that incredible mind. Thanks also for keeping the your technical skills development going as well and for your valuable feedback and comments on the technical image recomendation on my talk page, talk pages of others and your talk. Also, Thanks for show me that you don't need expensive and high tech equipments to create high quality images. Your photographs put me in a particular moment in time, they tell a story, or they speak to my emotions. Thanks for show me how find my way The Photographer 19:47, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

:-) -- Colin (talk) 11:48, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Photoelasticity - TDK Head Cleaner - Black background.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set/Photoelasticity - TDK Head Cleaner has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Photoelasticity - TDK Head Cleaner - White background.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set/Photoelasticity - TDK Head Cleaner has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 21:01, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Potential discussion - reform of media grading process

We had a side discussion at Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Raven Rattle, late 19th Century Tlingit culture; Fort Wrangell, Alaska.jpg and I thought that I would continue it here. Eventually I would like to have a voice conversation with you about this or any number of other issues (model release, photo contests, institutional relationships) which we have discussed in the past.

Briefly -

Personally, I wish QI was merely a judge of a "professional quality; useful image" and didn't care about the image origins or some of the pixel-peeping that goes on. We lack that kind of grade and it seems to me the most useful one for our re-users because they could eliminate the poor quality images that one would need to be desperate to use. Btw, "suitable for broad circulation in other wiki projects" is unlikely to be a grading criteria.

I am not sure how to articulate the grading criteria but as you say, I notice that we lack a designation of "professional quality; useful image". We are coming to a point where more institutions want their content in circulation, and I hesitate to give them encouragement to upload an image and immediately post it to 2-3 articles in 30-40 languages. English Wikipedia has one kind of controversy about paid editing, and in Commons the controversy could be milder but still if institutions like a respectable museum share photos then I wish there could be some kind of soft check to make sure they are on track and not disrupting anything. Even with something like the "Raven Rattle" tribal artifact could go into d:Q536129 30 articles and potentially some Wikidata items as a suggested image. Having an image review process can be more about just a review, but also part of a broader on-boarding process to introduce institutions to community conversations on Wikimedia Commons and also establish regular communication.

Commons is about more than WMF projects or the concerns of a MediaWiki user interface. I see the Bowers museum has a mission to "enrich lives through the world's finest arts and cultures" and "celebrate world cultures through their arts". If they believe that extends beyond the visitors to their museum, then sharing their collection with the world using freely licensed photos is one way. While Commons doesn't provide a great UI for viewing a collection, it does make it easy to share those images and permit their reuse elsewhere.

I agree but at this point I do not think anyone should expect institutions to be thinking this way. This conversation is not very well developed on Commons. Right now institutions - due to a range of cultural pressures - are interested in collecting "media metrics" or "social media metrics". The relevant one for museums is probably BaGLAMa 2, but this cannot be used without personal attention from Magnus and also its use or any Wikimedia community documentation is not available to explain why it is relevant. Calculating metrics off-wiki is nearly impossible to explain for anyone except for the 1-2% of communication professionals in the subset of social media professionals who deal with this specific issue. I know that the issue is bigger than Commons but Commons is a really big deal in itself just because it generates measurable data and has a good brand name.

Surely they should be mainly concerned with taking and offering the best photos they can, rather than worry about the opinions of half a dozen amateurs or their use on Wikimedia projects? Any professional photorapher of artefacts will likely give better advice than anyone here can.

I disagree. The world is not as organized as you imagine and I would not take for granted that even the top level professionals in the field will be prepared to have such discussions. Certifications and incentives are useful even for institutions and getting feedback that their image donations are appreciated really helps the relationship. I know this as a mediator for institutions. Also, I think you are mistaken about the advice of professional photographers. Being employed in the field is not the same as being technically proficient, and I think that it can happen that prestigious institutions can hire the best photographers and still get a level of quality which Commons does not pass as FP. I could not have looked at the Raven Rattle photo as you did and come up with critiques like that and I honestly think that sending them back to the institution would be insightful. It would be more insightful if our own documentation included a casebook of dos and don'ts.

I am not sure which processes should be developed. Like you, I care less about the origins of photos ("must come from a Commons photographer") and more about quality content. If content is quality, then I wish that grading could have multiple outcomes, perhaps "not striking but professional quality useful image", "featured picture quality", "faithful reproduction of a 2D work, not FP but approved by default for being competent reproduction". I am not sure what other needs might be met.

From an institution's perspective, having photos graded can be really useful for their future photography practices. The person who hires really might not know what to expect of their photos, and the concept of photo grading may not have occurred to them. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:33, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

If the photo is significant enough that it would illustrate a Wikipedia article and improve on what we already had (if anything) then surely that's your only requirement when judging whether you should add it to those articles. Even if they donate a tiny 300px image, it might still be better than nothing, yet fail to pass any of our grading nor be considered useful generally for printing, say. The issue of institutions adding images into Wikipedia articles is separate from them uploading content. Educational content is always welcome, and we have no limit, yet there can be only one lead image and generally only a handful of images in any given article. I've often felt that images are a huge weakness in Wikipedia, where the ratio of text to image is far higher than just about any other popular medium. It isn't always true that article editors are persuaded by an FP star when judging whether to include an image, and often one finds one's own FP-quality image has later been replaced by something crappy by a random editor because that's the image they took. So the battle for article content, and whether institutions should edit, is really one for Wikipedias to discuss.

I note that an image like the above may suit "VI" if it meets their criteria. But museums generally have much larger collections than they put on display, and likewise Commons has a much larger set of images than can be displayed on Wikipedia or meet Vi criteria. If one's only metric of success is Wikipedia page views, then that's only going to encourage the donation of relatively few select images. One would also favour popular articles, rather than articles that currently lack or need a better image.

As I said, I'm not sure what you were expecting from FP. Many people post in order to get their photographic ability judged and to improve. If that is a factor here, then I maintain I was correct that they will get better advice from a professional photographer (of objects, not of people). I'm not talking about "top level professionals" but about photographers who photograph catalogues or artworks for a living. We have relatively few photographers at FP who take such photos, and none I believe who do it with any serious setup -- for example, they take photos when visiting the museum on holiday. I'm sure the skill level of photography in museums varies widely. But if I were a curator who was responsible for digitizing my collection at a professional standard, I wouldn't be happy at all to receive critical feedback from some internet amateurs who have only taken snapshots on holiday. It's a serious business, with colour accuracy, scale, identification, documentation, etc. -- Colin (talk) 15:33, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Most of what you said has been correct for most of Commons' history.

"If one's only metric of success is Wikipedia page views, then that's only going to encourage the donation of relatively few select images." That is certainly where the discussion begins. Maybe you heard about the recent Metropolitan Museum donation. One trial outcome of this is en:Armor of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, a Wikipedia article made to showcase a Commons upload. I am not sure what capacity there is to make more, similar articles about individual artworks but I expect that at least 10s of thousands works in their collection readily meet English Wikipedia's notability guidelines, just because they keep records of published critiques and commentaries about so many of their individual holdings. This is one example of how an institution might partner with Wikimedia even to highlight less popular works in their collection. What do you think of the main armor photo? It is about 75% background also and if cropped, probably does not meet FP standards of quality, right? I think it is an industry standard photo.

"We have relatively few photographers at FP who take such photos, and none I believe who do it with any serious setup" - there is Evan Amos who has heavy investments in all sorts of photography equipment and light boxes, so I would call him as serious as can be expected. I work at a magazine publisher Consumer Reports and you critiqued the coffeemaker photo I submitted for FP, when I took for granted that it would pass. We have massive photo studios here and set the standard for product photography but I would say that much of what we collect still does not meet FP expectations. FP might not be the right process for some photos. I would not call Commons graders Internet amateurs - it seems to be to be a rigorous process with high standards which many professionals are not going to meet with their routine work. I would not suggest lowering the standard but at the same time I would like for some kind of quality recognition to be in place. It is hard for me to even articulate to others what they might expect. I do not know what precedents have been set, but my guess is that a typical curator at their best would not routinely commission the sorts of photos of their 3D works that would pass the FP process. I honestly think that if the Commons community published advice, the museum community would adopt it and circulate it. I am not sure what advice or standards are in circulation but I think it might be just informal culture with variation by region and individual. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:39, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Evan Amos is a very talented photographer who takes excellent photos for his museum of games. They all have a particular style -- on white or even transparent -- which isn't necessarily the best style for other museum works, but suits the high tech subject. He also ensures the subject is meticulously clean, which isn't always possible/desirable for ancient items. But most importantly, his interaction with the Commons community is essentially zero. So he's not "at FP", even if others nominate his photos from time to time. At FP, we most certainly are amateurs -- I am struggling to think of anyone who is a professional photographer other than Tomascastelazo -- and very few of us have ever had the chance to photograph museum exhibits (or coffee makers) in a studio environment. I don't think the FP processed is aligned with the sort of judgment you are looking for. The technical/professional judgement (as best we can do it) is appropriate, but the need to be wowed is not. QI would be more appropriate but is targeted at users own photos -- it might work if the museum photographer got an account -- and is imo quite random in its standards and too fixated on pixel peeping at times. The other problem with QI is that it is overloaded with nominations and has to throttle them to 5 per day. It needs contributors to be reviewers as well as photographers. And this is the thing -- is this museum or its photographer going to engage with the Commons community? This is a community project. It isn't nearly as collaborative as Wikipedia, but if all one does is upload files, then that's not really the full game, welcome though that may be. Wouldn't it be great if a museum photographer became a reviewer at FP, and helped us amateurs take better pictures, and then perhaps some of them could help photograph their local museum's works. -- Colin (talk) 09:05, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Now I understand what you mean. That's right, it would be nice to have someone with an established reputation reviewing images in Commons. If you say there is not such a person around, then you would know better than me.

"Wouldn't it be great if a museum photographer became a reviewer at FP" I cannot see a way for this to happen without changes at Commons. In New York City where I live there are lots of organizations which have tried to have relationships with Wikimedia projects. I expect that by now every major institution at the world has had multiple high-level conversations about wiki partnerships and how they see no path for making it work. With the Wikipedians in NYC I have talked with communications staff at all the big museums here. As you say, "if I were a curator who was responsible for digitizing my collection at a professional standard, I wouldn't be happy at all to receive critical feedback from some internet amateurs", but the most obvious path for showcasing work here is nominating into in a process which is likely to have that outcome. Institutions here need to be able to dependably rely on the existence of some path for them in Commons to get the outcomes they want. I am not sure what kind of process Commons should provide, but I would like to see some review process which designates media as "professional quality; useful image". Museums and professionals want a few things, including (1) avoidance of risk or online drama when they are trying to share content (2) evidence of uptake and use (3) professionalism in the exchange, including clear mutual expectations on time commitment and processing.

Are you aware of any example of an institution in Commons which has a good relationship with FP or any other review process, in terms of getting their contribution graded? Again, the point of grading is not artistic critique for these organizations, but instead as a mark of encouragement for them to engage more. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:26, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Reminder: Round 2 of Picture of the Year 2016 is open!

You are receiving this message because you voted in R1 of the 2016 Picture of the Year contest.

Dear Colin/Archive,

Wikimedia Commons is happy to announce that the second round of the 2016 Picture of the Year competition is now open. This year will be the eleventh edition of the annual Wikimedia Commons photo competition, which recognizes exceptional contributions by users on Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia users are invited to vote for their favorite images featured on Commons during the last year (2016) to produce a single Picture of the Year.

Hundreds of images that have been rated Featured Pictures by the international Wikimedia Commons community in the past year were entered in this competition. These images include professional animal and plant shots, breathtaking panoramas and skylines, restorations of historical images, photographs portraying the world's best architecture, impressive human portraits, and so much more.

There are two total rounds of voting. In the first round, you voted for as many images as you liked. In Round 1, there were 1475 candidate images. There are 58 finalists in Round 2, comprised of the top 30 overall as well as the top #1 and #2 from each sub-category.

In the final round, you may vote for just one or maximal three image to become the Picture of the Year.

Round 2 will end on 20 April 2017, 23:59:59 UTC.

Click here to vote »

Thanks,
--Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year committee 08:42, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Interaction ban

Hi Colin. I noticed your comment at AN/U about the interaction ban I arranged between Rodrigo and The Photographer. I really thought this was a good solution. One of my main concerns was to try not to have to resort to blocking either editor, as both are very experienced and dedicated to Commons. Can you give me a suggestion as to what solution or steps would have been better, and what you think would be best to do if the problem between these two gentlemen were to flare up again. I'm quite new as an admin, so I'm certainly open to advice, especially from someone with your experience. Thanks, and I hope you don't mind my asking. I want to get things right, and I can see that mediating/helping to resolve issues like the ones brought to AN/U is quite a challenge. Daphne Lantier 20:22, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Daphne Lantier, it might be a good solution here, particularly when both sides seem to be happy to agree to it, though you can see it got further complicated because there are so many areas where both parties have a right to comment/vote in a common discussion. I think this is one reason why interaction bans are really more suitable for Wikipedia -- the areas where users interact here are typically common community forums rather than particular article topics that one could choose to avoid. I have had interaction issues with both these users, though am currently getting on well with The Photographer. IMO an interaction ban usually represents a failure by admins to be bothered to spend time on mediation or to discuss things with one or both parties (either on wiki or privately). It also suggests that individuals cannot change over time, and that both parties are equally to blame. My experience suggests this is rarely true.

Wrt the other suggestion in that AN/U to instigate reconfirmation RFA's on both Admins, it is similar in that it does not look at the specifics of any issue raised, but seeks merely to demote whoever is least popular in the hope that makes the problem go away. There is a word for when a response at AN/U is based on who is complaining/being-complained-about rather than the substance of the complaint. It's called "prejudice". I've seen it too many times. -- Colin (talk) 21:33, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Your comments on reconfirmation RFA's seem spot-on to me, as are the points about interaction bans. One of my main concerns with this particular case is that these two editors have had a problem with each other for several years from what I found when I looked into it.

One general concern I have is the perceived authority of admins. I think I'd have to be quite careful not to make things sound like there's a block waiting somewhere down the line. I'd like to be able to talk to editors and resolve issues through discussion, and I don't want people to have that thought in the back of their minds that if they don't get on board with my efforts at mediation that I'm going end up blocking them. That perception may push an editor to agree to something that they're not quite ready to agree to for fear of a block. Then there's also the feeling I have that editors expect me as an admin to perform to a certain level of toughness or decisiveness.

I would personally prefer that a situation reported there would attract the attention of several admins and editors. I think in future I will slow things down and not look for a quick fix. I think maybe demanding more accountability from those who end up at AN/U and letting them know I would prefer a real block-free/discussion-based solution is a better approach than me thinking I've got to find a quick solution and fix things up like a judge or a police officer. Daphne Lantier 22:17, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Making the best of what I've got

Hi Colin, W.carter suggested I talk to you about technical geekery and getting set up to take FP-quality images. In short, I know I shouldn't have to buy $10,000 worth of equipment to do so, but I'm having trouble making the best of what I've got and perhaps you have advice. In short, I'm working on improving the "user interface" (i.e. me!) and I see that there are plenty of featured pictures taken with cameras in the Canon Rebel class (which is what I bought to upgrade from a point and shoot). But what W.carter thought you could help me with is how to make the best of post-processing software if I don't really want to fork out the $$$ for Photoshop. Right now, I have Preview and Photos for Mac, and I'm getting OK at using those toolsets to do basic color balancing, cropping, straightening, etc...though there's more to learn -- but can I make do with them if what comes through the lens is good enough in the first place? (My Canon came with some image-adjusting software also (Digital Photo Professional 4 and PictureStyleEditor), but I found the interface to have quite a learning curve and am not using it at present. Are you familiar with those programs and are they worth the bother?) Also, I use a MacBook Pro laptop for everything -- and I know the monitor seems to "flunk" the monitor resolution test too... sigh...any help for that?. I've thought about taking a class, but not sure what class would help -- I know what an f-stop is, I learned photography in the days of film -- it's the digital era tech stuff that's tripping me up... Help? Montanabw (talk) 16:02, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Montanabw, hi. Here's a few random thoughts. I'm a Sony DSLR shooter so not very familiar with Canon. I know User:Slaunger shoots with a similar camera to yours, and there are plenty people at FPC who use Canon, though perhaps more who use the bigger more expensive cameras/lenses. I started with an entry-level Sony (more basic than your Rebel) and achieved many featured pictures with it. I see you have a 55-250 lens, and from a quick glance at reviews it seems to be a good one. I have a 55-300 lens that is similar. I think these lenses are great since they aren't huge and heavy so you are more likely to take the equipment with you. It is worth reading the reviews for your camera and lenses (e.g. DPReview) to understand their strengths and weaknesses. For example your Rebel will focus quickly through the viewfinder but be much slower with "live view" and probably too slow on live-view to capture any action photographs like the horses. Try the "AI-servo" (continuous focus) mode and set it to shoot several frames as you hold the button down. Each shot costs $0 so taking lots will increase the chance of some being sharp/in-focus. Your lens will work sharpest stopped down a little from wide open (which varies depending on the zoom). Try f/8 but not more than f/11. There's nothing wrong with using it wide-open if you need the extra light, but if you can stop down a little, that may help. Your lens has stabilisation, but don't expect it to help always -- it just improves your odds. If you have the camera on a tripod or other support, turn the IS off. For moving subjects, you probably need something above 1/250s but this is something you'll learn from the shots you are taking. Increasing ISO does start reducing the sharpness (because the noise-reduction software will soften the image) but in the end this is a compromise from the image being soft due to subject/hand motion.

I got Lightroom fairly soon after I got my camera, and quickly loved the ability of Lightroom to get so much more out of my images than you can with the JPG the camera produces. Perhaps in good, even light, the difference is not so big. But in scenes with large dynamic range, or where you might accidentally under/over expose, the extra information in the RAW files is a big help. W.carter has experience of Photoshop Elements as well as Lightroom, so can inform you of what differences might be relevant. You can buy Lightroom or rent it. I don't think you need the full Photoshop for the kind of photos you are taking. Lightroom is a "Digital Asset Management" tool, so a good way to organise your photos. I have a PC, so don't know anything about your Apple software. Hope this helps. I'm sure Cart will be a lot of help but remember that en:Perfect is the enemy of good -- it is really quite hard to get to FP level and the secret to becoming a good photographer is to take lots of photos. If you are looking for a book recommendation, then Tom Ang has some good books to begin with. -- Colin (talk) 21:49, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Colin. See Cart's talkpage for the discussions we are having there... long story short, I grew up in the age of film, I could take reasonably adequate photos of horses and landscapes with film cameras (at least, the people who owned the horses liked them), but though I am moderately geeky, I find digital image manipulation a bit daunting, in part because I use a laptop, and in part because my over-50 vision is not what it used to be (and it used to be 20/200 before I had cataract surgery, so it's actually a bit better than it was!). But I come from a long line of shutterbugs and I know what makes a good photo of a horse, plus I live in Montana, which is a place with the type of scenery where a lot of people save their whole lives for the bucket list vacation. So, I should learn how to produce FP-quality action and landscape photos, right? So, thank you for your suggestions, they do give me ideas. What is even more helpful is the school of hard knocks, so I'm most certainly open to critiques such as for this image. Montanabw (talk) 00:04, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

75px|center|

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set/York Minster Nave, Nth Yorkshire, UK - Diliff, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/Commons:Featured picture candidates/Set/York Minster Nave, Nth Yorkshire, UK - Diliff has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 21:06, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

POTY 2016 / Congratulations

The 2016 Picture of the Year. View all results »

Dear Wikimedians,

The 2016 Picture of the Year competition has ended and we are pleased to announce the results:

In both rounds, people voted for their favorite media files.

• In the first round, there were 1475 candidate images.
• In the second round, people voted for the 58 finalists (the R1 top 30 overall and top 2 in each category).

In the second round – the “three votes” was used – eligible users could vote for up to 3 finalists – each of these 3 votes counted equal.

There were 4765 people who voted in total (R1 and R2).

• In the first round, 2553 people voted for all 1475 candidates.
• In the second round, 3625 people voted for all 58 finalists.

We congratulate the winners of the contest and thank them for creating these beautiful media files and sharing them as freely licensed content:

1. 615 people voted for the winner, File:Jubilee and Munin, Ravens, Tower of London 2016-04-30.jpg.
2. In second place, 443 people voted for File:Khaoyai 06.jpg.
3. In third place, 352 people voted for File:Polar bear (Ursus maritimus) in the drift ice region north of Svalbard.jpg.

Click here to view the top images »

We also sincerely thank to all voters for participating. We invite you to continue to participate in the Commons community by sharing your work.

Thanks,
the Picture of the Year committee

The winner File:Jubilee and Munin, Ravens, Tower of London 2016-04-30.jpg was photographed and uploaded by you. Congratulations!

--Steinsplitter (talk) 15:42, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Many congratulations! MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:49, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Mazal Tov! Tomer T (talk) 16:02, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Congratulations sir!!, I'm very happy for your winner --The Photographer 16:11, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Wow! I notice that this is your work only now! Never expected a bird photo from your side. :) Jee 16:31, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Congrats! --Martin Falbisoner (talk) 16:59, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Congratulazioni! Bel colpo! --Ruthven (msg) 17:15, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Very well done Colin, it's a really good photo on both a technical level, and on an artistic level. It has so much character and is executed so very well. Nick (talk) 17:24, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Congratulations, Colin! ~ Moheen ^{(keep talking)} 18:32, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Nicely done! Congrats! --cart-Talk 18:34, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Colin, congratulations. It's a wonderful image. SarahSV ^(talk) 20:03, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Congratulations! --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 00:48, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Woo hoo! Way to go! Montanabw (talk) 02:22, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Congratulations, Colin! --Code (talk) 04:06, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

OMG, I knew those Ravens would win! Congratulations Colin! ★ Poké⁹⁵ 04:42, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

My sincere congratulations. Well deserved! --CEphoto, Uwe Aranas (talk) 07:32, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Good job and surprising result! Poco² 18:28, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

This bird picture is a good example when the quality is more important that the quantity of images uploaded --The Photographer 19:59, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Congratulations! And also greetings to the stars Jubilee and Munin! --Maasaak (talk) 23:04, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Congratulations Colin! I think this is POTY. --Laitche (talk) 18:58, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for your kind messages. Nobody was more surprised than me to see this "tourist snap" do so well in the first round at POTY and then to take the prize. I feel sorry for all the serious bird photographers. Well, only a bit sorry :-). -- Colin (talk) 20:57, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

A bit late, but congrats! The prizes are stacking up :) - Benh (talk) 21:14, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

File:Jubilee and Munin, Ravens, Tower of London 2016-04-30.jpg

Hi, Congratulations! Yann (talk) 15:37, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Colin, I am writing to let you know that in the metadata there are still old names of the ravens, i.e. short name is "Odin and Thor, Ravens, Tower of London". --jdx ^Re: 10:11, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Jdx I can't update it just now. It is protected as it is on the Main page. - Colin (talk) 19:35, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

No worries. It's not a big deal. --jdx ^Re: 19:41, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Pryor's Wood Bluebells 2017-04-26-4.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Pryor's Wood Bluebells 2017-04-26-4.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 21:03, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

About Wikimania Canada

Dear Colin,

I was thinking to find a job in Canada and stay there like a better latin america alternative country to take pictures and a better life quality. What do you think? --The Photographer 14:55, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) The Photographer: I stumbled over this article: Venezuelan Canadians. Not much, but maybe interesting for you, in case you did not know it? I have been in Toronto twice this year on business trips. This of course only gives a very limited impression of a very limited place in this vast country, but feel free to ping with a mail if you want to hear about some of my impressions. It would of course be best to contact a Canadian native person for more nuanced views and recommendations. -- Slaunger (talk) 18:40, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Dear Slaunger A pleasant coincidence that I already read that article today. I have read some Canadian literature, especially about its nature and history. Thank you for your willingness, Also I have read many experiences about what it is like to live in Canada, especially for naturalist photographers. I understand that Toronto is a multicultural city and because my english level I would probably travel to some city of Quebec province. In addition, IMHO this region is richer in culture. The immigration process is really complex for people from third world countries, I will need to get a work permit visa and I have been sending my curriculum to some companies. I feel a certain fascination for Canada and I would like to leave your freedom to tell me a little about your experience with the local culture, its values and customs. How was your business there and what was the main reason for leaving that beautiful place. Other things that interest me is the cost of living and how was your process of adaptation. Thank you very much in advance. --The Photographer 19:09, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Wow, quite a life changing idea. I hear the natives are mostly friendly, but I suspect you will notice it is much colder than you are used to! I don't really have much of an opinion of Canada, other than parts of it look beautiful and it is a fairly peaceful nation. I have no idea what your day job is (and you don't need to say on-wiki) but if you can get a work permit then perhaps it would be a great experience. -- Colin (talk) 19:08, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

I could write a e-mail about it Colin like Slunger? --The Photographer 19:09, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I think e-mail would be better. This is private stuff for you, The Photographer, and not really in scope of a user talk page on Commons. I will be happy to share some experiences by e-mail. -- Slaunger (talk) 19:12, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Slaunger and Colin. I'm sorry for ask it in your talk --The Photographer 19:16, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

(Edit conflict)The Photographer: I see you do not have e-mail enabled. I don't want to reveal my email address on-line. In case you have communicated with Colin previously over e-mail and you you accept, he might forward your contact info to me, or he might forward my contact information to you. No problem asking on talk, I just prefer to continue offline for privacy reasons. -- Slaunger (talk) 19:20, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Dear Slaunger, I underestand your privacy reasons, I enabled e-mail for my commons account. Please, feel you free to send me a e-mail on any moment. And Colin can share anything of me with you on any moment. Thanks soo much for your help and I'm sorry for write some personal here. --The Photographer 19:30, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

The Photographer: E-mail send, and again no need to say sorry! -- Slaunger (talk) 19:37, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Slaunger for your e-mai, however, I'm not finding it, please could you tell me some "text" to search the e-mail in my spam or inbox. Thanks again and I'm sorry for this problem --The Photographer 19:48, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

The Photographer I know there are sometimes problems with the Commons email function. It should say something about 'slaunger' if you search. Else, try to use the email function to email me. -- Slaunger (talk) 19:53, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Dear Slaunger, Thanks for your explanaiton very very ussefull. I think maybe it would be important to tell you a little bit about me, even though you did not ask for it. I have sent an email --The Photographer 14:12, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

FYI

It had little to do with that person, and more to do with a much bigger picture I am afraid. I send Ellin a e mail about the issue if you care to communicate with her in private, you will get a better picture of my reasoning. --Don (talk) 20:11, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Don, I can only suggest you take a break instead of leaving. I see no reason for "courtesy blanking" and do not see how that will achieve much considering your name is splattered all over every image you've uploaded, categories, creator page, etc. Unless Eillin has found the integrity and wisdom she has in my experience sorely lacked, I think I'll pass on your offer to correspond privately with her. -- Colin (talk) 20:42, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

+1. I too suggest you to cool down and drop further discussion on this topic. Me and probably many other moderating editors on FPC saw all those edits. This is an overreaction and all people may not have the gentleness to tolerate this. Jee 02:56, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Zahrtmanns Gård on Sct. Mogens Gade.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Zahrtmanns Gård on Sct. Mogens Gade.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 21:03, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Answer

hi, as you mark this image for remove of candidate, i answerd in that page, Aswaran (talk) 15:00, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Beached fishing vessel, Nørre Vorupør, Denmark 2017-04-14 3.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Beached fishing vessel, Nørre Vorupør, Denmark 2017-04-14 3.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 21:01, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Viborg cathedral ceiling.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Viborg cathedral ceiling.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 13:03, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Ravens

Hej Colin! Congratulations on winning the POTY-contest 2016 with File:Jubilee and Munin, Ravens, Tower of London 2016-04-30.jpg. The birds really seem to enjoy being photographed. One question though, or rather a remark: in the EXIF-data of the file, its title is 'Odin and Thor, Ravens, Tower of London'. Perhaps it would be best to correct or remove that? Richard 15:02, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Richard I thought I'd fixed that but I guess I didn't get round to uploading the one with patched EXIF data. I'll try to do it if I get time this weekend. -- Colin (talk) 15:16, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

No rush ;) Enjoy your weekend, no matter what. Richard 16:20, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Quality Image Promotion

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Winter Landscape with Brabrand Church.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments Good quality. -- Johann Jaritz 12:18, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

--QICbot (talk) 05:21, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Winter Landscape with Brabrand Church.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Winter Landscape with Brabrand Church.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 05:02, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Shibuya Crossing

Hi Colin,

I'm planning a trip to Japan in August. You mentioned Shibuya Crossing in Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Crosswalk of Market at Third, San Francisco.jpg. Do you know of any good vantage points to photograph the crossing? So far, I have found [3], but judging from the comments, it seems that one is likely to get stopped by hotel staff when trying to get to the vantage point. dllu (t,c) 19:16, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

dllu I'm afraid I've never been to Japan nor read about where best to photograph that crossing. All I know is it is a very popular scene to photograph -- the company I work for even has the photo in one of the corporate posters. So you have the added challenge of creating an image equal to one that has been photographed by professionals many times. Perhaps there are similar crossings that are less well known but give the same feeling. Good luck and I hope you have a great trip. -- Colin (talk) 20:43, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Dllu: , I've been there and while I don't recall the crossing, I do recall the statue of the famous dog en:Hachikō at the Shibuya train station. Fascinating story. Commons doesn't have a picture of this statue, likely because of FOP in Japan issues, but...maybe you're a dog lover....PumpkinSky talk 18:18, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't understand

Colin. I do appreciate your feedback. But in one post you say we avoid FPC for processing collaboration and then a few posts later you give me a long detailed one. PumpkinSky talk 13:07, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

PumpkinSky Yes, I know it is a bit contradictory. Really we aim to get the photo ready so it is just a dust spot or a slight horizon tilt that might be forgotten. Many people would consider withdrawing the nom and then renominate once revised. -- Colin (talk) 13:59, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

That's one way to do it. I did that once. You could also put up an alt version; like I did with the moon bridge. Another option is to do what I did in this case, take the detailed (thanks again BTW) and upload the modified version. This sort of thing is much a judgement call and dependent upon the specific situation. PumpkinSky talk 17:29, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

I ordered Schewe's book.PumpkinSky talk 17:42, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

PumpkinSky I had a look again. Reluctant to keep tweaking the file while on FPC. I spotted now you have "sharpness 73" which may be why you then felt the need to have such a large mask or apply so much NR. Perhaps less sharpening to begin with would have helped but now with less NR I can see the leaf veins/hairs. I think probably the midtones are a little high which is best adjusted down just a little with the exposure slider. Really the combination of exposure/highlights/shadows should remove the majority of clipping/crushing warnings. With a lower exposure you will find you need less highlight reduction and certainly I think a -50 for whites is quite unusually high. I see you still have a little +5 saturation on Blue and actually the blue channel on the JPG is clipping. So that's really not helping. -- Colin (talk) 17:53, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Small exposure adjustment. Cut sharpness to 50. Cut highlights. Zeroed the blue. This is the best one yet. I understand the reluctance in general but in this photo's case I don't see the sense when the current voting is 7-1 and there're 8 more days to work on it. If I withdrew it, it'd be back up before the time limit runs out and if voting closed right now it'd get promoted. That being said, I the photo is much better with the upload just made compared to when I first uploaded it. Many thanks for the time and detailed help. PumpkinSky talk 19:52, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

One other point. You mentioned comparing with the camera JPG. That of course depends what mode you have your Nikon set to, so probably again worth sticking to some "Standard" mode. Of course the camera JPG isn't "the standard" any more than anything else. As you get more experienced you may take photos in manual mode that are deliberately over or under exposed wrt the midtones, with the intention of adjusting it later in post. -- Colin (talk) 21:14, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Got your email. If you don't mind I'll prefer to stay on wiki. I've learned a huge amount from others on Commons, whether that advice was given directly to me or to others. I saw that photo as a possible FP if processed better, but can't offer that level of advice regularly, and there's nothing there that you can't find in books or online. I suggest patience as you take more photos rather than rush to FP. I got my DSLR in November 2010 but didn't get an FP till March 2012. I did review plenty other images in between. -- Colin (talk) 21:52, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. The passion flower is definitely processed better now. PumpkinSky talk 22:15, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Nørre Vorupør beach, 2017-04-14 4.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Nørre Vorupør beach, 2017-04-14 4.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 21:11, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Schewe's book

I'm in chapter 3. It's an excellent read. PumpkinSky talk 02:13, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Mønsted Limestone Mine 2017-04-15 7.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Mønsted Limestone Mine 2017-04-15 7.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 05:02, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

FP discussion

Hi, I just wanted to continue the interesting discussion (you're right, it was getting a bit long and unsuitable for the nomination page); firstly I wanted to ask if you know if there is any regular discussion on editing the Guidelines? This discussion page doesn't seem very active.--Peulle (talk) 23:20, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any such discussion. That talk page doesn't get much activity, probably because most people aren't watchlisting it. You'll probably find more on the talk pages of the FP and QI forums. The main contentious issues over the years have been downsampling, minimum resolution, vote counting rules for FP, acceptable licences for FP. I think the work by Cart on Commons:Photography terms is a step in the right direction and should enable a move of the for-beginner stuff out of the guidelines. It really shouldn't be part of the guidelines to explain what JPG compression is, or how to spot the artefacts. I have started working on an article on User:Colin/PixelPeeping!

I think most regulars ignore the guidelines and vote with their eyes and their gut. Most also appreciate that the megapixel size of images has crept upwards, while generally our screens have been stuck around 100DPI. The consequence is ever greater magnification of images when viewed at 100%. High DPI screens are going to change that. -- Colin (talk) 07:22, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, those pages look interesting, I'll have a proper look at them later. (Strange that such discussions are not held on the official QIC pages, no? How are people supposed to find them?). But I think you're right about people's voting - that's why I always refer to the democratic procedure in these instances. Now, I still claim that CA is a valid reason for declining an image (either from QI or FP), but I also recognize that other users may feel differently and vote to support despite this. When I started coming to the FP pages, I could see people voting simply because they liked or disliked an image; the "wow factor" is very subjective. That's why I got a bit annoyed when told not to vote oppose - I felt my reason was as valid as any other given by other users.--Peulle (talk) 13:07, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Many reviewers feel more comfortable examining technical issues than with subjective ones like composition or light. The drawback is one can find technical flaws in many great photos if one looks hard enough and are so inclined. It is easy to argue that an image has CA or has noise at 100%, but not so easy to argue that this is important. Whereas if one feels the composition isn't working, it can be hard to put into words, let alone defend it if asked to. The result I feel is that reviewing can become robotic, overly focused on technical issues, and fail to reward great photos if all one cares about are great pixels. People don't tend to see photos at out-of-camera resolutions at 100% outside of Commons, because most images are uploaded at "for web" resolution. I have largely lost interest in QI because without "wow" they are largely left with nit picking over technical flaws at 100%, and don't seem much interested in choosing "high quality" images for the benefit of anyone browsing Commons. At another extreme, there are some who vote "Like!", without apparently examining the image in detail at all.

Have a think about what you think the purpose of FP is. Forget what the guidelines say. What makes a great photo on Commons? Say I have a photo on my PC that looks great at 6MP but if I upload twice the linear resolution at 24MP you will see some CA and noise. What should I upload? What should you, as a reviewer, encourage and reward? Remember also that Commons wants contributions from the globe, not just the rich Europeans. Poco has some of the most expensive camera gear one can buy, and yet you are still not satisfied with a 44MP out-of-camera image viewed 100 DPI at 100%? You and I can't create such detailed images without stitching and I certainly don't have as good a set of lenses as Poco. So is that level of scrutiny helpful to our global mission? Is FP only for those who can spend nearly £4000 on a camera+lens? -- Colin (talk) 13:24, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

• Hear, hear! You could also see this. --cart-Talk 13:41, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

• I've mentioned this before, but worth repeating, which is a comment I read many years ago about photo competitions: If you win, the judges had a good eye for a great image. If you lose, the judges were blind fools. Being an open project, I guess we have to put up with ignorant amateurs. Like me. Commons is always going to value "popular easy images" over something that requires a bit more work to appreciate. Why else would a shaky photo of some ravens reach POTY :-). That's not necessarily a bad thing. Plenty "contemporary art photography" fails to tick any boxes for me. I would like to see more nature photography at FP that either displayed behaviour or was actually a work of art. Too many "species identification" photos. :-) -- Colin (talk) 14:09, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

• So you think I whining because I've had some opposes? If so you really don't know me at all. I've thought from day one at FPC, that is't a pity that the rules guiding most art, have no place there. Heaven knows I've put up with more opposes than most with all my experimenting, trying to accustom voters (and maybe inspire some other photographers) to try someting new. --cart-Talk 14:22, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

• No, you've mentioned those issues before. But you are whining this time because you had some opposes -- that's what the section on your talk page is about and which invoked your response. I know you've been trying to push in a new direction with nominations and reviews, and with some success. What can you do, though, on an open wiki? Ban people for having no artistic sensibilities? And what are these "rules guiding most art"? Would Turner's "Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps" be accepted at any contemporary art gallery? -- Colin (talk) 14:32, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi Peulle,

I think Colin is right about criticism of your vote. And Cart is right about the esthetics standard of Commons.

Personally I rarely judge a FPC by its technical quality. Others do that more than enough. My criteria are: educative value (IMO not given enough weight here), scarcity compared to other FPs and Commons images, composition, and finally technical quality in last resort. My 2 Rs. Talk page stalker. ;) Regards, Yann (talk) 17:12, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Well, the very fact that you too use a criterion (educative value) selected by you and not by the official guidelines only reaffirms my point. When people oppose an FP because their subjective evaluation is that it "has no wow" or that the educative value is low, how is that any better or worse than my opposing because of CA - which is even mentioned specifically in the guidelines? In my view, it's not. These are subjective evaluations and as long as they remain so, I maintain that my vote was as correct as any other. I also resent the initial criticism: pressuring users to vote a certain way is undemocratic and has no place on Commons.--Peulle (talk) 20:51, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Peulle, I think you are a wee bit over concerned with what the "guidelines" say and don't say. Guidelines that haven't been much discussed for perhaps a decade. Perhaps nobody added "educative value" to them because Commons is a repository of educational media content, they maybe assumed that was a given that the "finest on Commons" would celebrate educational value. If someone uploads a 2MP (minimum requirement) image with clear CA then be my guest and strong oppose all you like. Otherwise, I don't think you've quite got the point. -- Colin (talk) 21:33, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

It is you who haven't gotten the point I'm making. You told me that I was wrong to vote a certain way - I am in fact quite offended by that. As long as my vote makes a certain amount of sense according to guidelines, who are you to tell me I shouldn't vote that way? That you disagree with me is fine; that I'm outvoted is also fine. But just since I'm not getting my message across - in case anybody may misinterpret me, I'll say this one loud and clear: Don't tell me how to vote. --Peulle (talk) 22:12, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Peulle, if you don't want to read anyone's comments on your votes at FPC, make sure you uncheck the "watch this page" box when you save. Yann has been here since Commons started, yet you lecture him about what is and isn't in the guidelines. How do you think guidelines (whether written or unwritten) are made? By people discussing, disagreeing, agreeing, compromising, disputing, and challenging "what is a featured picture". The moment people stop discussing that, the project is dead. Wrt "democracy". Well firstly FPC isn't a democracy, nor is democratic another way of spelling good. But seriously, have you lived in any democracy where the entire focus of discussion by politicians, media, and your politically interested friends, has not been to influence how you vote. That's exactly what democracy is. -- Colin (talk) 07:27, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Can you run Commons:Photo challenge scripts this month?

Colin, I am a little swamped this week and will not be able to run the Commons:Photo challenge scripts for creating and scoring votes. Can you help? If so please note that Commons:Photo challenge/2017 - June - Vanishing Point/Voting has extended voting time, since I was late creating that page. --Jarekt (talk) 21:34, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Jarekt, sure no problem. I'll should manage today. -- Colin (talk) 06:06, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

 Thank you. --Jarekt (talk) 11:56, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Bluebells ICM

Hey Colin,

Would you object to my nominating your wonderful bluebells a second time in the nearer future? In our user group on facebook I've recently argued that FPC is becoming increasingly open to more unconventional motifs. And your ICM approach to Ashridge's natural beauty is one of the visually most striking images I've ever seen on commons - and certainly deserving its star.

Thanks, --Martin Falbisoner (talk) 14:34, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words Martin. I have thought, from time to time, about renominating this. That might work better if you nominate rather than just looking like I want to spin the roulette wheel again. It turned out to be encyclopaedic after all, with it illustrating ICM for two years, and gaining a couple of Wikipedia FPs. I still hope people would support it on Commons for being more than just an illustration of a photography technique. I assume you'd link to the previous nom. Perhaps one point to note up front is that this isn't just a lucky accident photo, but took three years of experiementing and dozens of attempts. I don't think it is the sort of image can just nominate without saying anything, but it doesn't need an essay either. What do you think? -- Colin (talk) 19:29, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Well, Colin, obviously FPC is in a rather disappointing state from a purely aesthetic point of view. Sure, it’s still an adequately working machine for identifying technically well taken, illustrative, i.e. in the narrowest sense “encyclopedic” images. Though I also help keep it fed in that regard, I’ve come to realize more and more that something important is missing here. Being bold, as a photographer, won’t win any laurels. What’s more, it almost saddens me to realize how underdeveloped even the most basic knowledge of photography in theory and practice (or its place in the history of art) appears to be at times. Well, there’s nothing I can do and I can’t offer any solution. It’s just that I’m afraid that more experienced and knowledgeable contributors will give up sooner or later - and that FPC will eventually end up as a failed project. Just like its equivalents on so many other wikis did before... --Martin Falbisoner (talk) 07:58, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

To be honest I'm not even sure that "technically well taken" can be guaranteed. We have technically weak images pass regularly when they are clearly not in the same league as other FPs on those topics, and also clear canvassing and fellow-countryman supports. I'm not surprised Code got frustrated, when technically first-class photographers get held to a higher standard, and others seem to get a free pass and canvassed admins turning up to excuse them.

I went to count the votes at your ICM and noticed I had commented but forgot to vote. It probably won't make a difference, though. The 2:1 bias of "oppose" votes is fairly arbitrary and gives a lot of weight to the conservative votes. But there's no ideal system. Dllu's slit photography image is getting support, so I guess some experimental photography is appreciated.

I'm not sure this is new and there has always been a churn where good photographers give up but we hope also good ones arrive. Do you think we are now losing more than we gain? Aside from conservatism, I think some of our pixel peeping tendencies are very harmful to attracting and retaining good photographers. If FP becomes too much like QI, where a little noise or CA or dust spot causes an oppose, and where boring images are promoted, then I fail to see what attracts anyone worthwhile to join. -- Colin (talk) 08:55, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Colin, for your support. I don't really expect a successful result in the end. Actually I'm pleasantly surprised that the image has gathered that many supporting votes at all (I wouldn't have nominated it myself, btw., after seeing what happened to your bluebells - again!). The, well, funny thing here is: there're even voters who actually do like the picture, so they say, but still feel obliged to oppose because they object to its category... Anyway: Maybe you're right and FPC has always been the same. I do miss users like Code, Diliff, or Tuxyso. It's also a pity that experienced contributors like Diego keep staying very "passive". On the other side there's of course people like cart and bold noms like Dllu's. Luckily. --Martin Falbisoner (talk) 11:07, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Martin perhaps worth re-nominating the Bluebells ICM in FP category "Eye Pain" would work!! Yes I don't understand the "category" objections either. I agree we need more experienced reviewers and those with the guts to oppose rather than just follow the crowd. I have wondered for a while if we need to raise the minimum-support bar, but need to generate some stats to see if that is required (e.g., if we have many more reviewers than in the past). I tried to talk with Poco about his protest / refusal to upload User talk:Poco a poco/2017-07. Licence enforcement seems to be one sore point, but I don't see any solution coming from WMF and really the only solution is to stop minding. I'd rather have my photos viewed by thousands of people and copied dozens of times than have handful of views on Flickr and nobody able to use my images at all. He now seems to be nominating images from his back catalogue, which doesn't really seem to me to be what FP is about, and certainly doesn't bring the project forward in any way. I hope Code comes back after a holiday, and Diliff finds some free time to get back into photography. -- Colin (talk) 11:44, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Colin, personally I don't care much about license enforcement. At all. If I did, one of my US capitol images, for instance, would be a very reliable source of income... ;-) But money's not my incentive. Poco's right, theoretically, WMF should act more decisively. I also agree with you, however - stop minding is the best solution by far. Seeing my images being used on the net (and in books, on print covers, etc.) is rewarding enough. --Martin Falbisoner (talk) 13:02, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

I think it is more CC's concern (that it's licence terms aren't widely agreed to) than WMF's concern. WMF runs free-content projects, so going around suing people for using that free content isn't probably mission #1 nor likely to improve Wikipedia's image among the general population. Great image btw. -- Colin (talk) 15:43, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

(outdent) And perhaps Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Southern ground hornbill 2015 11 26 8461b.jpg is an inspired nomination. -- Colin (talk) 19:15, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Curiosity

Hi there. By your words of today, "The lessons we learn from such as INC and Russavia is that there will always be some who are willing to turn a blind eye to permit highly productive users to continue here", should we understant that globally banned User:Russavia is still among us? Under another name? Or were you just talking about hypotheses? Thanks for your reply. --E4024 (talk) 13:33, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Both INC and Russavia are attention-seekers, particuarly so when blocked, with a record of harassing those that speak out against them. So I'm not going to answer that question. Such users do seem to find it hard to find another hobby! -- Colin (talk) 08:44, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) To my knowledge russavia was still active around 5 or 6 days ago, but I honestly do not know under what name they were editing, nor what their current status is. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 11:07, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Policies

BTW of this, I think that is more than time that Commons users adopt an autonomous body of guidelines without having to seek for analogy on en.wiki. We are the only one multilingual project apart Wikidata and we should decide some rules on which there's a clear consensus. -- SERGIO ^{(aka the Blackcat)} 20:09, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Blackcat, I'm sure the UK's bureaucrats, when they smoothly transfer EU law into British law in the great Brexit transformation that will liberate our country, will set a shining light for us to follow when transforming EN:WP law into Commons law. Or perhaps not ;-). We are in an non-viable situation where we need to cite WP guidelines to define basic terminology, yet there are those in this project with a deep hatred of WP culture (mostly because they got blocked there for having issues collaborating with and tolerating others, and it is possible to appear useful, even for years, on Commons, despite such issues). What policy pages we have seem very fossilised compared to WP, perhaps because the inter-language markup is terrifying and perhaps because Commons lacks decent writers. I did some work on COM:IDENT four years ago, but it was hard work and I don't think there was high-quality community input then or since. When I was active on WP, there were people who loved language and the way it could precisely express facts or opinions. Commons tends to lack those, and we are left with people who, the most vocal of which, are of a small-minded agenda through which they see most things. The sensible folk on Commons just get on with taking great pictures or sorting out copyright issues and really don't want to get involved in politics. What are you proposing to try? What ever it is, I suspect on the scale of worthy <--> enjoyable it is more towards the former. -- Colin (talk) 21:15, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

An update from Wiki Loves Monuments UK

Thank you for taking part in Wiki Loves Monuments UK

More than 300 people have contributed a total of 4,000 photos to this year's competition and we wanted to say thank you for helping us get this far. The competition runs until the end of September, and you can upload as many images as you want - so feel free to document some more sites. Or why not go through your old images to see if you have any others that could be submitted? Since you've already submitted some pictures to the competition, you might be interested in the banner mini-contest; to take part you crop your images to a 7:1 and upload a new version. You can find out more about how to do that here. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the competition and share it with others! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:24, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Quality Image Promotion

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Fitzrovia Chapel 2017-09-17-5.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments Good quality --Halavar 16:37, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Fitzrovia Chapel 2017-09-17-2.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments Good quality. Crop above-bottom could be. --PetarM 10:53, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

--QICbot (talk) 05:33, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Quality Image Promotion

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Fitzrovia Chapel 2017-09-17-8.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments Good quality. -- Johann Jaritz 09:54, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Fitzrovia Chapel 2017-09-17-7.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments Nice one. -- Ikan Kekek 08:35, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

--QICbot (talk) 05:27, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Quality Image Promotion

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Fitzrovia Chapel 2017-09-17-4.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments  Support Good quality. --C messier 10:06, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

--QICbot (talk) 05:37, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Grand Temple, Freemasons' Hall, London 2017-09-17-4.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Grand Temple, Freemasons' Hall, London 2017-09-17-4.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 21:02, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Freemasons' Hall, London 2017-09-17-2a.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Freemasons' Hall, London 2017-09-17-2a.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 13:02, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Quality Image Promotion

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Entrance sign and logo - London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine - 2017-09-17.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments  Support Good quality.--Famberhorst 15:44, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

--QICbot (talk) 05:22, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Quality Image Promotion

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Fitzrovia Chapel 2017-09-17-6.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments Sold. --Peulle 13:10, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Grand Temple, Freemasons' Hall, London 2017-09-17-3.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments Good quality. --Ermell 10:50, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Grand Temple, Freemasons' Hall, London 2017-09-17-2.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments GQ, Tournasol7 10:53, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Staircase - London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine - 2017-09-17.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments Good & nice. --Selbymay 06:27, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

--QICbot (talk) 05:21, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:The Maughan Library - 2017-09-16-3.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:The Maughan Library - 2017-09-16-3.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 13:03, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

About your negative votes

Dear Colin, For some time I have not received a single negative vote from you, I think our friendship has created a problem in the evaluations. I remember that in past times you used to criticize with much more strength my nominations, however, today this has changed and I suspect that our friendship has played an important role in this change, in this situation. This situation has discouraged me a bit because the negative votes were the ones that motivated me to continue and currently my nominations are generally ignored or negative votes with comments of low acuity or commitment. --The Photographer 14:06, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Ha ha. I think that is the first (and likely only) time anyone has ever complained to me that I'm not being harsh enough. I shall review my vote history to see if there is a shift as you note. Perhaps I have tended to comment wrt a fix you could make that I felt confident you would make, whereas in the past I have opposed? Or perhaps you have got better, particularly with your processing (and new camera) or are choosing less risky images to nominate? I'm aware that wiki-friendship can complicate reviewing, and at times feel safest just abstaining if I think my opinions are being influenced that way, with the consequence that I'd vote only if fantastic/dreadful/obvious. It is not easy to be a robot-neutral reviewer, and if I abstain then there are others too I hope that will vote instead. I'm sorry to hear that you aren't getting enough feedback on your nominations, and will look out for them with my critical eye!

I have not been very active reviewing for the last month due to a real-life crisis. Hope to get back to normality soon. One thing you can be sure of... if you buy that fisheye lens, you'll get plenty opinions on your nominations! -- Colin (talk) 14:29, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Funny discussion, guys. Never heard someone asking for negative reviews before but I understand very well what you mean, The Photographer. I've really learned a lot from Colin's (sometimes harsh) reviews and today I sometimes regret having complained so much about them. However, I hope you have overcome your crisis, Colin. Sad to hear that you're not doing well. All the best! --Code (talk) 17:31, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Dear Code and Colin. Last night I was dreaming that Colin showed me how to do a panoramic with the nodal ninja and that fisheye, it was a pleasant dream. That lens is in my mind, however, I have to solve some problems related to the winter here in Canada because I have spent a lot of money buying the coats cheaper than the money can buy. I'm going to buy that lens, however, I hope to do it for my birthday which is in December and coincidently two days after my wikibirthday. The winter is Coming and with the winter a low luminosity come too, which is going to modify the kind of photography that I am going to take. I am really very sad to hear that you are going through a personal crisis, this has happened to me several times and I want you to know that you can always count on me in anything you need. --The Photographer 19:49, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

User:The Photographer, I've added a negative vote, as requested :-). But that was an easy one. I've had a look over some of your recent nominations.

• Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Champlain Quebec city.jpg gets in because of the colour. The noise is a bit of an issue considering the low resolution. I suspect you corrected the verticals, which stretched the upper part, and along with lifting shadows that enhanced the noise? Not sure of a solution other than to use a tripod and also use HDR or multiple shots.
• Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Ville de Québec 05.jpg I really like this. Perhaps the colour balance is a little too much magenta? And there is a strange shadow halo next to the near lamp.
• Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Mercado Municipal of São Paulo, Brazil 3.jpg. This is great. I think you have a slight "twin" problem with the lad in the background who I think appears twice. But that is hard to spot.
• Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Parc du Bois-de-Coulonge, Québec ville, Québec, Cánada.jpg. You brought the highlights down too much, making the bright harbour grey rather than dazzlingly bright compared to the shady trees. I'd maybe crop a little off the bottom (keeping the path coming from the bottom right) and wait for those two people to move away (or find someone more photogenic to include). But otherwise I like the composition of the tree trunk foregrounds and harbour background. It is unusual.
• Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Québec city at night, view from Lévis city.jpg. The exposure handling isn't quite at Diliff levels. But better than some FPs. The crop is a little arbitrary perhaps (to the viewer) and I don't know if a wider panorama would help. The long exposure has created smooth water, which is quite fashionable.
• Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Bassin Louise de Québec.jpg. I really like this scene in the first version you uploaded with the shadows lifted. Not so good for later one that is just dark shadow. It's that big shadow-lift that added so much noise. So I guess the solution would have been to make a brighter exposure and then lower some aspects in post. The left side is less interesting (other than the cloud patterns) but the right side is excellent. Particularly the orange and blue lighting on the wake of the boat. Not always easy to take and frame a picture that works as a whole, but you've caught something here I think would be worth trying to improve on with more photos like this.

I think you've definitely improved. You still desperately need that panoramic head and tripod, which will help with stitching issues, avoid you trying to patch things up in Photoshop, help with HDR/noise and help with sharpness compared to hand-held panos. You've always taken a wider variety of photos than most people here, and so that's a bigger risk. Some folk just stay with what they know they're good at, which I'd find very limiting and get bored. -- Colin (talk) 16:53, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Colin for your reviews and I understand your point about this pano head and lens. Let me see how get it (I need ask the permission to Beria). I will take note about your remarks about my pictures on the way to improve my image quality, I need stop a bit and understand each function of my new camera like how shoot several images of different exposures in the same time, for example, it could help to improve the image quality, take 5 or 6 images remove any noise. The last year I taken amazing quality pictures with my D300 using this technique. --The Photographer 19:58, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm sure your camera has exposure bracketing. Mine has a really good range taking 3 or 5 photos with anything from 1/3 to 2 stops between. Another way of taking several shots in succession is using an intervalometer. Some cameras have this built-in but you can buy them fairly cheaply for a Chinese make rather than the offical Sony/Nikon/Canon brand. I don't want my encouragement to get yourself in debt over camera gear, though -- there is no rush. I'm sure Canada is an expensive and cold country. -- Colin (talk) 20:05, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Quality Image Promotion

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Fitzrovia Chapel 2017-09-17-3.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments Good quality. --Ermell 12:22, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Your image has been reviewed and promoted Congratulations! Freemasons' Hall, London 2017-09-17-9.jpg, which was produced by you, was reviewed and has now been promoted to Quality Image status. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Quality images candidates. We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images. Comments Good quality. --Ermell 12:25, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

--QICbot (talk) 05:34, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:The Shard at sunset 2017-10-27.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:The Shard at sunset 2017-10-27.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 13:06, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Old Royal Naval College 2017-08-06.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Old Royal Naval College 2017-08-06.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 05:06, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

FP Promotion

★ This image has been promoted to Featured picture! ★ The image File:Gilded Vectors of Disease - Horizontal.jpg, that you nominated on Commons:Featured picture candidates/File:Gilded Vectors of Disease - Horizontal.jpg has been promoted. Thank you for your contribution. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so.

/FPCBot (talk) 05:03, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Good evening Colin,

Thank you for your comment and that of Colin. I have edited this picture, but also the altenatives according to Colin's proposal. Thank you for your positive comments on my FP photo. I have edited the photo, but also the altenatives according to your proposal. The clouds have now become much more natural. Thanks again for your effort to explain everything.
Sincerely,--Agnes Monkelbaan (talk) 18:43, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Good morning Colin, Thanks for all the good tips. I will also try out the blacks what the efect will be.

Greetings from --Agnes Monkelbaan (talk) 05:55, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

File:Former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the Nordic Council Session in Helsinki 2008-10-28.jpg

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reddogsix (talk) 11:01, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Stray edit

That "C" was an unintentional stray edit. See this. I would never make an edit like that on purpose. My apologies on that one. PumpkinSky talk 12:35, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Happy holidays! 2018! ;)

			* Happy Holidays 2018, Colin/Archive! *
			Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Joyeux Noël ! Bonne année! Frohes Weihnachten! Frohes Neues Jahr! Счастливого Рождества! С Новым годом! ¡Feliz Navidad y próspero año nuevo! Щасливого Різдва! З Новим роком! -- George Chernilevsky talk 18:16, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Merry Xmas

Colin may this Christmas end the present year on a cheerful note and make way for a fresh and bright New Year. I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Wikicology (talk) 19:43, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks George and User:Wikicology. And the same to you! -- Colin (talk) 15:24, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Colin/Archive!!


Hi Colin/Archive, I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year,
Thanks for all your help and contributions on the FPC! --The Photographer 16:03, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, The Photographer. I hope you are having a good holiday break and have a great New Year. Looking forward to making you happy by opposing some of your FPCs in 2018! -- Colin (talk) 15:19, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Happy holidays! 2018!

		* Happy Holidays 2018, Colin/Archive! *
		Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Joyeux Noël ! Bonne année! Frohes Weihnachten! Frohes Neues Jahr! Счастливого Рождества! С Новым годом! ¡Feliz Navidad y próspero año nuevo! Щасливого Різдва! З Новим роком! --Pierre André (talk}}) 10:17, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Pierre. And the same to you! -- Colin (talk) 15:19, 30 December 2017 (UTC)