Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/London 360° Panorama

London Panorama[edit]

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 12 Aug 2010 at 20:45:37 (UTC)

Original - 360° panorama of the London skyline. Taken from the near-top of the London Eye. On the left of the picture is the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben, to the right is Waterloo station.

Click here to zoom and pan using a Flash-based interactive viewer.

Reason: I was quite surprised that this isn't already a featured picture. It's very educational and shows many famous parts of central London, as well as educating how good the view from the London Eye actually is (I have never seen a view before). The resolution is high, and I feel this is one of the best images portraying London as a panorama. Since it is often discussed here, I would really want to click on this picture if I saw it.
Articles in which this image appears: London Eye, Central London
FP category for this image: Wikipedia:Featured_pictures/Places/Panorama
Creator: Farwestern

Edit - Edited out London Eye carriage on left and slightly cropped part of sky out. (Interactive view)

Support as nominator ---- bydand•talk 20:45, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is my first FP nomination so go easy on me :) It seemed an obvious place to start, and if there is anything that you feel needs cloning out, cropping etc., tell me and I'll make an attempt to fix it. I am also considering integrating this image into the London article; I'd expect to see it there. -- bydand•talk 20:48, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose There is some bad noise throughout the picture, particularly towards the left hand side as you look down the river. Also i'm not a fan of the composition, half of the picture is sky, the carriage on the Eye next to us is very distracting, and things seem to slant away towards the right of the picture. Not a bad picture, but not FP imo. JFitch (talk) 20:58, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think the carriage is in the view because the picture was originally made intending to show the view from the London Eye. However, I have uplaoded an alternative, let me know what you think. -- bydand•talk 21:18, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

~~Support~~ I agree that it would be better if framed lower; there is too much sky. And there are other small technical flaws. However, we’ve had panoramas here that weren’t full 360-degree ones and I always wanted to see one of those. Notwithstanding the technical flaws, the unique character of this image, I think, would elicit a “stop, stare & click” reaction from a large portion of our readership. The subject matter too (London) would have broad appeal (also lending to “stop, stare & click”). The Flash-based interactive viewer exploits the unique virtue that only an electronic encyclopedia can pull off. And expanding on its shortcomings and occasional flaws, I don’t think many readers who spend time zooming around would come away disappointed. Greg L (talk) 21:06, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Compelling idea, but technical problems. The wavy horizon is the primary deal-breaker. This is most likely fixable with proper stitching (in hugin I'd use horizontal guides, and vertical guides too). The overexposed sky might be fixable as well if the panorama was taken with automatic exposure. if not than this is deal-breaker number two. --Dschwen 21:23, 3 August 2010 (UTC) P.S.: as a side-note: this is not a 360 degree panorama. A few degrees make all the difference. This one does not join up to form a seamless 360 degree view. --Dschwen 21:26, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Maybe the horizon is wavy. Greg L (talk) 22:07, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Not on a near spherical planet. --Dschwen 22:14, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - Oh yeah I forgot there's no such thing as hills! -- bydand•talk 22:15, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - I detected a note of irony in Bydand’s post. Indeed. It could be bad stitching. But I would think I would see seam flaws in the buildings if that was underlying the wavy horizon. Though planet earth is largely spherical on a large scale, earth is notably non-sphereical at small scales. England does have hills. And places in my native Washington state have mountains, leading to pronounced “waviness of the horizon,” like this 360° panorama of Mt. St. Helens. Greg L (talk) 22:32, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - The stitching errors on the horizon can be clearly seen on the right hand side of the image just before the horizon bends downwards. I've highlighted on the image on Commons Annotations. JFitch (talk) 22:41, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

- - - - Sorry, but at least to me it was blatantly obvious that the wavyness is due to bad stitching and not "hills". Just take a look at the verticals of the buildings and you see that they are perpendicular to the horizon. The sarcastic remark is quite a shot in your own foot in this case. I tried to give a constructive review of the image that you put up for review, even suggesting fixes for the image, and you give me crap. That's just great. --Dschwen 01:08, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Maybe though, Dschwen and Jujutacular are correct and there is an improper waviness we’re seeing here. I don’t think what we’re seeing can be attributed entirely to stitching errors either. I’m certainly not buying that waviness is incompatible with a near-spherical earth nor do I now buy into the argument that the waviness is because hills exist. If the tripod wasn’t perfectly level, you would get a single-cycle sinusoidal on the horizon and this would be possible with zero stitching errors. And, indeed, that is exactly what I see here: a single-cycle sinusoidal. I’m changing my “support” vote because of an accumulation of problems here. Sorry. Greg L (talk) 22:49, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose A very good effort, but I must oppose. There are a lot of blown highlights in the sky, the horizon is wavy, and some of the stitches are quite obvious even in the thumbnail version. Jujutacular ^talk 21:25, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was actually looking for those, and the clouds that look like stitching on the thumbnail are just normal clouds on the full version. Would you be kind enough to point the obvious bits out for me? :) -- bydand•talk 21:28, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawn. Thanks for the feedback, I'll take it all into account for the next time I nominate :). -- bydand•talk 22:58, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- A wise choice. Better luck next time. As for the blown highlights, that is a concern you will see frequently mentioned here. As in the MV Queenscliff (ferry boat) picture, sometimes the fix results in an overly dark picture. If one were really there looking at that ferry, they’d be squinting and the eye wouldn’t see any detail whatsoever in that brightly lit side of the ferry; which is to say, the eye would see blown-out highlights too—just like the camera. Similarly, as with this close-up of the eye, the specular reflections are areas that would appear blown out to the naked eye. The clouds in your panorama have a bad-looking way of being blow out that detracts. The most simple fixes (contrast and brightness) would ruin the look of the city. Some of the people here, like Dschwen, are particularly adept at technical work-arounds to avoid this sort of thing. Greg L (talk) 23:14, 3 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted ---- bydand•talk 00:34, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]