Talk:Pigeon photography/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Pyrotec (talk) 20:41, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I will reviwew. Pyrotec (talk) 20:41, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Initial comments

By now I have had several quick readings of the article. It's certainly an interesting article on a rather obscure topic; and has some good background information on the development of (aerial) photography.

Overall, the article appears to be at or about GA-level: its well referenced and well-illustrated; but we will see.

Having said that, the article seems to concentrate on "hardware", e.g. lenses, bellows, but there is very little mention of photographic medium. Early photographs taken from balloons gets a good mention in the first paragraph of the Origins section: these might well have been glass plates, but its not mentioned; collodion film negatives are mentioned in the second paragraph; and 3 cm × 8 cm film is mentioned in the Julius Neubronner section. I suspect that the Pigeon photographer would not have been feasible without technological developments in both small/light-weight cameras and photographic film: and film seems to be neglected, not having much mention until 16 mm film in WW II .

I will now do a more detailed review, section by section, but leaving the WP:Lead until last. At this point, I will be concentrating on "problems", so if I have little to say about a particular section/subsection that probably means that I regard it as being satisfactory. I suspect photographic media will come up at several points. Pyrotec (talk) 12:02, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

• Origins -

• Ref 3, an encyclopedia, is a book. Its referenced, but no page number(s) is cited.
  • Good point. Unfortunately I don't think I can get access to the book again before some time in early January, when the library opens again. At that point I will provide the page number. Hans Adler 01:30, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
  •  Done Incidentally, this encyclopedia is organised alphabetically, and the entry title was already named. Now it also has page numbers. Hans Adler 23:11, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
•  15 Pyrotec (talk) 10:57, 14 January 2011 (UTC) - The statement "Advances in photographic techniques made their use in unmanned aircraft feasible at the end of the 19th century" needs a citation. Its quite a jump from (manned) bolloons, kites and rockets, which do have citations.
  • Thanks. Here I have essentially the same problem as above. Hans Adler 01:30, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I did not immediately find a source, so I tweaked the sentence to make it clearer that it is only meant to draw attention to the shift from cameras operated by people in balloons to cameras in unmanned aircraft (kites, rockets, unmanned balloons), which manifestly happened at that time. Would you say it's OK now? Hans Adler 23:11, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

• OK, it reads much better now. Pyrotec (talk) 10:57, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

• Julius Neubronner -

• As above, page numbers are needed for book references.
  •  Done. For some shorter articles I have not given the page numbers, to avoid unnecessary clutter. I have also omitted them for Neubronner 1920: This is an extremely short pamphlet (12 pages of text plus a few pages with pictures) and so rare that it makes no sense to split one footnote into many with page numbers on the off-chance that one or two readers manage to get hold of it. Two years ago I bought the only copy that I could find for sale on the internet, and I only know one library which has it. Once I have found the time to scan it and put it on my homepage, I will add the page numbers, though. Hans Adler 23:56, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
• Y Pyrotec (talk) 12:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC) - There is some very good information about "hardware" but almost nothing about "photographic media": the early cameras were single shot and/or simultaneous single shots in stereoscope or forward-backward mode, so they could have used one (or two, as appropriate) collodion plates or celluloid sheets, but its not discussed at all. By end of the 20th century George Eastman of Kodak had US patents for film. By 1910 Neubronner had the Doppel-Sport Panoramic Camera and by 1920 a 12 exposure model, both of which I assume used commercial film stock but I should not have to make these assumptions in a (potential) GA-article.
  • I could find only very indirect information about Neubronner's photographic media, and even that is present only in some of the many sources. I was more successful with the type of film used by Adrian Michel. Thanks for the valuable suggestion! Hans Adler 23:56, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

• I can't ask for information to be added if it does not exist in verifiable form. Your recent additions have improved the article, so I'm closing this one off. Pyrotec (talk) 12:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

• World War I , World War II & After World War II -

• These are OK, apart from some "missing" book page numbers.
  •  Done I think I have taken care of them all. Hans Adler 23:56, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

• WP:Lead -

• Probably acceptable but a minor expansion would be beneficial.
  • I added a second paragraph discussing the major challenges and the method's afterlife. Is that what you had in mind? Are there any other concrete things that should be mentioned? Hans Adler 00:11, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

• I've also added a bit more. The Lead should both introduce the article and summarise the main points. Its quite reasonable as an introduction, but it was not very efficient at summarising the main points. Pyrotec (talk) 12:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

At this point I'm putting the review On Hold. Most of the minor "problems" are lack of page numbers; and, I would like information on photographic media if it is provided in your existing sources. Pyrotec (talk) 16:32, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Every cited book should have page numbers now. For citations to chapters or articles inside a book or magazine there is already a short range of pages in the Bibliography section, so in most cases I have refrained from giving more specific page numbers in the footnotes for them.

I have added the very little information about Neubronner's photographic media that I could find to the list of five camera types. (Turns out that some cameras used glass plates and others could transport film.) I will keep this in mind and extend the article if I ever run across additional information. There was slightly more precise information about Adrian Michel's favourite film, so I have added that as well.

I have also expanded the lead, found and fixed a few problems with the references, and added a link to a historical camera model used by Neubronner. Hans Adler 00:27, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I found the best source for information on Neubronner's media now. It even includes an explicit statement to the effect that not much is known, so I could add that as well. Hans Adler 11:31, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Overall summary

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

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A well referenced and well illustrated article on a rather obscure topic, that is of modern-day interest.

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   Well referenced.

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   Well referenced.

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   Well illustrated.

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

   Well illustrated.

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

I'm awarding this article GA status. Congratulations on bringing this article up to standard. Pyrotec (talk) 13:58, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Hans Adler 15:21, 14 January 2011 (UTC)