Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Canon EF 40mm STM lens (focus stacked version)

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 5 Feb 2013 at 07:59:57 (UTC)

 
Original – This Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM lens is a pancake lens design with Canon's Stepping motor.
Reason
My light tent arrived and I have tried to produce this a couple dozen times. I have finally focus stacked this version so that everything is in focus. I have found an angle at which the software seems to be able to perform as designed with this subject (which was no small task). I seem to be unable to get this black subject dustfree. The particles keep showing up in different places no matter what I do. However, they are not problematic in any of the uses of this image.
Articles in which this image appears
Canon EF 40mm lens
Pancake lens
Canon EF lens mount
FP category for this image
Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Photographic techniques, terms, and equipment
Creator
TonyTheTiger
  • Support as nominator --TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 07:59, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Dull lighting, tilted, colour cast, insufficient detail, dirty. The image is also reduced 50% size. Have a look at this, this, this, this and Canon's own product shot here. In all of these, the product is absolutely spotless. The lighting is carefully arranged to pick up the ribbed (focus?) ring at the top, the textured black plastic body, the polished metal mount, and the cylindrical shape. In some, there's enough resolution to pick up the ribbed texture of the Canon logo. I'm not a fan of light-tent shots as it is too easy just to nuke the subject from all sides -- fine for ebay I suppose. Look at how Canon, Nikon, Sony, Pentax light and shoot their products. Colin°Talk 09:47, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Do you feel that any of the shots you are having me look at are in focus? Those are mostly pretty terrible jobs at presenting the subject. They mostly show the cylinder surface in focus and nothing else. Some show the front ribbing around the lens in focus. None of them present all the text in focus. They all also reduced the shot to a small enough size that dust is not problematic. I can produce shots that appear fairly dirt free at those resolutions I think. My lens actually does not have a textured body. Some of those appear pebbled. Not all of the examples that you point to have textured bodies. I can make it brighter and a custom white balance might take care of the colour cast. In order to get the metal mount, I will have to use the 70-300mm lens from 5 ft away since the free versions of the stacking software don't seem to work on this subject from an angle that will show the metal mount. I have to figure out how to get the ribbed logo texture. I may give it another go later tonight. It may be the case that you have to remove the dust in photoshop to get this shot. I am not sure.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:28, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Nearly every sentence you wrote is wrong. Please take the advice I gave on the FPC talk page. Colin°Talk 17:31, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • I may be wrong about some things, but most of those images are low res like the thumb of this above where dust does not show. I doubt most of these are spotless. Nonetheless, they don't present all the text from front to back in focus. I guess my image has problems. I don't see any recent comments on the FPC talk page regarding this topic. I see comments from about 3 days ago on using commons, but that is about it.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:15, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • Not all those images are much lower resolution than yours and are sharper and more detailed even when they are smaller. What makes you think front-to-back sharpness is an essential feature? I've only linked to examples of the same lens. The internet is full of examples of high-quality photographs of camera equipment. This shot of the lens from HireACamera in particular, is so pristine, slim, black and silvery that I want to go out and hire it from those guys even though I shoot Sony. Believe me, they will have taken pictures of a brand new lens, and cleaned it up very carefully before shooting it -- nobody wants to spend hours with the clone tool (though they will have used that no doubt because it is impossible to remove all dust). My advice was to buy a book (such as the one I linked) on lighting and join some photography forum specialising in taking studio product shots. There are loads. You may also want to consider a macro lens. FPC is not a beginner's forum or tutorial. I want you to take lots of great pictures for Wikipedia, but you need to take a different approach to learning. Colin°Talk 20:56, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • People have told me to stack this for depth of field (which I view as synonmous with front to back sharpness). I am starting to feel I need better equipment than I have to take macro shots for FPC. I thought jumping up to an SLR would make FPCs possible. However, I have mostly intermediate and entry level lenses, tripods, flashes and such. Solid black subjects are probably the hardest to shoot cleanly. I will focus on other stuff. I imagine that the reason that the only lens at FP is a 2005 nom is because it is pretty hard to get them right.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:31, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Opppse per Colin - the colours are odd and the lens is (still) covered in dust. Also, the photo hasn't been in any articles for a week. Tony, I agree with Colin's suggestion that you cease using the FPC process as a tutorial in how to take high quality photos as you're wasting everyone's time and are probably violating your topic ban against uploading images related to yourself. Nick-D (talk) 22:50, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not Promoted --Armbrust The Homunculus 08:15, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]