Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Death Valley

Death Valley

Original - Dunes in Death Valley, California, one of the hottest and driest places on Earth.

Reason: A high-quality panorama. The people really give you a sense of scale.
Articles this image appears in: Death Valley
Creator: Phreakdigital

Support as nominator --Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 01:30, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Gorgeous. Do you have information on which of Death Valley's sand dune fields this is? Durova^Charge! 05:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- The photographer's last contribution was in 2007, so I'm afraid that we're probably not going to get more information now. =/ Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 06:39, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Looks like the one near Stovepipe Wells, close to the road. I have a very similar shot that I took in 1993... --Janke | Talk 06:56, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - Very possibly; I climbed the Stovepipe Wells dunes in 2000. And if I had to venture a guess I'd say the camera's facing west. But how different from the other Death Valley dune fields does this area really look? In an 80 mile long area lined with mountains on all sides, there's a chance of a similar sierra formation occurring somewhere else. Would it be fair to match this against reliably identified photos of Stovepipe Wells? Durova^Charge! 07:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      - Weak oppose If this is really Stovepipe Wells then it's relatively accessible and should be possible to photograph under better conditions. The haze itself is virtually unavoidable: partly a result of air pollution from the state's urban areas which rain almost never cleans out of this arid region, and partly a function of the conditions that create the dunes--prevailing winds carry fine particulates westward from the Sierras. (I don't have citations for any of this; quoting from memory from a trip to the park). The long and short of it is that these atmospheric conditions make sunsets and sunrises more colorful but wash out the midday sky. Durova^Charge! 08:13, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Composition wise, there's too much sky and not enough dunes for the subject. Technically, there's some sky banding, the foreground bottom left is out of DOF and in general detail is smushy like too much jpeg noise reduction (i am looking at the bushes and ground, its not atmospheric like you can see on the dunes). I think this could/should be easily retaken in much higher IQ at a better time of day to make it FP.Mfield (talk) 21:26, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support Very cool, and great quality. 216.183.234.7 (talk) 06:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC) Me again. Clegs (talk) 15:00, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per User:Mfield. Washed-out sky, hazy skyline. Not FP quality imo --Pete Tillman (talk) 02:10, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. bad stich. Undulating brightness in the sky can be reduced with a restich and applying a vignetting compensation beforehand. A reasonably new version of hugin should have no problems with that. I'd be happy to reconsider after this is fixed. --Dschwen 16:24, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- The photographer has left Wikipedia. This is a "found" FPC, not one I was involved in. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 11:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted . --John254 17:20, 8 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]