Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Dolphin

Dolphin in the Military

Easily trained, the dolphin has been used my various military entities, past and present.

Edit 1 Reduced Noise, color corrected

I found this picture on the Wikiquotes page for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with the caption: "So long and thanks for all the fish". I uploaded a hi-res version and put it up here. I think it is pretty sweet.

Nominate and support. --Cody.Pope 21:58, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support - a fairly well known and quite remarkable photo. Further, photo is of good quality; clear and sharp. Comment below it is poor though (see Bottlenose dolphin article) - edit: just noticed: "This image was selected as a picture of the day for August 13, 2006."

Per BabyNuke's talk page, I bow to his superior caption skills. :-) --Cody.Pope 22:26, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Bad composition; the dolphin does not have enough head room, and the soldier is cut off. Also, the quality of the image is not that good. Gphoto ^talk 00:19, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Grainy, cramped composition. I also think the man is not very interesting and probably shouldn't be in the picture at all.Redquark 01:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've reduced the noise in edit 1. In the article this image specifically demonstrations interactions between people and dolphins. Generally, I think combined the image's wow factor, the difficulty of catching a dolphin mid breach, and the novelty of military equipment on the animal overcome the technical flaws. --Cody.Pope 04:23, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Even with the edit, the compodsition is still cramped and tghe grain is still quite visible. The quality is just lacking. NauticaShad e s 10:30, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
CommentI think the soldier (sailor) is important to have in the picture because, as uninteresting has he is, the dolphin isn't wearing its army boots, so without the soldier, we don't know that camera is for a military porpoise, I mean purpose. I agreen the quality is low, and I agree it is a rare/difficult shot. How about someone check out dod.gov and see if they can't find something better? If not, I might weakly support it.--Niro5 15:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

like I thought, go to [1] and search Dolphin or Sea Lion and you'll find some good shots (including this one). You could look for seals also, but you'll have to look at a lot of pictures of humans to find the animals. I would help out more, but I'm at work.--Niro5 16:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose edit 1 the noise reduction took too much detail out of the photo (look at the man's vest and shirt). Also the lightening on the underbelly of the dolphin isn't quite right. It seems too dramatic/unnatrual, and brought out some noise (that may be foreground water, or jpg artifact, or just grain/noise that was already there).--Andrew c 17:04, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I got some contact information for the photographer and I'm going to see if he has any other version (less cramped) and/or similar shots from the same series that aren't on the Navy's various sites. --Cody.Pope 18:54, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok actually, it looks like he is in Iraq right now, so I'm not sure if I'll get any thing anytime soon.--Cody.Pope 18:58, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - both are grainy, oversharpened but still blurred, have low detail and aren't very pleasing to the eye. There was also no need for the size reduction in the first edit. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξ φ 18:55, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support original Edit 1 removed too much detail...so I'm sticking with the original. I support the original mainly due to it's "WOW" factor. It's certainly a unique picture (you don't see that everyday) and also a featured pic on Wikimedia Commons (11 support, 5 oppose thus feature on June 6, 2006, but listed for removal on Nov. 14, 2006 currently with 5 keep, 6 delist). A featured pic should be more than simply being pretty (i.e.: utterly free of any tiny trace of jpeg artifacts and big enough to be a desktop wallpaper). It fit's the loose requirements to be a featured pic and adds significantly the articles it is linked to. Jumping cheese ^Cont@ct 09:15, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted --KFP (talk | contribs) 11:28, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]