Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/F-111-Fuel-Dump,-Avalon,-VIC-23.03.2007.jpg

Fuel dumping

Original. RAAF F-111 aircraft performing a dump-and-burn fuel dump, a procedure where the fuel is intentionally ignited using the plane's afterburner.

Reason: Eye-catching image of a F-111 fighter jet performing a dump-and-burn fuel dump against a cloudy grey sky. I was actually surprised by how few photos there are of this. Most that are around are captured from the ground at airshows, and are therefore usually from an unappealing angle looking up from below the plane.

This pretty rare side-on view is far more appealing. This image also retains considerable detail in the ‘fuel dump’ itself; in most images it is blurred, completely blown out and often cut-off. Some people will undoubtedly complain that the plane is essentially silhouetted, but that was a necessary consequence of using a high enough shutter speed (1/3200s) to retain detail in the flames – remember that this is nominated for the demonstration of a fuel dump, not the plane.

I realise that image quality isn’t perfect (there’s a bit of noise and seems to be a slight halo around the plane, most noticeable in the downsized versions - not sure why), but there’s certain expediencies when taking a photo like this - you only get one try. Perhaps worth comparing to any other images you can find of this phenomenon. Used in several pretty big articles, and BTW, it’s exclusive to Wikipedia.
Proposed caption: Fuel dumping is a practice used by aircraft that are equipped to jettison fuel in the event of certain types of emergency situations. This RAAF F-111 aircraft is performing a dump-and-burn fuel dump at the Australian International Airshow, a procedure where the fuel is intentionally ignited using the plane's afterburner.
Articles this image appears in: Fuel dumping
Afterburner
General Dynamics F-111
Airshow
Australian International Airshow
Creator: jjron

Support as nominator jjron 10:06, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. If the high shutterspeed caused the plane to be silhouetted, then I would expect the image to have focus. I can also see is blur in every part of the photograph. I would've preferred to see the plane in a clear sky. The clouds mess with lighting conditions and causes a general color balance which is unpleasing, at least to my eyes. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:34, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Great picture! When viewed at original size, shows great details of the fuel being expelled.Muhammad Mahdi Karim 11:54, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
weak Support per nom Debivort 14:45, 14 September 2007 (UTC). Changing vote to weak support, per the subtle halo seen by Logan Williams. Debivort 02:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support this is one of the better images of this i have seen and i think conditions warrant a bit of leniency --Childzy ¤ Talk 17:02, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support It doesn't look great, but some Googling has convinced me that it may in fact be the best image of the subject on the internet (even more so if you consider copyright). That's good enough for me.--Here T oHelp 17:19, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I think that the silhouette is unapealing and the subject is a bit small within the picture. -Fcb981^{(talk:contribs)} 01:00, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support, fantastic one-of-a-kind catch. Strong encyclopedic value. They do this at air shows, sometimes, but the view is never this good. --Dhartung | Talk 04:31, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Halo around plane -- Logan Williams 03:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Are you sure you were looking at the full size? The version on the image page has a nasty halo because of wikimedia's over sharpening. Debivort 21:31, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yes, I was. It doesn't look like the typical 1-2 px sharpening halo, it is a wider, more gradual halo. -- Logan Williams 00:09, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Oh yeah... hadn't seen that. Debivort 02:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - I don't think that's a halo - I think it's smoke from the burning fuel --Fir0002 05:59, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        Fir0002 is right, there is smoke around the flames, but the halo is different. If you read the nomination you'll see the slight halo around the plane was identified there. I have some other pics of mainly this plane from around this time, with similar halos. I've tried to work out why, and I think it's something to do with the heat and light. It was a damn hot day, about 39°C, and despite the looming storm clouds seen in the photo, the sky above was still quite clear and sunny. I think - and I'm not sure because it's a bit puzzling - but the halo may actually be reflection off the plane of the bright light from the clear sky which only becomes evident due to the dark clouds. Anyway, to me it's pretty minor, not that obvious at full size, and not enough to throw the picture out, but each to their own. --jjron 06:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support--ZeWrestler ^Talk 04:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support--Mbz1 03:48, 16 September 2007 (UTC)Mbz1[reply]
Support Gragox 13:53, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support, amazing picture; minor flaws are forgivable given the difficulty involved in taking the picture Rubble pile 17:50, 16 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Great shot, exposure is spot on for the flame. Did you anticipate what the exposure settings would need or was it a lucky guess with some dialed in underexposure? Also, you correctly state that these sort of photos are typically from an "unappealing angle looking up". Were you not on the ground? Or was it just fortunate that it was banking at the same angle as you were viewing it from the ground? I think the haloes are there but an unfortunate byproduct of in-camera sharpening algorithms. If it were shot with raw format (and preferably with a good DSLR ;-)), this could probably be avoided or at least minimised, but it doesn't detract enough from the photo to avoid my support. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 11:23, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Bit of luck I suppose; I had ramped up the settings because as I mentioned above it was actually very bright above the clouds and I anticipated possibly catching the plane in the clear sky, plus the sun was starting to move into that part of the sky. So between trying to allow for all that, and looking to freeze the motion of a low flying fighter jet, I basically had it set up, the bonus being it exposed the flames so well. A lot of people that have seen this have said it looks like I was in a plane flying alongside. Actually I did a bit of trick to get this view - of course all the keen photographers at airshows get as close to the action as they can right alongside the runway. I went way back for a different perspective, say a couple of hundred metres away amongst the milling crowds and fixed displays. That meant instead of shooting at say 45° to the horizontal as is usual for a low pass, I was only shooting at about 10°. As you can probably tell from the clouds there wasn't much banking of the plane, there was possibly a little, but combine the small angle and a minor banking and you get this basically side on view. I must say that this is the most 'side-on' out of the ones I took from there, so it is good that it was combined with the fuel dump and the spot on timing to get this, but perhaps I shouldn't be revealing all this detail. Oh, BTW, this is the first photo I've uploaded that has been taken with my 400D - OK, so it's no 5D, but it's not a bad piece of gear ;). I maybe should start using raw, but at least I have since got some better glass. --jjron 09:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Oh, as you stripped the EXIF data from the image, I didn't realise you did shoot it with a DSLR - I wasn't having a dig at your 400D not being as good as a 5D - its quite capable, if not more capable than a 5D for that sort of shooting, since it has a 1.6x crop factor that essentially zooms in further for a given focal length. I don't see why those technical details is 'too much info', it doesn't detract from the image that it was taken from ground level as opposed to being parallel with an F-111 in the clouds, although it would be impressive to say you were! As for shooting in raw, I thoroughly recommend it, as you have complete control over the final image and aren't limited to how the camera processes it in the split second after you press the shutter. I've already had that debate with Fir0002 and he seemed happy enough to stick with jpeg at the time despite the potential benefits. Jpeg is certainly simpler to work with, but I'm picky. :-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 15:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - You get some strange reasons for opposes at times, which is why I often think it's better to leave a bit of mystery. I got onto ensuring EXIF data was removed from images when someone opposed one of my A95 FPC noms because it was taken with a 'small digicam' (OK, the nom was bombing anyway, but still...). I can see advantages to raw, my main two reasons for not using it are time (though I could try selectively using it) and disk space (most of my work is done on my work issue laptop with only a 40GB hard-drive and not a lot of free space; a lot of stuff ends up on external drives anyway, but it's all extra mucking around). I also need to put the time into actually learning how to use raw properly so I would get the benefits you mention. One step at a time; at the moment I'm still experimenting with the camera and a couple of new lenses. --jjron 03:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: That halo looks like an editing attempt to bring out detail in the silhouette, and even if not, it looks unnatural. Can jjron confirm or deny that editing has taken place? Thanks, --Janke | Talk 17:16, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Thank-you to all who have voted. Yes I've cropped, adjusted levels, sharpened a bit - is that all banned? I had a look at dodging out the plane just to see what I could get, and realised there was very little detail there, so didn't bother with it (it actually looks a lot better as a dark silhouette rather than lightened up). I could have removed the halo, but decided that I'd put it up as was. As the nom says, I'm nominating for the fuel dumping, not the plane - nice (usually military sourced) photos of these planes are a-dime-a-dozen, but not so with the dump-and-burn. If people didn't like it they were free to oppose, but it seems most people were willing to accept it for what it is, without being overly distracted by minutiae. --jjron 09:23, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Certainly not banned, but I suspect that the greatest effect that sharpening had on the image was to enhance the halo effect, as the image inherently didn't have much to sharpen in the first place apart from the silhouette! Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 15:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Probably the biggest effect of the relatively minor sharpening was tightening up the edges of the plane silhouette; can't remember it having much impact on the halo. It was taken with the kit lens, which was the only lens I had at the time, and that inherently tends to be pretty soft, so a little sharpening didn't hurt. --jjron 03:25, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support - The halo is distracting but not so much that it takes away from a great image. I've never seen anything quite like this, it's very interesting! --iriseyes^talk 20:33, 17 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Agree with Triseyes, halo is distracting but doesn't take away that much from the overall image. Cat-five - talk 00:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Stunning image when viewed small, but then, if you imagine if the subject area was cropped to just the plane + flame.. the picture never gets that big. There's just not a lot of pixels or information content there. Still a great photo, but doesn't seem to be up to the typical quality requirements. —Pengo 15:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Hmm, fair enough. So would that preclude anything long-and-thin or tall-and-skinny from becoming a FP? --jjron 03:28, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ooooo...pretty. Very encyclopedic and a rare shot indeed. Jumping cheese 01:44, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted Image:F-111-Fuel-Dump,-Avalon,-VIC-23.03.2007.jpg -- Chris B • talk 14:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]