Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Highway 401 Night Lapse

Highway 401 Night Lapse

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 27 May 2010 at 17:04:26 (UTC)

Original - Even late into the night, Highway 401 in Toronto glows from the head and taillights of countless cars and trucks along it's collector / express system.

Reason: Besides being both an excellent composition and technically flawless photo, the image offers a unique perspective on the highway, and showcases the brilliance of it in contrast to the sea of apartment buildings surrounding it. I felt this photo would be more FP worthy than the other 401 image nominated earlier, and wanted to give it a shot.
Articles in which this image appears: Ontario Highway 401
FP category for this image: Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Engineering and technology/Others
Creator: Kennymatic (Flickr user, CC-2.0-attribution)

~~Support as nominator~~ Withdrawn --ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:04, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Very good. Shows how busy the route actually is and the collector / express system in detail. The high mast lighting and buildings also add a lot to this otherwise dark image. I tweaked it just a bit and got some internal links in the caption. Haljackey (talk) 19:04, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose EV is rather dubious in most of the articles it's in (especially Street light and Lighting, where you have to look for the lighting system because it's not at all the focus of the image). upstate NYer 21:35, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: The position of the image in articles can always be changed, as well as adding or removing it from articles. Haljackey (talk) 21:49, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - I'd like to further add that I didn't add it to those articles. It's primary purpose is the Highway 401 article - I was simply listing the others in which it appears. I've removed them. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 01:56, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - According to the criteria, the picture needs to be a major component in at least two articles. You might want to add some back. Haljackey (talk) 02:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - No, it has to just be in one article - see Wikipedia:Featured picture criteria. Calliopejen1 (talk) 13:15, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose I saw this one when looking over the other Highway 401 nom, and liked it - much more compelling than the first nom. But it seems too noisy to me. Why not bring it down to base ISO and take a longer exposure? Fletcher (talk) 00:25, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I have no access to the angle it was taken from, probably the roof of the photographers apartment. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 01:56, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Support due to glare from the street lights and other non-car lights, but otherwise lovely photograph... Gazhiley (talk) 11:15, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Oppose. I like night photography, especially long exposures, but I don't think that it's the best way to illustrate a highway. Not that I'm suggesting it's FP quality, but I think this old image of mine is more appropriate in style, as it shows the lanes better and the density of traffic. It's impossible to get a true sense of the density in long exposures like this. You can view the image details to learn that it was an 8 second exposure, but you still can't pick out individual car head/tail lights. Ðiliff «» (Talk) 15:53, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - IMHO this is of high aesthetic but no educational value. Desiderius82 (talk) 06:07, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: I have to disagree. This picture shows North America's busiest highway, which is busy at all hours of the day. In addition, it shows its rather unique collector / express system in detail which is designed to eliminate crazy lane changes along the wide highway, and the high mast lighting system which you don't see too often in the rest of the world. All this could be added to the caption, perhaps, to give it a more educational value. Haljackey (talk) 15:37, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  Very few pictures are educational without context. In the context of Ontario Highway 401, this image is very informative, but also artistic. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 15:42, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Reluctant oppose The picture is clearly well done and the photographer is deserving of peer accolade. However, it has more of a “decorative” nature to it; suitable only for the lead of an article. IMO, it isn’t sufficiently encyclopedic to merit FP status. Greg L (talk) 01:44, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support I find the image to be appealing and encyclopedic. It provides context of the area and works well in its current use in the article. I'm not sure how else one would demonstrate that there is heavy traffic all day on the 401. Visually, this image is a quality demonstration of this fact. Cowtowner (talk) 01:20, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Question. How does this picture demonstrate how busy this highway is? I mean, the density of light streaks is just proportional to exposure length, and any highway could appear busy at night if the camera lens remains open for long enough, right? --Desiderius82 (talk) 12:01, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Of course that's true. That's the point. The photographer chose a lengthy exposure to fit an appropriate number of cars flowing by and thus show the highway was busy. If you're looking for exact values or a way to formally measure this it should be addressed directly in the body of the article. Expecting the picture to do that is unreasonable, rather it strikes me as a quality supplement. Cowtowner (talk) 17:27, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have to poke at what Desiderius said. While the exposure could theoretically be of any length, it would still take a consistent volume of traffic to produce the arcs across the entire image The density is not proportionate to the exposure length, the length of each light arc is proportionate to the exposure length, and the density proportionate to the number of light trails overlapping. I also believe that longer exposures would add increasing amounts of glare from the stationary lights. The photo summary shows the exposure length as well. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 20:11, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment / Suggestion I have an idea where this article might work splendidly and have high encyclopedic value rather than just decorative value. I suggest that it be added to Long exposure photography. As of this writing, the top-most picture there shows light smears. Though that current picture is arguably attractive, I think it would be unnecessarily difficult for many readers to discern what is going on in that image. Substituting that picture with this one would give that article more encyclopedic value and make it much, much easier for the reader to understand the effect of long shutter speeds. If this photograph were instead used in Long exposure photography, I would vote “Support.” Greg L (talk) 01:00, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I went ahead and added it to the article. Cowtowner (talk) 19:54, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment I suggest this nomination be withdrawn and a new one with a caption referencing its use at Long exposure photography be used. In that context, it will have more encyclopedic value in addition to its aesthetic qualities. Greg L (talk) 23:49, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - Comment Something like this Greg? [1] Haljackey (talk) 23:51, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - Hmmm… Interesting. I think your point (if I take your post correctly) is that just by making the picture sterile as hell and removing all artistic flourish, doesn’t necessarily suddenly make it able to convey the subject in a more encyclopedic fashion. Maybe it’s the combination of night-time and long exposure that detracts from this particular nomination’s ability to add encyclopedic value to the subject of Highway 401. Like that Supreme Court justice once said (taking a bit of literary license here): “Pornography is hard to define, but I know it when I see it.” Greg L (talk) 00:02, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        I think this still adds some value to the 401 article as well. Perhaps withdrawing and restarting the nominations with Long exposure photography first and Highway 401 second as the articles it is used within. Do you still feel it adds no value to the 401 article?
        I definitely think it adds value to the Ontario Highway 401 article. However, I don’t think it warrants FP status based on its use in that article because, although its highly decorative and stylized nature certainly gives it high marks for “purdy”, I think it merits low marks for adding encyclopedic value (EV) to ‘401.’ However, in the context of Long exposure photography, it speaks straight to the heart of that subject and therefore has plenty of EV in that context. And due to it also having its many artistic and aesthetic virtues, I would wholeheartedly support it for a Featured Picture. What a wonderful and well done picture to illustrate what can be done with an 8-second-long exposure. ~~It would be nice if the Long exposure photography article was a bit bigger, because Elakala Waterfalls would also enhance that article, IMO.~~
        P.S. Well… that was easy. The waterfall picture is also now on Long exposure photography. There was a section on “Water and long exposure” that was just begging for an associated picture. Greg L (talk) 01:03, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawn by nominator - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 00:52, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted --Makeemlighter (talk) 01:11, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]