Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Zorak-Mantis.png

 
Chinese Praying Mantis

This image is displayed on the page Mantodea. I was going to add it to the actual page for Chinese mantis, but there was already a fairly good picture there, and I didn't want to just change it out of the blue. Mantodea had a very sub-par picture, so I chose to replace it instead. This photograph deserves featured picture status because it displays the main subject of the article, that is, Praying Mantises (Manti?) in razor-sharp detail. The mouth, the eyes, even the teeth of the arms are all in vivid focus. Also of note is that the refractions in the Mantis' eyes make two black dots that look like pupils, which makes the picture even more engaging, as it gives the Mantis a somewhat distracted look. The light source on the head defines the detail of her face and eyes as well.

  • Nominate and support. - PiccoloNamek 08:55, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • Wow. That's a great picture. There is another featured mantis picture, but I prefer this one. Well done. Raven4x4x 09:47, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • Nice. This is superior. -- Thorpe talk 14:37, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very sharp, detailed shot of the head. However, the picture seems a bit dark, and I'm not too crazy about the composition: the mantis' limbs are "cut" by the frame, and the depth of field is really shallow. Also, the high-res picture is grainy on my monitor.

Phils 17:31, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I tried lightening the picture in Photoshop, but I couldn't do it without blowing out the highlights on her head. As for the depth of field, when you're working at 1:1 macro or greater, there's not a whole lot of DOF to work with. It was either the claws or the head. I chose the head. I did my best, I think. As for the grain, I have no excuse, other than it's simply an inherent fault of the C-5050 camera. The shot was taken at ISO64. You don't want to see what ISO 400 looks like.PiccoloNamek 18:07, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
About that, the reason some of my images are PNG files is that much of the time I don't have the original version, and some of them have already been saved as JPG three or four times, so I'm reluctant to do it again. I guess I'll have to, though.PiccoloNamek 16:23, 13 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support great detail, doesn't look too dark to me. --Wulf 20:50, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted Image:Zorak-Mantis.png

I realise that with this being a self-nom by Piccolo we are technically one short of bolded Supports, but with no opposes, only one neg comment and another strongly supporting comment left before voting was allowed, I've judged the consensus to be for promotion ~ VeledanTalk + new 10:46, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]