Wikipedia:Picture peer review/Yarra River

Yarra River[edit]

Well-framed image that shows a wide variety of native vegetation.

Creator: Ottre

Nominated by: Ottre (talk) 14:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Unfortunately the image has a few technical problems. Large areas of the sky and a small area of the water have blown highlights. There is also quite a bit of noise, particularly in the leaves etc. The top of the image is quite unsharp and there is quite a bit of chromatic aberration. In future i'd suggest setting your camera to ISO 100 (or less) and a higher fnumber. In addition you need the image to appear in an article for it to be a featured picture. The image should make a useful addition to the yarra river article (representing a different environment to the rest of the pictures). Noodle snacks (talk) 08:50, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I can reshoot this, as the site isn't far from my home, but don't quite understand what adjustments (one or the other) I should be making. If the main problem is the crowns of the trees in the background, perhaps there is a problem photographing "solid" landscapes using my camera (FinePix F40fd)? If so, I can change to the Easyshare M873, which has slightly better focus. Ottre (talk) 07:54, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Select a lower ISO (100 tops, lower is better) instead of 200 and a narrower apeture (say F8.0) so more of the image appears in focus and lens deficiancies become less apparent. Blown highlights could be marginally fixed with exposure compensation, but short of stacking exposures or using grad ND filters, I'd suggest supporting the camera with a tripod (or a rock) and shooting at dawn or dusk when the dynamic range is lower (See Golden hour (photography)). These suggestions should fix most of the technical issues, even if some compositional ones remain. Noodle snacks (talk) 11:57, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with everything here except stopping down to f/8. With a compact camera like that, you're going to get very noticeable diffraction problems stopping down that far. Probably somewhere between f/4.5 and f/5.6 you'll find ideal sharpness. Also, is your lens clean? The irregularities in sharpness make me think that some of he sharpness problems may be more from a smudge than lens problems. And stick with the F40fd; that series has a very good reputation. Thegreenj 20:31, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I was probably thinking a bit much in dSLR terms with the aperture Noodle snacks (talk) 23:28, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree; but even though it is unsharp, it has an odd texture to it... has it been noise reduced? In addition, I'm not too keen on the composition, as I don't think it's very illustrative. Fletcher (talk) 22:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also agree on the composition. The Yarra River isn't hard to take photos of (the path goes for ages alongside it), and there's nothing special about the composition of this pic at all. It would be good to have a pic of the middle or upper Yarra though. Mostlyharmless (talk) 07:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I have taken maybe a hundred photographs of the middle reaches of the river, and it is difficult to get an open shot of the banks. Even at the Yarra Bend, which is a popular, flat area, you need to be at least five to six metres above the water's edge. Quite frankly, the lookouts haven't been built to that height and you would be hard pressed to find more than a few quality locations such as this. I've seen perhaps twelve in the two-hundred hectares I've walked. Ottre (talk) 08:15, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Seconder