Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/M198 howitzer

M198 howitzer

Nine Marines from Mike Battery, 4th Battalion, 14th Marines operate the 155mm M198 howitzer in November 2004. The battery was based at Camp Fallujah, Iraq and was supporting Operation Phantom Fury.

Reason

This pic is similar to Image:5-54-Mark-45-firing edit.jpg in that it captures both the gun muzzle flash and projectile in the same frame. It goes a step further by adding in the human element, which makes the pic more interesting. All nine members of the M198 crew are also present. The only technical problem I can see are the blurry sandbags in the foreground. They can be cropped out, but the Marine in the lower left corner will also be cropped out. Relatively minor problem and doesn't detract from the overall quality of the pic.
It's also the "Selected picture" for Portal:United States Marine Corps. Very unique and encyclopedic pic.

Articles this image appears in

Howitzer, M198 howitzer, Second Battle of Fallujah, 4th Battalion 14th Marines

Creator

LCPL SAMANTHA L. JONES, USMC

• Support as nominator — Jumping cheese ^Cont@ct 05:02, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Great shot, minimal noise for the (obviously) quick shutter speed. Very nice. -Fcb981 05:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
• support Really surprised by the low noise. I'd be even more enthusiastic about a down-sampled version (maybe to 2500x1800 or so) that would make the noise pretty much dissapear. Debivort 05:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support wow. ^8thstar 15:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Excellent image. Staxringold _talk^contribs 00:43, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Brilliant quality =] --Childzy ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 09:28, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Wow! A lot of military photos get nominated because of sexy hardware, with no regard to photo quality. This is in a whole different class. --Bridgecross 21:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support, awesome shot. There's no need for downsampling, because the software does that on the fly and people can always use a lower res on their own if they want perfectly noise-free. We need a gallery of shells-in-flight images. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 22:45, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support, could be a little less grainy... but, great shot. gren グレン 01:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support, great shot. The details are amazingly clear. — ERcheck (talk) 03:12, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support BAM! (Per above.)--HereToHelp 14:08, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
• Strong support Very good shot. A bit grainy, but to be expected for such a high shutter speed. BeefRendang 04:29, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Wow, the person who took this must be very talented (Or just got lucky). High quality. Flubeca 17:40, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Amazingly timed, very sharp, and demonstrative of subject matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Raliugar (talk • contribs) 01:54, 11 April 2007
• Support. Simply awesome. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support per above. Noclip 13:27, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support above --Penubag 08:36, 13 April 2007 (UTC)penubag
• Support- Wow. --Lewk_of_Serthic _contrib ^talk 13:50, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Promoted Image:4-14 Marines in Fallujah.jpg --KFP (talk | contribs) 11:35, 15 April 2007 (UTC)