I found another maple in my neighborhood with a bonus even if you have seen enough maples
from me…
It was a gorgeous little tree with incredible red leaves in the afternoon sun, about 6 feet tall which is perfect and I could get a sunstar even though the Rokinon lens is not a great sunstar lens it did OK, the bonus was since these are taken in urban neighborhoods there was a car driving up the street at just the right time and the sun found the hood…
Nikon D610, 14mm, f16, manual focus, 1/250, iso400, Handheld
Any comments appreciated.
I’m confused. Which one are we critiquing?
Lovely maple, by the way
Duncan, either one I guess, the first one is too saturated, the maple in the sunlight was bright but not that bright.
The repost is pretty true to life. Late afternoon November sun…
That makes sense. I feel like you could find a happy medium between the two. It could be that just comparatively, the second one looks dull compared to the overly saturated colors of the first.
Overall it’s a pretty dark image, but I love the colors that are available in the image and the sun star makes for a nice natural point for the eyes to rest in the image.
I actually prefer the original post, Dan. The colors and the saturation look fine to me; about what I would expect looking back toward the sun. The multiple sunstars are wonderful BTW. I could see the upper two corners lightened just a little to balance out with the rest of the scene. I like what you have done here.
Dan, I actually would like to see some thing closer to the first image, the second is too de-saturated for my taste. In real life backlit leaves are saturated and contrasty. I think the first image has a black point that would benefit from being increased, and I would like to see more exposure in the backlit leaves.
Maybe something like this…
Thanks, Ed…
Yeah I got a little sensitive to the criticism and went too far the other way.
The RAW files are pretty close to the original, it was a extremely red little maple and the sun just
lit it up.
Your repost looks good, The photo was unexposed because I was trying to squeeze out the sunstars.
You brought out more light than I could.
Dan,
I like Ed’s repost, although perhaps still a little too much saturation? Hard to say since we don’t have the reference of being right there. I like your original and the repost is too dark, IMHO.
The double sunstar is a wonderful bonus - although would be a mind bender had you not explained it! 
Lon