Hunter's Moon + RePost

Edited RePost:

Original:

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

We have been experiencing some cold and clear nights and I was hoping for good looks at the comet. Unfortunately, the comet was way below the tree line and only offered some meager glimpses at it. The moon was great and I took quite a few images of it as it rose from the East.

Specific Feedback

We strove for detail by exposing conservatively for the highlights. The moon was very silvery and lacked any hint of orange. Do you think that the image is bright enough? I feel it may need a slight bump up in brightness.

Technical Details

Z9 600mm f4 + 2.0 TC (1/125 sec at f16, ISO=640) Topaz DeNoise AI, Crop for comp, Levels for black point and color correction, Microcontrast enhancement…Jim


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Jim, an excellent capture of the moon, with very fine detail to show the craters. It doesn’t seem too dark to me, but a comparison of a slightly brighter version would tell.
very fine image!

Very nice detail with the lovely brush of light on the craters a few hours after full – looks like it was clear and cold! (Seductive subject, isn’t it!?) In the astro world the limits on detail and contrast are as much as you can get to reveal structures. With the moon, my taste is to come close to what we can see, with a little enhancement. So I think here I would lighten the darks a very slight bit, but probably not the total exposure, as highlights look good. The histogram would be the judge. (There is no “truth” in what the camera captures as it is necessarily interpreted by a profile and its tonal curve. So – artist’s choice!

There is some CA on the bright crater at 9:00, easy to fix with Saturation on the cyan channel. I like to look at each channel in Hue-Sat and crank it all the way up to see what might be lurking.

Thank you @SandyR-B and @Diane_Miller for your comments and critiques. @Diane_Miller I was able to remove most of the cyan and blue from the crater and bumped up the brightness of the darker midtones with a layer mask. I tweaked up the brightness to get the overall likeness of what I saw that night…Jim

Excellent re-post, Jim

You hit the mark, for me! The moon is a fascinating subject and you managed excellent detail.