Light tone mapping of single original, sandwiched in "lighten" mode over original. Slight hue/sat adjustment, crop, slight vignette, resize, USM, border, save for web
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Place: 87 out of 96 Avg (all users): 4.5192 Avg (commenters): 4.8333 Avg (participants): 4.4528 Avg (non-participants): 4.5419 Views since voting: 941 Views during voting: 331 Votes: 208 Comments: 7 Favorites: 0
Lovely night shot. Branches are always going to be a great way to frame the moon within a composition, and you've done very well. Good eye. If you are able to, run the image through a noise removal filter. More for the right side of the image than anything else, as the trunk and surrounding branches appear to have a lot of noise. Good luck with the challenge! :) bump
Sorry, I'm not very familiar with James Bond movies/books (I've heard of 'Moonraker' - just haven't seen it). I can however, comment on the photo in general. :D I like the composition and the framing of the moon in the open space, yet the moon is kind of nested by the branches (which is cool). The exposure overall is good although I wonder how this would have come out if you let the trees fall into silhouette? Just a thought. I'm thinking that you focused on the moon (which is understandable), but because of that, and the aperture you used, the tree branches (with the cones primarily) don't come across as being well focused. A little sharpening could have helped, but not much, otherwise you would get some halos and zaggies around those thin branches. There also seems to be a white balance issue. It's slight, but noticeable IMO, as the photo in general is "cold" with a telltale bluish tint (most evident in the right tree bark). A slight shift and "warming" this would be interesting to see (the difference).
You know, I really enjoy pine trees and the cones myself. We have numerous white pines (big ones!) on our property and I can't help but enjoy the way the cones/trees look against a deep blue sky at times. I've even submitted a shot or two similar to this. For this challenge, I'm not sure how this is going to go over. I think many viewers/voters are looking for more glitz and glamour. Hopefully I'm way off course on that viewpoint for your sake! :P
All of the above is JMO of course. :D Best of luck to you in the challenge.