BBC Weatherwatchers Photo -faked?

What focal length would you need to get the moon that big? Surely it's well within the realms of someone with some basic wildlife photography gear? E.g. 500ish on a crop sensor with a teleconvertor. The name of the person is 'stargazer' so they've probably got some kit.
 
I Think the name "stargazer" is meaningless, and doesn't imply anything.
There appears to be no technical information supplied regarding the image and it would be interesting to know what equipment was used..
To me, it just "looks wrong" and reminds me of the discredited moon photos by Peter Lik.
 
The sheep are very low res so could be maybe a mile away with zoom and cropped in
The lighting is otherwise correct in that for full moon sun must be behind you
 
The account with the photo suggest it was a 'normal' photo(ie what the photo shows is what was recorded by one shot in the camera).

It could be two shots combined but we don't know Cumbrian Stargazer's photo set up and he/she has sent a few other Moon shots to BBC Weather Watchers.

The Terms and Conditions on the BBC Weather Watchers page does place any photo manipulation restriction on submitted photos.

Dave
 
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It’s quite possible to do the shot in a single exposure In camera so no need to create it in post.
 
Fake as a fake thing- very simple to do using layers in Photoshop, would take me no more than 10 mins to replicate that image :)

Les :)

or 2 mins to fake these- one from my outing this morning


YGg6Vwl.jpg
 
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Looks like a genuine shot to me, If it were faked it would likely be far better quality..
Such as @Lez325 's efforts above.
Looks like it was taken through a poor quality scope of some sort, and of extreme focal length.
 
Real :)
 
I'd be very surprised if it was faked.
I've managed to get the moon to fill a much larger portion of the shot with a long lens so that's no problem (a 500mm lens looks roughly right to me). the image looks a little soft to me which is what I'd expect with the foreground being so much closer than the moon.
At a full moon the sun & moon are approximately opposite each other in the sky, both will often be visible at the same time...
 
Looks real to me too, long focal length and cropped heavily. It's sad if such a low quality picture can win 'pic of the season' but the BBC get free content I suppose
 
Lez325 said:
Fake as a fake thing- very simple to do using layers in Photoshop, would take me no more than 10 mins to replicate that image :)

Les :)

or 2 mins to fake these- one from my outing this morning


YGg6Vwl.jpg


fwVZosH.jpg
Click to expand...


Your cut out is clear for all but a blind person to see, the OP image has not been cut out, unless someone went to some extraordinary lengths to get around and inside the branches and blades of grass, its also clearly a very tight crop shown by the low quality, presumably because of the distance it wast taken.
 
While it would be easy to fake such a picture, I suspect that this is genuine. The low sun is right and the size of the moon is probably about right if a long enough lens was used. If someone was constructing this they would probably use a sharper shot of the moon. In this case the focus point is probably the animals at the top of the field so one would expect the moon to be soft.
I produce constructed images for some competitions (only in the sections that they are permitted). I have found that sometimes no one seems to notice what I have done but on other occasions suggest one of my straight shots was constructed. I never do this for nature, travel, sport or documentary.

Dave
 
The reason I found it unconvincing was that, if it were early in the morning or late evening, there would have been more atmospheric interference to both the moon and the sheep.
 
I love how we as photographers love to belittle an image submitted to a competition (this isn’t even a photography competition!). Why don’t we instead ask how would this was done so we can learn how to do it ourselves. I guess it’s easier to shout fake and get all upset that the ‘competition’ doesn’t conform to our ‘rules’.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/weatherwatchers/article/34118641/terms-and-conditions/

Brian G said:
I Think the name "stargazer" is meaningless, and doesn't imply anything.
There appears to be no technical information supplied regarding the image and it would be interesting to know what equipment was used..
To me, it just "looks wrong" and reminds me of the discredited moon photos by Peter Lik.
Click to expand...
Why does there need to be technical information when phone pictures can be entered into this ‘competition’.

I’d say to totally different to those Lik imaged you’ve link to. Just look at the difference in the detail of the moon.
 
Its real. The moon has the correct shimmering around it that you get when it's low and the foreground isn't that detailed, plus the lighting matches up. Suspect its been cropped a fair bit as well.
 
rob-nikon said:
I love how we as photographers love to belittle an image submitted to a competition (this isn’t even a photography competition!). Why don’t we instead ask how would this was done so we can learn how to do it ourselves. I guess it’s easier to shout fake and get all upset that the ‘competition’ doesn’t conform to our ‘rules’.
.
Click to expand...
Its not just photographers. Its very common in all aspects of life, especially with a***holes.
 
What baffles me is when the moon’s low like this it can often look much much larger than it does normally. It’s some sort of optical illusion but I’m still convinced if I took a photo it would appear larger in the frame :LOL:
 
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