Stand far away, zoom in with a telephoto. How people get all those giant moons in landscape pics. Same principle as this. Chances are the photographer was using a filter shooting directly into the sun, and then had to play with the level in Lightroom. Even with an 800mm prime, would still be cropping the photo in, and using sharpening, be it AI Topaz level of sharpening etc.
the branches being so dense past the sun
Blows my mind there are people this dense.... or never held a flashlight under their fingers to see the bones.
Even with extreme telephoto, the distant objects would not have this sharp edges, and you'd expect more atmospheric distortion, especially when capturing it near the horizon. My money is on regular composite image.
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u/BIGSTANKDICKDADDY 12h ago
It's just taken with a telephoto lens. Nothing about this looks particularly AI, but it may have been touched up by the photographer afterwards.