Emu at sunset

[Jerry van Dijk]

More of a birdscape than a landscape, but I'd like your opinion about this one. I'm still unsure if I like it enough, because I aimed for more separation between the emu and the bushes, but this was as low as I could get (I had to press my face in the sand to be able to look through the viewfinder). The emu had spotted me and was hurrying to get away from me.
My first edit on my wide gamut laptop screen, which looks completely different than my old laptop, so I'm curious about your comments on colors.

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 80-400 @ 180mm, handheld, partly resting on the ground, ISO-2500, f/5, 1/250, -1 EV.
ACR6.7 exposure, WB, sharpening, NR, grad filter from bottom to further reduce exposure, grad filter from top reducing contrast, increasing clarity.
CS5 sharpening, NR.

[Don Railton]

Hi Jerry

I am with you regarding the separation, but I also understand why. Emus are very fast when they want to be... A full silhouette would have made this image much stronger.
Regarding the colour, I think their might be a magenta cast as the purple band just above the foreground looks unnaturally strong to me, although the North Western Australian sunsets can be pretty intense. I see a hint of what I think should have been blue along the very top of the image also which makes me doubt the colours are exactly right.

DON

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks Don! I thinke the strong purple band is the result of the grad filter I use to darken the bottom. Should be an easy fix. Not sure about the blue on top. I'll try to rework the image.
Working on these images brings back a lot of good memories of our time in WA!

[Jerry van Dijk]

Here's a reworked version in which I selectively reduced saturation of the magentas as well as the oranges. I also did some finetuning with the WB, lowered the grad filter darkening the bottom and added a little more clarity to the whole image. I also straightened it a bit. I forgot to mention with the OP that I removed two branches sticking out above the emu.

[Don Railton]

Hi Gerry,
I think the colours are much closer to what I would have thought, although now maybe a touch too far with the magenta reduction. I also see a hint of Leg has appeared under the bird, what a pity its only a hint...

Don

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks Don! The alternative option to go here is to use fill light or S/H correction and open up the shadows. But my aim here was a silhoutte against a colorful sky. Opening up the shadows reveals a lot of ugly noise and not very much detail on the bird due to the high ISO levels(2500!). Although the D7000 was praised for its low noise levels at high ISO, I'm not so convinced after having it used for quite some time now, although I must confess I didn't use any of the third party noiseware with PS so far.

[Morkel Erasmus]

The colours in the repost look better, Jerry...
The image as a whole isn't really floating my boat - though I do like the minimal approach here and these shots normally work for me, the separation is the big issue for me...
Sorry :e3

[Robert Amoruso]

I am with Morkel, w/o full separation of the emu and the background, this does not work out.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Jerry - I'm late to this one and like the colors and the idea. Unfortunately, I have to agree though that there's not enough separation between the emu's body and the surrounding bushes.

TFS,
Rachel

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks everyone, you confirmed my initial thoughts on this one. I think I'll keep it around as my souvenir from WA anyway. Luckily I've captured some great emu images at daylight as well! I'll post them later in Avian.