Secretary bird on Acacia sunset.

The sunset was even more spectacular than normal this particular evening, topped off by sweeping rain showers and a Secretary bird roosting on this Acacia.

D3s 500VRII 1/400s ISO500@f/4 Masai Mara, Oct 2010. F/F.

C & C most welcome

Cheers
Marc

Very nice comp. and good job positioning yourself to get the clean profile. Loved this shot. Wishing the sky behind the bird was a bit brighter...you can try doing that via curves.

Marc:

A very well crafted image, like the feeling of this one a lot.

Do agree with Kaustubh about wishing for a little more light behind the bird, but I understand if that is not your style to change such things.

Works well as is.

Cheers

Randy

Thanks Kaustubh & Randy,
the light here is fairly accurate and exhibited what I saw that evening, I did attempt some lightening (via curves of course:w3) but looked unnatural and tended to wash out the rain showers in the BG sky.

Marc:

I really like the original, but did want to try my hand at tweaking it.

I used the dodge tool at 15% opacity and lightly painted in a little bit lighter background behind the bird. I tried to leave the same slightly irregular edges and boundaries of the original sky.

I thought about doing a more complex gradient layer etc., but this seemed to get me the effect I was after. It didn't change the delicate balance in the lower half so that the showers still show nicely.

I purposefully kept the change subtle to honor the feel of the original. It could easily be adjusted brighter to taste.

Cheers

Randy

Nicely done...I like the effect!

Hi Marc, I like the setting and overall comp. Colours look good, and I can see this in a very large print hanging on a company wall. :w3 Well spotted. I also like Randy's subtle repost.

MARC
loved the sillhouette.. superb execution

Elegant. I prefer the repost. Thanks Randy!