Great Horned Owl
by RulerZigzag

Comment by KarenNfld:
Cool.

Great Horned Owl
by RulerZigzag

Comment by bvy:
I'd love to see one let alone photograph one!

Fine sculpted grave
by RulerZigzag

Comment by sidpixel:
Hello from the critique club

An interesting image that contributes well to the challenge

In itself this is a pleasantly interesting image, the monument stands out in what appears to be a well maintained cemetery of other tombstones that are eclipsed by this edifice. I don̢۪t want to be as harshly critical of your HDR processing but I can see what they are referring to with the halos around the cross and the trees. Successful HDR needs to be done very subtly in order to achieve a realistic and pleasing end result. I think your composition could also be improved with the monument further to the left thus avoiding the cropping of the footstones and making more of a feature of the tree and whatever interesting stones we are missing from the right. In terms of the challenge brief you have some interesting detail here Anton, well done.

Fine sculpted grave
by RulerZigzag

Comment by riot:
Massively overdone tonemap does this image no favours at all, the halo around the cross and the trees is especially uncomfortable.

Fine sculpted grave
by RulerZigzag

Comment by Dennisheckman:
I scored this a 5 due to the extreme halos around the trees and cross. Also due to the blown out area's of the sky. High points are the tones on the sculpture itself and the stone. I would have scored it higher if you would have gotten just little closer to the subject. Not sure what program was used for the HDR blending, but it looks like the detail slider was used a little strongly.

Fine sculpted grave
by RulerZigzag

Comment by blindjustice:
really nice subtle shifts from blue to green.

Fine sculpted grave
by RulerZigzag

Comment by Cyrilda:
Very nice shot.

Red-tail Hawk
by RulerZigzag

Comment by snaffles:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

An absolutely lovely shot of a soaring redtail, with great light on it and spot-on exposure, plenty of nice punchy blue sky all around it so composition isn't a problem, razor-sharp detail in the bird itself, which is making eye contact with the camera...so why didn't it do better? And only score in the low 5s?

*scratching head*

All I can think is that, as Hidden Gems are basically just free-for-all free studies, with everyone pulling out the stops, that subject matter like a simple, perfect, basically untouched (in terms of pp) shot of a soaring hawk just literally gets overlooked. Had the hawk been coming in for a landing or takeoff, fighting another hawk for some food or perhaps just standing in a silly pose on a fencepost while it preened, it may have done better. Also, as it's just a shot of bird and sky, there is little else going on to look at, so once you see the hawk, that's pretty much it.

Still, this is a really good shot, so don't give up! Please keep shooting BIFs and enjoying that nice big lens and all it can do.

Susan

The Pleb
by RulerZigzag

Comment by Lydia:
Go, Anton! Congratulations on your fine finish and accomplishments!

The Pleb
by RulerZigzag

Comment by sidpixel:
Hello from the critique club

An appealing image that contributes well to the challenge

This is a lovely bird portrait with great focus and DOF in an interesting natural situation. The feather detail is lovely. It̢۪s a little unfortunate that the background is not more uniform the highlights and brown patches are a little distracting but there̢۪s probably not much you could have done about that. I do find it a little too central I think it could have made it more dynamic to have framed it further to the left. These are all really minor criticisms for an excellent nature study, well done Anton.
P.S.
Sorry, I forgot to congratulate you on your high score and excellent result, well done.

Message edited by author 2016-11-25 15:56:35.