First in-depth HDR edit, please critique

[Sn00bies]

I had played around with making an HDR once before this, but I'm getting photos to put into a city photo contest so I figured I should put a little more effort into it. The theme is "Past and Present," so I thought I'd take some shots of our city's farming history. This is the first composition I've come up with, and I thought it'd be a cool HDR to do when I was taking the shots. I had to hand hold my D200 w/ Nikon 55-200 VR(luckily), but in light of that I think it turned out pretty decent.

Critique away, let me know any way it can be improved. Thanks!

Right out of Photomatix

Finalized Photo

 

[HoboSyke]

It looks like you have just removed the halo effect and saturated the sky.. What way did you edit it in photomatix? Tone compressor or detail ??

 

[Battou]

It looks like you have just removed the halo effect and saturated the sky.. What way did you edit it in photomatix? Tone compressor or detail ??

That is either the convert to LDR or the detail enhancer, the tone compressor does not do that.

 

[Sn00bies]

It looks like you have just removed the halo effect and saturated the sky.. What way did you edit it in photomatix? Tone compressor or detail ??

Well, I combined the 5 raw files, which loaded up the combined image with the magnifier on the left and the "Tone Mapping" button on the bottom. I clicked on Tone Mapping, adjusted settings there to my liking (I'm not going for the crazy HDR effect, but a more realistic tone), and processed. At this point is where I got the first image in my post.

Then, I took one raw file that had the best potential for a natural blue sky (I don't quite like HDR skies, at least none that I've been able to do), adjusted the saturation of it through Camera RAW(I think I could actually tone it down a bit), and then masked it into the HDR image. I definitely noticed the HDR aspects of it... compare it to one of the bracketed original raw files :

Maybe you can expand on what you mean? Does my HDR image not look HDR to you, and why? I could definitely make it more over the top HDR through the Tone Mapping, but I was going for a more natural picture with great detail and color.

 

[Sn00bies]

I just noticed, when I click on the "Tone Mapping" button, the tab in the window that comes up it labeled "Details Enhancer" and then it has the 4 smaller tabs below the histo that are Tone, Color, Micro, S/H. The only thing I really changed was the white/black point in the tone tab. Are there some key features I'm missing?