I recently purchased the Aurora 2018 HDR software and have found it relatively easy to use with many presets tailored to many different types of imagery. My most recent eclipse post on this blog shows another sample of its utility. Here is a mid afternoon cloud shot taken from near the 4-meter telescope on Kitt Peak looking generally west-south-west-ward towards the southwest ridge of telescopes. The scene greatly benefits from HDR techniques:
The first image is a combine of 5 images taken with my Sigma 17-70mm lens at 17mm focal length with exposures on the short end starting at 1/1250 seconds at f/8 and the longest at 1/200 seconds, all at ISO 100. I used Aurora's "Realistic Bright" preset which brought out the landscape and helped also show the crepuscular rays coming down from the clouds.
This is the mid exposure (which is also the nominal exposure on this scene) of the 5 HDR images so you can see how dark the landscape is and also how washed out the details in the clouds appear. The exposure was 1/500 seconds at f/8, ISO 100.
