Replicating a Real HDR using Pseudo HDR technique

Alejandro Iborra shared a wonderful still HDR image from a timelpase he created.  I asked if I could play with the RAW files for the image to see if I could make a pseudo HDR image out of one of them.  He generously shared his stills.  So…. My goal was to come as close as I could to matching his real HDR.  Here are Alejandro’s original HDR, my pseudo HDR using Photomatix, and another pseudo HDR using SNS-HDR done by Daniel Santos:

As you can see, there’s a bit more detail in the clouds that I couldn’t just capture with a single RAW file.  Had I chosen the EV- RAW, I would have grabbed this detail but lost some shadow detail.  But it still is pretty amazing what can be achieved with just one RAW image!