I have used HDRmerge as a standalone Software. I was not convinced by the results due to rather harsh transitions between the bracketed exposures.
Anyway, thank you very much for the proposal.
Greetings
Daniel
What were the EV difference between the bracketed shots?
Yes, you’re right about the developers. Still, for me, it’s really a pain not to have that Option, since I’m using an APSC DSLR with limited dynamic range. So, bracketing for hdr is a common thing to do for me and minor motion between exposures occurs more often than one might expect on a tripod. Really makes me consider using LR or PS instead, which is a pity, considering I’ve been using DT for years with hardly any other complaints.
I usually shoot brackets in 2 EV increments. 3 to 5 exposures as needed.
The alignment was also severely off a couple of times. My impression was, that the software wasn´t performing properly für no obvious reason.
Probably your best shot (pun not intended) is to use Hugin for alignment + blending. It implies some steps, but the result are pretty good.
Which ones are you referring to? If you use scene-referred modules (filmic RGB or sigmoid) you can basically edit HDR stuff almost the same as the regular case (well, modern cameras will already give you “HDR” input anyways).
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I´m referring to the classic tonemapping Module with the operator “draco”, etc…
Haven´t used it much though. Nowadays I use filmic most of the time to remap my tones to my liking. It kinda works, but it´s far from perfect in hdr-images. In combination with tone equalizer I can usually do the trick.
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Thanks for the link to that Hugin-tutorial! I´ll try it, since I already use Hugin panorama stitcher for - guess what - panos 
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@Daniel_Spenner I use a perpetual license for Lightroom to do HDR merge of hand held images (no tripod). Works great, but if you have no license you will need a subscription. I have played with hugin but since I have Lightroom I will stick with that. But then I process the image like any normal raw file in darktable. I don’t need to do any fake looking tone mapping from the 90s style if I use darktable.
@Mike_Bing I will definitely try Digikam and see if it can move me away from Lightroom. I have never played with Digikam. I know Hugin is good, but Lightroom makes me lazy since I have it already. But jeez, lightroom is boring for editing compared to darktable so I always import the resulting DNG into darktable.
sadly in my hands Digicam did not align my hand held test images. It gave a message that alignment was taking place , but the alignment was unsuccessful.
This file is licensed Creative Commons — Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
HDR sequence-3.pef (12.8 MB)
HDR sequence-1.pef (10.5 MB)
HDR sequence-2.pef (11.5 MB)
These are challenging shots because they are hand held and tourist are walking around the scene. Lightroom actually handles these issues. But I would like to find a FOSS solution for those people who do not have access to lightroom.
But do you actually need HDR for this image? Even the high exposure doesn’t show any hard clipping.
You get better bit depth with bracketed exposures.
While I agree that this image doesn’t really need it, it’s a nice example. And it is just a little mushy in the shadows, unsurprising for a slightly older camera, but merging would help if there was a brighter exposure.
HDR merging is not something I often need for my style of photography, but it would be nice to have it available. I’m sure someone will come up with something one day - which is good enough for me. 
Admittedly I’m spoilt as I have a (relatively) modern full frame camera with excellent dynamic range… merging is very useful in some cases for getting the best out of slightly lesser cameras (i.e. most of the cameras I’ve owned 
)
Has anyone used this - EasyHDR
Looks interesting, not foss or even free, but purchased outright. Uses libraw apparently, and is supposed to run in WINE… I might try the free trial.
Edit again, sorry - not clear if it will export a non-tonemapped image, which is obviously what we want…
Given that Darktable interoperates rather well with specialized tools like Hugin, duplicating their functionality is neither practical (they represent thousands of person-hours) nor desirable (it would distract developers from improving Darktable in other ways).
Have you tried a RAW-based workflow with Hugin?
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Yes, got it, sorry I wasn’t clear. I was actually wondering how well that application worked in regard to alignment, but then realised that IF it doesn’t do what’s needed in other regards, (tonemapping ect.) it’s not much use anyway…
What do you mean by raw-based? I´m using Hugin for panos only up to this point. For import I usually export the images from darktable as 16bit Tiff not dng or pef. Does Hugin allow raw-images at all?
I suspect that’s one of a few known bugs that are being worked on. Extreme dynamic scene loses most details · Issue #113 · jcelaya/hdrmerge · GitHub
Try building from Commits · Entropy512/hdrmerge · GitHub - that has significant improvements for many use cases, but there is still work to be done. I’ve been busy with non-photography things/being a horrible procrastinator for a while, you reminded me of yet another thing I’ve been slacking on…
LuminanceHDR is another option for merging.
Get a remote release (wired or wireless works, I’ve got a wired one for Sony cameras made by JJC) - I have not had any issues with movement between exposures when using it. Even 60+ image stacks work well. (Sometimes I bracket, but for waterfalls I will usually do an average stack instead to synthesize what is effectively a long ultra-low-ISO exposure.)
The images are less about needing HDR , but rather testing various software’s ability to align the hand held images and deal with the pesky tourists. This is one time that Lightroom wins out. It is the only function I really use Lightroom for now. Microsoft Image Composite Editor is my go to panorama stitching program, but Lightroom and many other programs including Hugin also do an excellent job for panorama. I am just glad I have a perpetual license for Lightroom, but Adobe will work hard to make that less useful in the future. Lightroom V6 will not be downloadable from 2024 and also new cameras and lens are not compatible. Compatibility issue can be circumvented using Adobes DNG convertor.