I was never a fan of HDR.  Most HDR photos floating around are simply horrible; even ones that aren't always looked superficial to me & felt like cheating.  So I tend to stay away from it, although I blend exposures manually on occasion.  But sometimes straight HDR toning in Adobe Photoshop CS6 works like magic.  Above photo was taken on hiking trip in Banff National Park in July '19  (for more details see this post in hiking section).   It is vertical stitch of 4 frames -- a technique I use lately fairly often when trying to capture full scene up-down that does not quite fit into single frame.  After stitching the photo I clicked on "HDR toning"  just for fun.  It worked really well & I consider this photo one of my favorite landscapes on 2019!   So the moral of the story is -- keep the open mind and never close the door to anything automatically.

Rest of technical detail:   Canon EOS 6D Mk1,  24-105L lens at 24mm,  ISO160, F8, 1/100 sec, B&W polarizer, handheld.