Attached file titles should identify what's what. Sorry for the greenish cast.
I wanted to see if I could do better on manual than the
M2P does with its HDR mode. I could not:
M2P wins. BTW, the built in HDR mode is fully automatic; no speed or aperture adjustment is possible.
However, true HDR is the best result of all in terms of properly exposing both the bright and dark. The attached Aurora image is from 3 brackets, processed with Aurora's automatic settings, no tweaks.
Since I always do some editing post, even if only to bump contrast a bit, always shooting brackets makes sense to me. Either I can choose the most pleasing exposure, or do the quick HDR process.