Its good to see my fans out in force again

But come on, what is your point here? We are talking about Andrew's image I believe?

No, not worth it because the effect would be unrealistic. Light levels from the glass shine through onto the stonework, progressively lessening as they fall further into the interior. They do not suddenly cut from near white to shadow (like Andrew's other version there). There is a fall-off, a transition between the highlights & shadow areas. This aspect of Andrew's HDR is correct and natural. There will also be some 'colour bleed' from the higher saturated areas of glass onto the stone - this also is reproduced in the HDR.

This is not to say there's not improvements to make - but just because one attempt at a complex technique has not gone perfectly does not invalidate that approach, and it certainly doesn't validate another even more complex and flawed approach - that of selections / layers / masking which can never hope to accurately reproduce the real-world effect of light through a stain glass window.

Maybe you're more confident than I was giving you credit for

Well there's not much argument at all in that quote from walkeja. Its just simplifying it too much. Of course there's plenty of things to go wrong in shooting film and getting the output right.

You know I can't agree with your 'camera set up to taste' idea! Every shot deserves proper attention and optimization, and the camera controls when out on a shoot are not the ideal way to be managing this.

I'd say the light and colour bleeding between the glass and stonework is better, more realistic, as is the exposure on the stonework. Why would the bright light through the glass suddenly drop so much once it hits the stone edge? t wouldn't, it would brighten the stone frame considerably, as in your HDR.

The glass does look rougher, granted, but you've been spending a lot of effort on the single shots, and mainly optimizing the glass at the expense of the interior, which you've just let go.

The HDR just needs a another run, a bit more care on the brighter tones. I don't know the process you're using so can't offer any advice there.

Lightzone, that's it. Not bad either!

Don't forget Sagelight Oh, there's another one I remember, thats got 'light' in the name as well ... light.something??? Oh, never mind, probably nothing.

'Film is better than digital as there is too much messing about with digital wheras with film, choose the right film, job done.'

Utter nonsense.

Can't answer your poll, there's no simple answer to 'film or digital'. Both have special qualities, pros & cons. Too many variables. Film is not necessarily more simple - there are many steps and techniques needed to get to a high quality output, either printed or for internet display.

Just be more confident in what you've done! Don't let the HDR naysayers blur your judgements.... your original is far superior in tone and texture, as well as reproducing a realistic rendering. You said there was interior tungsten lighting which lit the inside - this lighting is there on your original, now its been killed off. It was only the high Tungsten tone that I questioned, as the eye would naturally balance this with more cool tones from outside.

You can't rate or compare NR effectiveness on software in 'stops' as a fixed amount quantifiable. NR effectiveness comes down to so many variables - what you start with being most important, but also level of skill and experience of each user. This can be developed, you just need to commit to something. You get more NR by applying more of it .... its the level of fine control over the mixture of NR elements (eg yellow colour, luminance, blue) etc that matters most, and you find this control in different ways. PS users have the benefit of full selective & layer control for, say if using a plug-in like Topaz DeNoise. You wouldn't just whack on the whole lot onto the background image, it would be targeted and finely controlled ideally.

There's a case to be made for not 'exporting' much NR from your RAW - unless you expect to be achieving a near 'finished' product from the RAW converter then it may be better to leave the balance of noise, sharpening and other detailing work to the end of a workflow.