Came here to say exactly this! In addition, you could stack and them once you have something that's at least 8 bits per pixel use Photoshop to clean things up.
I guess instead of making an HDR image from SDR images you'd be making an SDR image from LDR images. :-)
I guess instead of making an HDR image from SDR images you'd be making an SDR image from LDR images. :-)