Tone mapping is very much a subjective process. There's no one "HDR" algorithm. At best the camera could convert everything to linear or logarithmic light and save in OpenEXR or something like that.

Tone mapping isn't HDR though. It's mapping HDR to standard dynamic range.

> At best the camera could convert everything to linear or logarithmic light and save in OpenEXR or something like that.

Yes exactly. That's what HDR is.

I'm not sure if this is what your parent meant, but I think it can require more or fewer frames, with more or less spacing depending on the camera, and on the dynamic range of the scene. Currently (at least with Fujifilm) you have to manually program all this in.

Exactly--all it requires is a quick inspection of the histogram to tell if you need another shot, but that's problematic for a human unless you can do it all remotely as you don't want to touch the camera if possible. It would be a trivial task for the camera itself.

The initial stack doesn't require a human. Compressing the dynamic range to produce a useful output is still a task that AFIAK is best performed by a human.