In my previous question someone pointed out that unnatural HDR based toningtoning will get more objections from the photographyphotography community than cropping. I personally feel that slight HDR based enhancements are OK from an artistic perspective as long as the final image is not changed drastically.
My question is why isWhy are hardware based-based manipulations, like black and white photography (traditionally using b/wblack-and-white film), long exposure, etc., which also result in an "unnatural" image, are acceptable while software based-based manipulation (like HDR) is frowned upon by the photography community?