BW HDR images from single colour image

With the advent of digital photography, there are a multitude of means of obtaining a monochrome image. One method I have recently been experimenting with involves splitting an image into its component colours and then forming an HDR image from those components.



Why go through this lengthy process to produce a black and white image?

Splitting a colour image to its RGB components produces a very similar result to using a colour filter with black and white film, eg the red channel produces a red filter effect etc. When these elements are recombined as if they were different exposures, the HDR result is rather more interesting than taking a 'normal' HDR image and desaturating it.