But it's hard not to color-distort with curves (at least in P'shop). I don't know what recovery function you mean, sad to say.

As for the original... yeah, I had the 'pod set up and meant to take a couple pix with different exposures but this was the moment when the clouds moved in and lightning started to flash on the horizon and I said "hmm, how about I go close the car windows now". Pragmatics wins out over practice I suppose.