Dynamic Range Really isn't as important as you are lead to believe.

Anders W wrote:

No cameras don't clip shadows (except in the sense that they set the black-level offset, which, however, you can move if you want on some cameras, e.g., the E-M5). Posterization is due to quantization errors, not clipping. As I pointed out in my second reply to the OP above, the signal is merely drenched by read noise at the very bottom of the scale. If you can reduce that noise, e.g., by merging a large number of photos, you can record any signal, however weak. If there are no photons at all, you will of course only record complete darkness, as should be the case.