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

mpgxsvcd wrote:

Everyone talks about the newer cameras having more dynamic range. While that is true how often do you really use that much dynamic range?

Dynamic range only matters when the dynamic range of your scene exceeds what the camera can store and so it clips either the bright sections or the shadows or both.

If you have a camera with a lowly 8 stops of dynamic but your scene has less than 8 stops it won't matter at all. The camera will not clip any of it.

What most people think of when they refer to dynamic range is simulated dynamic range. Where the camera either artificially boosts the shadow exposure or where the camera combines multiple images of different exposures. Those methods can work well to get the image to look like you want it to but they don't really tell you anything about the sensors dynamic range.

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