> All modern DSLRs have at least the dynamic range of film (including
> negative films) and most now exceed it.
Um. No.
You did go on to explain the issues of the toe and shoulder, but some
of the modern negative films don't actually have much of a
straight-line section, but instead utilize curves to the clip points
on either end. Several films come to mind that continue to blow the
best DR of digital away. Ilford XP2 is the class leader in B&W. Kodak
Ektar 100 and Portra 160NC hold court in color (with the new Portra
400 coming in close behind).
Also, when talking about dynamic range, you must specifiy color
channels or gray scale. The top stop with most digital cameras is
anything but color stable when you recover the highlights to make them
useful.
On the other end, the last three stops has a grand total of six
gradient steps. Not exactly the same as pulling the shadows out of a
slide or negative where you change the exposure during scanning or
printing and have the same amount of effective bit depth as you do in
the high values.
As a result, if you are doing straight capture to print, digital
capture matches film. When you start doing highlight and shadow
recovery, I'll give the nod to any of the above mentioned films.
AG
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