It’s time to do some controlled testing with the III. The sensor’s dynamic range is always something of interest and very important. So I set up a test and came up with some results.
The test consisted of shooting an inside door this evening. The door has a bit of a pattern so it’s not flat. The high exposures show was adjusted so it just barely produced clipping. Then the exposure was decreased by one stop until just before the detail disappeared into black. The results are in; the sensor captures 7 or 8 stops of dynamic range. From what I read Velvia is about 5.
But wait; there’s more. There’s a feature called Highlight Tone Preservation that’s supposed to give you more on the high end. And it does indeed, adding another 2/3 to 1 stop to the top end. So the grand total is 8 or 9 stops of dynamic range.