What the hell is Dynamic Range (DR)? First, there is a French site, DXO Mark, which puts out DR readings using RAW files. Then you have the guys from DPreview.com who do this on their own measuring both RAW and JPEG output. If you are shooting only JPEGs, of course you should take note of the DPreview.com values. Professionals will always use RAW files as the benchmark for measurement.

Now Dynamic Range measured by the sensor’s ability to perceive and register light. Imagine this for a moment. Light is registered from bright white right right into the shadow areas and until it is completely black. The shades of grey in between Black and White is what you perceive as detail and this is specified in light values of EV. Clipping occurs when the sensor can no longer register any details as can be seen in area as pure white or pure black.

There are also differences in JPEG and RAW output in regard to Dynamic Range. For example, the Dynamic Range JPEG output for the Nikon D700 is really poor and rated below 8 EV but the RAW Dynamic Range is rated much higher with close to 4 EV improvement over the JPEG output.

In terms of Micro Four Thirds sensors, they are playing catch up to the APS-C sized sensors. Of course the new Sony E-system and Samsung NX will be in direct competition as well. The GH-1’s sensor will be on level ground with the APS-C (in the new Sony and Samsung models) as it is a different animal. Panasonic has a much bigger sensor installed on the GH-1 so one way to know where your model stands is to read in between the lines. Of course there is the “pricing” concern as the GH-1 is probably over rated for its asking price.

Comparing the Dynamic Range Performance on the GH-1 and GF-1

Dynamic range has always been a consideration even from the days of film. Those of you who have used slide will prefer this to say negative film as the former has more dynamic range than the latter.

In the Micro Four Thirds world, the issue now is which model should I choose to get better dynamic range. Well, this is a no brainer as the GH-1 will win hands down however if you wish to wait for this to be more affordable, then you probably will have to wait much longer. You see, developing a sensor cost millions of dollars and in order to recoup the R&D cost, the technology will have to be paid for in terms of units sold. This means that more products will have to carry this sensor before a new one makes its way into newer products.

Lastly, many of your would be asking what good is Dynamic Range good for. There is a simple answer for this, you get richer photos with more depth. This has to be seen to be believed as the visual details will be very rewarding. Sensors also register different dynamic ranges at different ISO settings, thus a picture shot on ISO200 will have different DR values to one shot at ISO1600.

All these details may complicate the image capture process but you only need to know which ISO setting is best for a particular camera for maximum Dynamic Range. For example, the Olympus Pen is most effectively used at ISO 200 if you are looking for the best image quality.

DR RAW files compared, souce: dpreview.com

The diagram shown here is a good example of what you are able to read from sources like DXO and DPreview.com. By looking at the highlight and shadow range, you will know how much detail you are able to capture in RAW. If you refer to the Olympus Pen, you’d see that it has better dynamic range in shadow areas than in the highlight areas. The Lumix G1 is compared here but these values can be applied to the G2 and GF-1 as they are all using the same sensor technology. The only difference between them is the features they have inbuilt into the camera package.