@derekmccoy wrote:I'm sorry, but I fail to see the relevance of having equal opposite black and white points.
What I normally do to maximise DR is set my desired exposure, drop my highlights and raise my shadows to taste, then hold Shift and double click on both Whites and Blacks to bring them just below clipping point. I then hold alt and pull the blacks slightly further down to bury them and get true black.And yes, that duck shot would have been far cleaner with an 80D (which is the respective equal improvement everyone was expecting from the 6D2).
The duck would not have been cleaner after being pushed 5 stops with the 80D. Despite what 'the test' says the 7D Mk II and the 80D have nearly identical real world dynamic range.
The reason you set the Black and Whites to equal values goes back to Ansel Adams and the Zone System. Proper exposure is in Zone 5, Middle Grey, which is half way between Zone 1 and Zone 9, You are setting the total exposure to extend from Zone 1 by just barely clipping the blacks, and Zone 9 by almost clipping the highlights. Thus the proper exposure is half way (equidistant) between those two.
@TTMartin wrote:
While I appreciate Tom's post on how to extend the dynamic range, the photo above is a big "Canon disappointment": you can clearly see the banding in the background, which is the telltale of Canon's inferior dynamic range. That has nothing to do with not "baking" the true raw file. That is just bad sensor design and bad sensor read technolog (Canon's weak spots). If this image had been captured with a Nikon D810 or a Pentax K-1. the image would not show such artifacts... I am a Canon user and you could almost say I am a Canon fan, but if Canon doesn't improve their dynamic range capabilities (the 5D Mark IV is still not good enough), then more people will jump ship. But to deliberately not include the best technology that Canon has (i.e. the dynamic range of the 5D Mark IV) even if inferior, is borderline outrageous...
@KlausEnrique wrote:
@TTMartin wrote:
While I appreciate Tom's post on how to extend the dynamic range, the photo above is a big "Canon disappointment": you can clearly see the banding in the background, which is the telltale of Canon's inferior dynamic range. That has nothing to do with not "baking" the true raw file. That is just bad sensor design and bad sensor read technolog (Canon's weak spots). If this image had been captured with a Nikon D810 or a Pentax K-1. the image would not show such artifacts... I am a Canon user and you could almost say I am a Canon fan, but if Canon doesn't improve their dynamic range capabilities (the 5D Mark IV is still not good enough), then more people will jump ship. But to deliberately not include the best technology that Canon has (i.e. the dynamic range of the 5D Mark IV) even if inferior, is borderline outrageous...
Are you sure about that, Klaus? I'm under the impression that banding is always parallel to the x or y axis of the sensor. The "bands" in Tom's photo aren't; in fact they aren't even all parallel to each other. Given the loss of detail in a 5-stop underexposure, it's next to impossible to determine what the bands really are; but I guess I'd have taken them for some sort of OOF vegetation, like reeds or small trees. Am I missing something obvious?
"Given the loss of detail in a 5-stop underexposure, ..."
More likely the result of overprocessing. Pulling something up from extreme exposure errors can have issues. However, I do agree that the newest crop of Nikon and Sony sensors are better than Canon's. I, too, think Canon needs to up its game in sensor technology. I am super impressed with the D810 and I want to try the new D850 as soon as I can.
You can keep the Pentax K1. 
I would hope that full frame sensors you mention could out perform the crop sensor of the crop sensor of the 7D Mk II.
@KlausEnrique wrote:
@TTMartin wrote:
If this image had been captured with a Nikon D810 or a Pentax K-1. the image would not show such artifacts...
