Digital BW, The Print

> 
> ... the sensor in the Canon 1D Mark II has a linear capture
> range of around 12 1/2 stops with the 20 D sensor within 
>1/2 stop of that. I can't imagine the Digital Rebel sensor is much worse. 

For what I do the Rebel is good for about +3 and -3 stops -- 6 stops total.
Sure, the shadows can go on for longer, but the image quality is not up to
what I want (due to noise).  If I want to do any expansion of the contrast
in shadows, I'm making sure those shadows are not lower than -3 stops.

That said, according to my Pentax spot meter, most of the shots I took this
last week with the Rebel were within that range.  I have not processed them
yet to see the results, however.

>... or just do more than one exposure on a tripod 

That was exactly what I did most of the time when the Pentax read more than
6 stops.  The problem with this is that some scenes do not lend themselves
to multiple exposures.

I found in testing just before leaving that the Heliopan KR15 resulted in
better +3 and -3 detail.  I used the KR15 with a polarizer a lot this last
week, so I'll be curious how they compare to the shots with no filtration.

As a practical matter, I found myself using what is essentially an orange +
polarizer just as I would with B&W film, the difference being the KR15
(wratten 85b -- called "amber") has smooth gradients as opposed to the sharp
cutoff of the B&W filters.

>...
> You can then use the High Dynamic Range (HDR) features in Photoshop CS2 to
> make  whatever image you want...

My early experiments make me think manual merging might be better for large
prints.

I'll be reporting on how the little Rebel did in future posts.  It sure was
fun in any case.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com