privatebydesign said:
pbr9 said:
jrista said:
EdB said:
Until you need it. Then it tends to be the only thing that matters.
+1000
And when, pray tell, would it matter more than focus?
What camera CAN'T focus these days? I mean, EVERY camera has autofocus, and the vast majority of them do autofocus more than adequately. If you need high performance AF, then there are more than plenty of options for that as well, from multiple brands.
When it comes to the things I personally need DR for? Well, I'll be manually focusing. Every lens that I know of, or would ever care to use for landscapes or anything else where I find more DR useful, has the ability to be manually focused. Again, that's true across many brands.
So...yeah, OF COURSE focus is important. :
But, why does that matter? Focus is a core fundamental, it's been around since the dawn of photography. We don't lack for it, were not wanting for ultra high performance AF, Canon's AF kicks ass. Why is it that we need more and better focus when we can already track with near-pinpoint accuracy the eyeball of an erratically flying bird?
Why? When the one thing Canon cameras DON'T have...is more DR (more than they have had for five, six years, longer?)
So
yes. When you
really need DR, it is the single most important thing. Even when you don't think you need it, it can still be useful, it still means better quality images, and often less work involved in making quality images. Because we already have everything else.
ou've now seen the power that lower read noise offers with the examples you yourself created. Real-world photos you created by optimally using both cameras, and processing each file the same. You yourself realized that there wouldn't be any significant gains in shadow detail if you had reduced the noise of the Canon image...not enough, anyway, to match the Exmor image. The shadow data wasn't just useless low-color noise that mimics detail...it was
real detail, with good color, clean & smooth light falloff.
That was a simple real-world example, something rather average, where to get a realistic result, you needed some shadow pushing. Not a lot, some. More DR can always be used, even when you might not think it can. I am not going to say everyone must have it or must need it because I do...but it's the only thing Canon cameras don't have, which can often leave you in a bind (or even an average situation) when it comes to recovering shadows. If you didn't think to bracket, your sometimes just SOL. Even when you do bracket, HDR has it's limitations. When you have GNDs, those only go so far, or have their own issues.
Anyway...I don't know how long the photos you took will matter as far as DR discussions go...I guess probably not long, and it will be right back to beating up the "DRones".
But, I'm glad you got the chance to see the benefit of more DR for yourself with your own images. 
Your example wasn't extreme, and you still benefited from more DR. You may have used an older Canon DSLR...but things, at least in the shadows, haven't changed much since that camera was released. There are marginal improvements to things like noise characteristic and level and hue of color noise, but overall, not much has changed.
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