when are we going to get better dynamic range?

mrklaw wrote in post #6104965
never mind noise (although thats welcome). Are there any advances in sensors coming that will give us more dynamic range?

How about being able to apply a digital ND grad to a scene, to bring the brightness of the sky down?

FWIW, I liked your question.

My idea for a digital grad filter would be to find the horizon (if digital cameras can find a face, they can find a horizon), and decrease the time the shutter is open for the pixels above it (as I understand it, for things like Live View, an electronic "first curtain" is used, while the second curtain operates normally, so it should be feasible to open an electronic curtain some interval after the physical curtain passes, depending on the vertical position of the pixel). If you toss in a reasonably decent auto-horizon finder, and can get a smooth transition, it would offer at least some advantages over grad filters in that it allows the horizon to be at any height (as well as, presumably, some range of hard to soft grads), and finds it automatically. Of course, I suppose it would only work with a level horizon in landscape (you could shoot backlit corner walls in portrait, I guess)

I'm not sure it would be worth it, but if it's easily implemented, might be a feature that consumers would be interested in. I also wonder how much ISO sensitivity might be able to be mapped out pixel-wise (in the AE stage), and if that would have any chance of being recovered in RAW.

Fujii had an interesting concept, with it's differing sized and sensitivity photo sites, it added quite a bit of DR over a standard CCD of the time.

However it can be taken further. Jeremy just touched on it, and that it is now being talked about more often, I am convinced it will happen, not if but when.

Back in 2004 was the first time I mentioned this idea.
We often are blinded by what we think we know and ignore the obvious as being too new.
Again in 2004 the idea of adding iso adjustment to the two factors that make up our program AE (aperture and shutter priority) was scoffed at. In fact allowing the camera to auto adjust the ISO to maintain the program AE now looks perfectly acceptable with the noise capabilities of modern high end DSLRs.

So.. what does this have to do with dynamic range?

Again, lets think ahead, and outside of the box that confines us to rudimentary thinking.

Everyone of your CMOS photo sites is hooked up to your cameras processing computer already.
With a more powerful and faster set of CPUs, we could adjust that same ISO we adjust now on a "per pixel" level.

We would be able to adjust how much exposure leeway we would let the camera impose, and set it to back off the ISO pf any pixels approaching blow out, and/or boost the ISO pf pixels in severely dark areas. Taken too far it would be a mess, but with small incremental adjustments, you could double or triple the dynamic range with no changes to the CMOS itself.

poloman wrote in post #6105674
Soooo
How do you propose to implement this built in ND filter in an elegant way?
Sort of like hoping for underwear that does it all for you when you need to eliminate. (and is dry when you are done)
"Here's my new camera. It weighs 15 lbs but look at all the features!"

Why would it weigh heavier? The filter should be controlled electronically, via the LCD. Or are you thinking of a camera with a piece of plastic built onto the body?

However you wouldn't need a GND filter (electronic or otherwise) if the camera had high enough dynamic range to start with. I'm sure they'll get there one day, I just wish it would be sooner rather than later.

blackcap wrote in post #6111136
Why would it weigh heavier? The filter should be controlled electronically, via the LCD. Or are you thinking of a camera with a piece of plastic built onto the body?

However you wouldn't need a GND filter (electronic or otherwise) if the camera had high enough dynamic range to start with. I'm sure they'll get there one day, I just wish it would be sooner rather than later.

I had my tongue in my cheek.

CyberDyneSystems....yo​u have the most sensible idea so far....IMO.