Dynamic range - how much you need it?

Red leaf, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

(It seems that I'm unable to stop thinking about HDR and related topics...)

How often is it that the camera can't capture a scene because of dynamic range problems? I used to think that this is a big problem, but then I realized you often can forget about the highlights - the can burn out all right, no need to preserve tonality.

And then you can use the dark for artistic effect, as discussed by TOP: "Any technical property can be exploited... I should mention here, too, that like any other technical property of photography, low DR can be accommodated aesthetically and used to good artistic effect."

So, for me the dynamic range isn't such a problem any more. Of course, thanks to the way the eye operates, a camera can't match it, but it doesn't have to either.

Also, it isn't too often that you get a scene where dynamic range is really a problem for current cameras. You need to have strong direct sunlight and a source of shadow which doesn't allow any scattered light to enter the scene.

Either Luminous Landscape or TOP made a nice posting about the need for dynamic range in photography. This article demonstrated that in many seemingly challenging situations there is plenty of dynamic range for practically all digital cameras. For example, a scene which was of a street partially lighted by the sun, there was so much scattered light from the walls of the building that the dark parts of the scene weren't really dark. Of course, there are extreme (or pathological situations) but they are rare.

Update: I found the article in question, it was at TOP and written by Carl Weese. Here is a quote: "All the dynamic range in the world won’t help unless the exposure makes use of that range intelligently."

So, the real question related to dynamic range is the skill of the photographer on making the correct exposure. And there are endless discoveries to be made.

As a final note, TOP made a posting on the top-selling book on photography, which focuses on the correct exposure. On the cover of the book it is said: "How to shoot great photographs with any camera."