Originally posted by gazonk I wouldn't worry too much about that. Look at the DR scores, the K-5 is better than or equal to the 5dMkII and the D700 at every ISO, and beats them to dust at low ISO.
It doesn't surprise me that it beats the snot-bubbles out of the 5D2. That thing is NOT good in terms of DR at all and shows massive banding in high-ISO shadows.
The D700, on the other hand reminds me of what I thought when I saw the D90 score when it was first released. The D90 DR is shown as better than the D700 (12.5 vs. 12.2), yet I know from owning BOTH that the D90 DR is NOT better than the D700. In fact, it's significantly poorer in regard to highlight DR. The D700 had a 1+EV advantage in the highlights (if you compare them by the moment a color channel clips) and the 14-bit highlights transitioned much more smoothly than the 12-bit D90 highlights. The D90 was no slouch, but it was not the ETTR miracle-worker that the D700 was.
I wonder if DXO even takes into account color information or just luminance when measuring DR...I really need to read up on their SOP for DR testing. If I look at the Fuji S5 score of 13.5EV, I really start to think they are not concerned with the status of ALL the channels and are only looking at luminance...cuz the S5 is terrible about clipping individual channels (though retaining luminance data, see terrible color cast of pulled S5 photos!)
Also, looking at the under-exposed, yet recoverable K-5 shots that I've seen, I tend to think a lot of that DR may be in the shadows...which is fine...it just means that you will need to err on the side of under-exposing, if that works out to be the case.