hmm. in my experience, the dinamic range in a winter scene like that is much lower than you would expect. i don't know about color graduations, i doubt it could be seen on a monitor, on a web sized print, but i think i am not "savvy" enough to talk about that stuff, so i'll be quiet about it.
as to straight from the camera versus post-processed.. hm, if you shoot raw, there is no way around post processing, if you shoot jpeg, especially with our pentax cameras (but not only) you can easily get what you want in camera, adjusting the settings, so i am not sure how easy to discuss this point is, really.
let me try to dig out one of my shots in similar conditions, so we can compare directly, nevertheless, as i think this is a very interesting discussion... here we are
this, in my experience, is about as bad as it gets, as far as dinamic range is concerned, you can see the details are kept in both shadows and bright areas, there is detail even in the smoothest parts of the snow, and the colors don't look half bad (ignore the fact that it's perhaps a tad dark, i do have that tendency, the important thing is that the details and the colors are there, at both extremes). also notice that the kodachrome shot above also loses details in the dark foreground (which is normal, and pretty much as bad as i would expect from digital, not better, not worse)
what do you think? can you point out the differences?
ps: i have more where this came from, let me know if you want to have a look and extend the discussion a bit, i will gladly provide them for mercyless discussion here
edit: the huge problem here is that we are using digital display means to compare "digital" files and silver slides, the problem is that the scan quality can vary wildly, in my experience, whereas the digital medium is, obviously, in a better position, due to less "conversion". so it would be nice to have some more examples, from other people who have quality kodachrome scans (as many people as possible, i would say), it would never replace the breathtaking experience of viewing the slide as it was meant to be viewed, but i can't see much that can be done about fixing that, except maybe do a "pentaxians in memoriam kodachrome meet"