I'm surprised no one in the comments so far has used the word "clipping", which is what the real breakthrough here is in. I've been doing street photography somewhat seriously for about five years now, and always shoot full-manual: I rarely have problems with motion blur because I control the shutter speed; I rarely have problems with focus because I use assisted manual; the only thing that gets me with any regularity is highlight or shadow clipping.
I often shoot with a histogram overlay which helps a lot, but there are still high-contrast scenes where I have to decide where I'm going to bias the exposure. I can usually tease out some more detail in Lightroom from the RAW file, but direct sunlight plus shadow, or a quick-draw moment where I fumbled the exposure to make the shot, often leave some clipped areas.
Not having to worry about clipping would be an amazing breakthrough, and I'd even accept some other limitations in a camera that could manage this.
FWIW, analog film doesn't clip in the same way as digital, but instead has a nonlinear roll-of on either end of the brightness scale. Still there is a limit to the maximum contrast, of course.
If you're interested, try Tri-X for BW and Fuji Velvia 50 for color. Any late 70s Nikon will do well as a camera, the old 50mm f1.4 is particularly good and cheap. Tri-X is best developed yourself, but the Velvia needs sending to a lab that specializes in positive film development.
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I'm surprised no one in the comments so far has used the word "clipping", which is what the real breakthrough here is in. I've been doing street photography somewhat seriously for about five years now, and always shoot full-manual: I rarely have problems with motion blur because I control the shutter speed; I rarely have problems with focus because I use assisted manual; the only thing that gets me with any regularity is highlight or shadow clipping.
I often shoot with a histogram overlay which helps a lot, but there are still high-contrast scenes where I have to decide where I'm going to bias the exposure. I can usually tease out some more detail in Lightroom from the RAW file, but direct sunlight plus shadow, or a quick-draw moment where I fumbled the exposure to make the shot, often leave some clipped areas.
Not having to worry about clipping would be an amazing breakthrough, and I'd even accept some other limitations in a camera that could manage this.
FWIW, analog film doesn't clip in the same way as digital, but instead has a nonlinear roll-of on either end of the brightness scale. Still there is a limit to the maximum contrast, of course.
If you're interested, try Tri-X for BW and Fuji Velvia 50 for color. Any late 70s Nikon will do well as a camera, the old 50mm f1.4 is particularly good and cheap. Tri-X is best developed yourself, but the Velvia needs sending to a lab that specializes in positive film development.
Being about year in with street photography this is very insightful. Can you elaborate on any tricks you do in Lightroom in this area ??