Great read Kelly
Sry I missed you last night! That dynamic range test was very interesting indeed!
I just read what you wrote about 5 times, and I'm still a bit confused. If you expose for the highlights and assign them N, how do you know your shadows are N-4? And if you underexpose for the highlights by 1-stop, wouldn't that make the shadows 1 stop darker N-5 not brighter?
I apologize if I'm reading this wrong
In any event your assessment of underexposing a bit so you have more detail to recover, I 100% agree with. You may have a bit of noise in the shadows, but the midtone noise is going to be hard to see IMO. Unless the highlights are super bright that is and your scene looks very dark. But on average bright highlights I would much rather underexpose to have the detail in "the hair" for example and just recover the mid's by a stop or so.
Thats my thought anyway
Best,
Jay