The statement 'Dynamic range is the range of exposures the system can handle without saturating' is:

• A. True
• B. False
• C. Not defined
• D. Only in analog

Answer: (A)

Dynamic range is the span of brightness a imaging system can reproduce without clipping, from the darkest detectable signal to the brightest signal before saturation. The statement is true because it correctly describes the high-end limit: if exposures exceed this range, the sensor saturates and detail is lost in highlights. In practice dynamic range is set by the sensor’s noise floor at the dark end and its full-well capacity at the bright end, often measured in stops. A wider dynamic range means you can capture detail in both shadows and highlights within the same scene; a narrower range results in clipping or crushed shadows. Dynamic range applies to digital imaging as well as analog, since saturation is a real limit of the sensor itself.