Well, DRO works quite differently as compared to the Shadow/Highlight and the Fill light commands in PS and other imaging software, eventually you can spend one whole day getting a similar effect... and waste a lot of time in that process.
So if in doubt, shoot in Raw+Jpeg if you want DRO results, or use the Sony's IDC for your raw files.
Noise would be increased definitely in shadow regions especially after boost.
Though for highlight regions it's not of a problem, though at times I hope that there would be equal amounts of noise at highlight regions because it would resemble the properties of film more closely.
I weigh my possibilities in this case here... Right here, I'd probably shoot them in J with DRO, then run everything through an automated Photoshop script with Noiseware Professional - this way I think its more productive. Do remember that:
- Time is Money -
Also, noise may become an issue when you do large format viewing/printing. Your photo inspection distance is very important... like how far you are viewing your photos from, and how big you'd be printing (A1 or A0) viewed at newspaper reading distances - or printing 1.5m by 1m, viewing it close up.
If you remember well, Geoff Ang had shoot an ad for the Canon 5D MkII and hang that piece at bugis junction. It Looks huge from across the street?
Now, If you hold a Super 8R photo at about arms length... more or less - It's the same size. Is that photo looking sharp and nice, noise free at that distance? if Yes, project it onto the wall: that's the size you can get on that wall from your current viewing distance from across the street.
You can do that a sharp looking S8R shot, viewed from newspaper reading distance from a source file that is: 1200 x 800 (0.96 mpx).
If you think a photo looks sharp at 1200 x 800 on a 72 dpi screen, it's going to look similarly good on a 150-300 dpi print from that inspection same distance. Likewise, if projected onto a wall far away, it's going to still look good. Because ultimately - that is the biological resolution limit of our eyes, if you consider the optical capabilities of a person with 6/6 vision.
So if you are talking about more standard screen viewing sizes of 900 x 600 thereabouts, it's a measly 0.54 megapixels which is a far cry from the 10-14 megapixels you'd be getting regularly from people. is something helpful for copious amounts of cropping, like shoot a whole person but only want the head etc, and you shoot a lot of those photos and store them in the highest resolution just for that purpose, thinking for the future, i.e. using it for later... but one day, you come back and review your photos, and find that the photos sucked anyway, so ultimately you're wasting space... :sweat: Happens to me all the time... .oO("must shoot at raw... next time can use... then 6 months later... wah lau... the photos cmi sia...")
It's a big headache.:bsmilie:
Pixel peeping is well, fun at times, but ultimately pointless at the end of the day - because talking about it only helps to sell a somebody's camera and you're not making commissions or cash out of it. So at the end of the day, it's still pointless.
They are making cash, you are free marketer.
So well, at the end of the day, Sony, Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Panasonic... etc etc... ye don't have to worry about anything really - you don't even have to worry about noise if you aren't printing out large, you don't even have to worry about that even if you are printing out large once you can shoot and process properly. You can probably shoot happily at ISO3200 or even at 6400 on some of the supposedly noisiest cameras out there, as long as there is no sensor banding - unless you are creating the old-badly TV look.
so bro, dun worry, be happy and shoot ;p
well, the thing that I do with the camera is to check for focusing, and also to look at the histogram. 
