Has anyone tested or guestimated it?

DPReview has it at ~8.6 stops of dynamic range for stills.

Check out the review of the camera on the site, it has a lot of good information.

DPReview has it at ~8.6 stops of dynamic range for stills.

Check out the review of the camera on the site, it has a lot of good information.

Well that's a little underwhelming, considering the EX1 rated 10.5 stops.

The article also states if you work in Raw you can get up to 11.1 stops... how much of
that is usable is questionable

When I look at EX1/3 footage and D5II footage together the first thing I see is the noise
differences... the EX1/3 has much more noise in the dark areas...

These numbers don't mean much. The EX1 can more easily shoot nice, competent video and has many more features. The 5DII can make shoot gorgeous film like clips. On 5DII the default settings the images are "punchy", so I doubt it has even 8 stops. Flattened out it has a pretty good range.

But like I said, it doesn't really matter, for just recording an image the ex1/3 is a better tool.

I've noticed that people whose experience is shooting a lot of video but little film have the most difficult time seeing the difference in the 5DII compared to good standard video cameras. This was very apparent when the camera was first released.

When I look at EX1/3 footage and D5II footage together the first thing I see is the noise
differences... the EX1/3 has much more noise in the dark areas...

What other observations do you have about the comparison.

Hunter Richards found the 5D had a little over 8 stops of dynamic range in video mode. That sounds about right to me, as long as settings are correct and nothing is clipped in post. The dynamic range on the 5D is really pretty good, better or on par with most other cameras I have worked with.

This clip keeps coming up, but it is a good demonstration of the cameras performance:
Schärfentiefenvergleich Canon XH-A1 vs. 5D Mark II on Vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com/4445879)

This clip keeps coming up, but it is a good demonstration of the cameras performance:
Schärfentiefenvergleich Canon XH-A1 vs. 5D Mark II on Vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com/4445879)

I wouldn't say it's a good test of either cameras' performance, but rather a simple display of basic optical principals.
Also, I don't understand on some low DOF shots why nothing appears to be in focus.

Agreed, not ideal. You are right about how it's soft. Looks like it was possibly shot with some diffusion.

It looks like that guy missed focus a bit.

Also doesn't say what the picture settings on the XHA1 were, it's got a lot of room to dial back highlights, etc so that may not be truly representative of what it is capable of.

I've been noticing a big difference in terms of noise though - not even necessarily immediately visible, but once compressed the 5D seems to stay cleaner at lower bit rates - although that could be partly attributable to the lower amount of background picture detail due to the shallow DOF compared to the XHA1.