I’m glad someone asked this question, as I have been seeing the same issue on many photos!
And thanks for the explanations as I had not registered that the Tone Equalizer mask only covers an 8EV range. If I use the auto-adjust options for mask exposure compensation, and then mask contrast compensation, very often dark shadows will show as -15EV - for exactly the reasons that Kofa states.
As an example, here is an image of a Red-breasted Goose taken at the weekend in a wetland park in London. It’s part of a collection of waterfowl from round the world so it has clipped wings to keep it inside its designated area - and therefore you can get good close up photos. (I’d prefer to photo the bird in the wild, but its basically an arctic bird that winters in Ukraine so not much chance there)
The sun was clouded over for this shot, so the overall contrast is weak, but its a black and white bird, so there is still a big exposure range, and worse the white feathers are clipping.
Auto mask adjustments with the TE “magic wands” will show the dark feathers at -15EV
With a better of selective masking and Tone Equalizer, I can get detail in the dark feathers, and some highlight recovery, but even Highlight reconstruction with guided laplacians struggles here.
ER6_3357.CR3 (27.8 MB)
ER6_3357.CR3.xmp (13.0 KB)
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