Nice bit of writing on DR. When I started out in photography I was shooting mainly slide/transparency film like Fuji Velvia and Kodak Ektachrome. A tip I gleaned from a magazine was to squint my eyes to get an idea of the contrast or DR in a scene. By squinting the shadow/dark areas go really dark and thus I am able to “see” which areas will be blocked up when exposing for the high lights. I still use this technique for digital photography. Another possible method would be to stop down the lens using the DOF preview button with the lens stopped all the way down. Personally I find the squint method very simple and effective.