Black stretch: Some cameras have a black stretch adjustment that can be set to increase or decrease contrast in the shadow areas. Increasing the black stretch brings out details in the shadows and softens over all contrast. On some cameras, the darkest black can be a bit noisy, and adding some black stretch helps lift dark areas up put of the noise. Some cameras has a black gamma setting which can be used to increase shadow detail without changing the absolute black level, and without affection mid-tones. And there can be a separate black compress setting, which you could be used to darken and crush shadow areas. Because you can do this in post, it’s a good idea not to toss away much shadow detail in camera.