A question about ray tracing and gamma correction.

The images my path tracer now produces don't have any gamma correction.
For example, a spot light shines on a surface and the color of that
surface is (say) RGB=255,255,255 (pure white in this case). If the
spotlight is moved twice as far, the color is now RGB=64,64,64. So I
have a linear tone mapping.

The question is: would a gamma corrected output be any more correct than
this linear? If I corrected with gamma 2.2, the first case would give
RGB=255,255,255 again and the second case would give RGB=136,136,136.

Why would I prefer one over the other? I have seen ray tracers doing
both. I'm not sure which way would give "better" results and what would
the "better" even mean in this case...

Severi S

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