Is the EM5’s Miss-Stated ISO concerning to you?

texinwien wrote:

I'll answer you both here in this post.

It would be great to know what articles (that treat the subject at hand) are high on your list of recommended reading (for beginners / the relatively uninitiated). I mean this in earnest. What should our OP read if he wishes to advance his understanding of ISO as it applies to digital photography to the next level?

That is, perhaps he isn't motivated right now to learn about the topic at the most detailed level, possible. Perhaps a page full of equations and highly technical speak will turn him off. On the other hand, he obviously has a rudimentary (although flawed) understanding of what's going on. How to move him ahead a step or two if he's not motivated to read a detailed technical treatise on the subject?

Regarding the two linked articles - I wonder whether, at different points in a person's education on a complex topic, articles written at different levels (of technical jargon, precision and, yes, even absolute correctness) might be appropriate, somewhat similar to the "Young Lady's Illustrated Primer: a Propædeutic Enchiridion", which plays a prominent role in Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age". The Primer evolves with its student, its content changing over time to match the student's changing intellectual capabilities. The primer may even contradict itself on some subjects across some span of time, as, at time A, it may 'take liberties' with technical facts in order to offer the young student important practical understanding of a subject while later, at time B, it erases the liberties taken and replaces them with correct technical information, to take into account the student's advancing intellectual capabilities.

So, when I try to put myself into the shoes of me from 10 months ago, when my understanding of the topics at hand was truly rudimentary (as I'd never had a reason to be interested in them before and had, thus, never bothered to study them), the linked articles seem to be written at a level that would have been useful to help me improve my understanding of the topics while perhaps 'taking liberties' (whether because the author consciously chose to take liberties or because his limited understanding of the subject were, themeselves, the liberties).

I think it depends on who "we" refers to. If "we" refers to 90% (just a rough estimate, and probably too low) of people who take, will take or have taken digital photographs, the statement seems OK. As a matter of fact, I think the other 10% of people who take, will take or have taken digital photographs probably move in and out of this "we" group, to whom the statement applies. If I'm setting up a shot of a static subject carefully, and taking care to ETTR in order to get the best IQ, knowing that I'll need to spend some time to massage the RAW file to get the output to look right, I'm not in the "we". If, however, I'm firing off snaps of moving subjects quickly, and am not concerned about getting the absolute best IQ out of each shot - am even, perhaps, hoping that the JPEGs will suffice, because, while I want to capture these photos, they're not important enough for me to post-process, then I probably do fit into the "we".

Or maybe I'm still missing something. What's your take on it?

The statement is confusing, but I think it's mostly poorly worded, and may, despite inaccuracies, still be capable of transmitting some truth to those with a certain level of understanding of the topic at hand. The problem I see with the statement is that, in order to make it 100% precise and unambiguous, one may need to write it in a way that also makes it difficult for the layperson to understand.

Screw the layperson, right? I actually tried editing the above statement, but to make it pass rigorous scrutiny, it would have to be much longer and contain a number of parentheticals. Either that, or my English skills aren't that great, certainly a possibility

See above. I certainly wouldn't argue that the articles are precisely correct, or anywhere near complete.

But I think the vast majority of readers would probably fail to read to the end any articles on the covered subjects that were both precisely correct and complete, or close to it.

I think the question is, in some respects, a pedagogical one. I can't answer a completely lay-person's question about a complex topic with a doctoral dissertation written by someone who's studied the topic for 16 years at various universities.

Dunno, what's your take?