hmm, a number of scenarios, all sounding plausible - and thank your for your reply by the way - but they don't seem to account for what I assume is true: that it's not only easier for Canon to implement metadata ISOs, it's more profitable as well.


In your first scenario, they chose the route they did "because they can." But isn't this costing them money and angering their more knowledgeable user base? Or have I made an incorrect assumption? I'm working from the premise that "hardware ISO" (for lack of a better term) is 1) complicated to configure, requiring different strategies for different bodies, 2) demands continual R&D money, and 3) is susceptible to malfunction. Maybe #3 is no longer a concern, but it is one more electrical system that could conceivably break down.


If it'smore profitable to use metadata ISOs, then I wonder
if the reason isn't the one you listed later, the one requiring a "nefarious"
motive.. to roll out a brand new camera body featuring "FOUR EXTRA STOPS of
Dynamic Range!" That would be irresistible when the financial outlay is zero (or close to it). On the other hand, perhaps the cost, when you consider the deals and arrangements that Canon must have with RAW converter manufacturers, not to mention their own DPP...they may have to recode their products...or would they?


Getting back to the real-world implications
- if I may. Those "extra stops," the ones we lose when we use higher ISOs -
they're gone forever, right? No RAW converter can get them back because,
to the converter, they don't exist. Those HLs have been pushed off the scale and were simply not captured
during exposure. The trade off is that we get (the same amount?) footroom - we get the low range frequencies. Do I understand that all correctly?



Thanks again D.