exposure metering

[Shortstop]

Could some one tell me waht "stop-down exposure metering" and "stop-down the lens" means? I am using a Nikon D-50 camera with a 60mm f/2.8 lens.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Stoping down a lense was used a lot when shooting higher end film SLR's and it was when you pushed a tab/button that actually opened the lens up to the F stop that you had it set on. In the case of the 2.8 you could open it up from a full 2.8 or stop it down to it's full f22 range. This preview allowed you to see what the depth of field in focus was going to be and if you had a good judgement you could also estimate what your exposure values would be and figure out the times for the exposure since many early meters were not that great that were built into the cameras so if you didn't have a seperate light meter you could your judgement knowing what film speed you were using and compensate a bit if you knew that your meter was off a bit.

Most DSLR's don't offer this feature until you get into the higher end cameras.

[Daniel Bates]

You have to use stop-down exposure when using some old MF lenses on new AF cameras, because the camera cannot control the lens aperture. You manually set the aperture you want (say, f/5.6) in the camera and on the lens.

[Stephen H]

Using stop-down metering, the viewfinder is going to get darker when you stop it down, which is the drawback. And of course, stopped down, it's much harder to focus- so focus first, then stop down. Fine for something static, poor for something moving.