# Stop Down Metering



## lockwood81 (Dec 10, 2008)

I recently purchased some old OM lens's for my E-510.  These lens's are all manual and I've read that I need to do stop down metering to use them properly.  I've never heard this expression and I can't find it in my manual.

I'm thinking I would use spot meter...with the f-stop pre choosen on the lens....I'll play around with it but thought i would ask.

Just wondering if someone has the cliff notes on it.

Thanks.


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## elemental (Dec 10, 2008)

Not sure about the E-510, but when using SMC M lenses on my Pentax, there's a button I can hit in manual mode to get the camera to stop down and take a reading.

The idea is that some old lenses cannot communicate with your camera to tell it the aperture you have selected. Therefore, since you focus wide open, your camera meters off of this, and if you don't have the lens set wide open, you'll underexpose when you hit the shutter and the lens is stopped down to take the picture. Stop down metering simply refers to stopping down the lens to take an accurate meter reading before taking the picture.


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## TBAM (Dec 10, 2008)

Hey there

I've got en E-420 with a zuiko manual lens on it. 

My interpretation is that as previously advised, normally your camera reads the focal length / aperture from your lens digitally, and the lens is stopped wide open so you can get as much light into the viewfinder as possible. 

Then when you take the photo, the lens stops down to the aperture set and takes the photo.

What some people do with their manual lenses is focus with the aperture wide open, and then set the aperture they desire when they want to take the shot. This usually ensures the best possibility of accurate focus due to the amount of light making it easier to see.

However, with a manual lens on a digital camera. For the camera to meter properly, you need to have it stopped down to the aperture you want prior to metering the exposure.

So, similar to the above, some people focus with the aperture wide open, then stop it down to the aperture they want, then meter and take the shot.

Alternatively, you can just adjust the aperture on the lens in the first place and attempt to focus with the light available to you.

You don't need to keep it on spot metering, you can use any of the metering modes. Stop down metering just refers to manually stopping down the aperture of the lens prior to taking a photo so that the metering is accurate.

Elemental may have meant what I just said, however I thought I would go into just a little more detail.


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## TBAM (Dec 10, 2008)

Just quickly.

You may want to invest in a katzeye split prism screen. Focusing my 1.8 on the Olympus manually is an absolute biatch without live-view zoomed in.

I'm talking, REALLY annoying. As in, sometimes 5-7 shots to nail the focus after chimping on every one. 

I find it easier to focus with it on live-view, but that in-itself we shouldn't have to do. I'll be investing in a split prism focus screen as soon as I can.


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## lockwood81 (Dec 10, 2008)

TBAM said:


> Alternatively, you can just adjust the aperture on the lens in the first place and attempt to focus with the light available to you.


 
Thanks man this will work. Got it right in my head now. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

I have an OM-1 also, which I use the lens's on mostly but I just wanted to be able to use them on the e-510 also.

Thanks. :thumbup:


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