What is meant by "stopped down" regarding a lens?

Question

I could mean stepped down? If so, what does that mean?

Answer 1

Do you mean "stepped down"?

Answer 2

(OLD ANSWER) = I'm sure you mean "stopped down" and Terisu has given the correct answer and a good resource.

(NEW ANSWER) = I guess I need to stop answering questions late at night and get some sleep. I agree with OMG in saying that "stopping down" a lens just refers to the direction you are moving with the aperture and not that is means you have gone "all the way down" to the smallest opening, as Terisu said. To me, "Stopping down" means simply that you are going to use a smaller aperture than whatever you are set on at the moment. If you want more depth of field, you would say to yourself, "I better stop down a bit and see what that looks like." To me, it doesn't have to start at the maximum opening and then move down a couple of f/stops, but just that you are going to close the aperture some relative to whatever your current aperture setting is at the moment.

Tonight, I think I'll sleep and not answer so quickly.... Thank you OMG. PLEASE do not ever hesitate to point out an obvious error on my part. "It's a learning experience."

I've only heard "stepped" anything use to refer to an adapter ring that allows you to fit a filter to a lens that it was not really made to fit. Terisu gave you the answer you want, as this is the term that is most commonly used.

Answer 3

Kinda late answering but what ever.

Stopping down/up means to change the exposure of a sensor/film with light. You change the shutter speed, aperature, and EV to change the "stop". Modern lenses and cameras go by 1/3 stops so for one full stop you have to change the shutter speed, aperature or EV 3 times down or up for one full stop. Now, Ill give an examples. If lets say you have a lens at 1/100 and the aperature at f/8 and you want some motion blurr, you bring down the shutter speed 2 stops or 6 incriments on newer cameras. So the shutter speed is now at 1/25 which is 2 full stops down. Now to get the same exposure as 1/100 and f/8 you have to bring the aperature 2 full stops up as well. So the f/4 is 2 stops up.

Answer 4

I hate to argue with 2 of my favorite answerers (and great people!), but stopping a lens down doesn't necessarily mean that you use the smallest aperture setting. It just means that you move one or more f-stops down from the maximum aperture... which is how the term 'stopping down' originated.
The most common reason to stop a lens down is to avoid image degradation in the form of soft corners when you use a lens at maximum aperture (a.k.a. wide open, i.e. the lowest available f-number, a.n.d. hi there!). The cheaper the lens, the more you'll notice this. However, stopping a lens down to its minimum aperture also causes image degradation - this time in the form of diffraction.
Most lenses provide their best image quality between f/5.6 and f/11 and this is generally the zone that you stop down to... from the maximum aperture that you'd prefer to use, to the sweet spot.

Answer 5

Stopped down refers to the aperture set at the smallest setting (largest f number). It gives greater depth of field.

Here's an explanation of aperture, courtesy of Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture