Help With Nikon DOF Preview Button

from how i understand it it stops the lens down to whatever aperture is set so you can see what the finished shot will look like

I'm probably wrong here so i'll be interested to hear what someone who knows what they're doing has to say
 
mrgas said:
from how i understand it it stops the lens down to whatever aperture is set so you can see what the finished shot will look like

I'm probably wrong here so i'll be interested to hear what someone who knows what they're doing has to say
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yep, this it just stops down the lens to the set aperture. Can be useful sometimes, rarely is, you can just chimp these days... if you've got a better use for the button, go for it.

another feature is to help you see (because the viewfinder will be darker than normal), that it will 'buzz' the built in or attached flash as a torch / random light, which can be useful or annoying at times...good for when randoms are like 'uh yeah take a photo' and you just wave the camera in their general direction, hitting that button...
 
It stops down the lens to the selected aperture (doesn't open the shutter) and can be very useful in certain situations, in others less so. I used to find it hard to see the difference on my D90 (apart from the dimming of the viewfinder), but it's a different story on the D700 - you can actually make aperture decisions based on the DOF preview! More useful in good light where DOF is critical, in those situations I assign it to the button otherwise it doesn't get used and something else is assigned.
 
I find the DoF preview button fairly useless as a DoF preview - much below f/5.6, the viewfinder image is so dim that sharpness is hard to make out - and below f/11, even composition asn't that clear! When using flash, I do find it useful since it fires a burst of low intensity flashes which are a reasonably effective modelling light. I also sometimes use the noise the aperture makes to attract a subject's attention or to make them think that a photo has been taken.
 
I don't know why, but the effectiveness of the DoF preview button is not nearly as effective on any DSLR I have handled than it was on film cameras I owned.
I find it very hard to determine what parts of the picture get sharper when the lens is stopped down by the DoF preview button.
 
arclight said:
I don't know why, but the effectiveness of the DoF preview button is not nearly as effective on any DSLR I have handled than it was on film cameras I owned.
I find it very hard to determine what parts of the picture get sharper when the lens is stopped down by the DoF preview button.
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Its very usable on my film camera, but useless on my 450D's puny viewfinder.
 
I found the same thing - dead easy with my old F3, not so much with the D3 - I put it down to the coarseness of older focussing screens with all the attendant focus-aids, as opposed to the newer screens which are far smoother so as to make the viewfinder-image brighter.
 
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