Thanks I found out that the camera is pretty complicated on this issue! If I press the stop down swithh in, even though it's mechanically not doing anything, it electronically locks the meter setting, which is good. It will still meter up and down just fine like it's supposed to do. If I DON'T press the stop down switch in, then if I accidentally turn the thumb scroll wheel on the top of the camera, which is actually easy to do, then the meter readings go off depending on how far the wheel is turned. It's happy now w/ the stop down switch pushed in, and works in AV mode beautifully. Neat camera.