Hv20 auto exposure - too bright?

I

imagefact

Member
I have tested both the hv20 and hv30 and find that in general, under all sorts of circumstances (indoor and outdoor), the auto exposure is too bright. I fully understand how auto mode works in terms of that the camera takes the sum of the entire screen and tries to set the exposure at a middle grey average... but other cameras (DVX, XL, etc) seem to find a better brightness than the HV20/30.

Have you guys (n' gals) noticed this as well?

I feel like I'd like to have it lowered to -3 or -4 on the manual exposure all the time. But I don't want to have to always go manual if I'm doing run n' gun shooting. Too much work to stop and manually play games under those circumstances.

I've tried running through other auto setup options and the only one I've found to help this problem is SPOT metering mode. But this makes everything too dark in general.

Other cameras have a way of setting a +/- from the auto brightness, but I don't believe the HV20/30 does this - correct?


Any thoughts or advice appreciated - such as do you feel the auto exposure is too bright? If so, how do you deal with this issue (other than going into manual exposure). Thanks!
 
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I usually manually expose everything, but I did have to let the camera expose for me the other day and it did seem a little on the bright side.
 
I never had HV20, but with HV30 you can adjust brightness using the 'custom' Image Effect menu. It allows to adjust saturation, sharpness, brightness, and contrast and is available in all standard 'P' modes (P, Tv, Av).
 
Shoot some test footage and check it on a waveform in your NLE - I think you'll find the levels are actually about dead on (in terms of not clipping). What's really going on, as far as I can tell, is the HV20 LCD is overly bright. This has bit me on the ass a few times when manually exposing and using the LCD as my guide. Stuff comes out a lot darker.
 
I never shoot without the Zebra's.
Depending on the situation they are either 80% or 100% should be on the hv30 as well.
You can count on the clamping as that is data beeing send to the LCD and not some visual estimation.
 
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