Barry Green has a long and detailed article on how best to control the exposure on the very powerful, yet most-manual-controls-lacking Canon HV20 HDV camcorder. The problem is that the HV20 has all the controls you need, but won’t allow manual control over every feature without some hoops to jump through.

“…you can usually only manually set either Shutter Speed or Aperture, and whichever of those you set, it will set the other three parameters as it sees fit. If you put the camera in Aperture Priority mode (also called “Avâ€?), you can manually dial in the aperture you want to use, but the camera will decide what shutter speed and what level of neutral density filter to employ. This leaves you with the potential that the shutter speed may (and frequently will) change away from the desired 1/48th shutter speed. Or, you could select Shutter Priority mode (also called “Tvâ€?) and force the shutter to always operate at 1/48th; the camera will then change the aperture and neutral density filter as it sees fit, and (worse) it can start putting automatic electronic gain into your image, without you even knowing! And when it adds gain, it can add a lot of gain, up to 27dB of gain. The result is a surprisingly noisy, grainy picture, not at all what you’d want when you set out to capture 24fps 1080 high-def footage!

There are two main problems at work here. One is that the camera doesn’t let you control the multiple parameters of exposure, and the other is perhaps even worse: it normally doesn’t tell you what it’s doing. As you shoot, the only exposure feedback you get is to know the shutter speed (if you chose “Tvâ€? mode) or the aperture (if you chose “Avâ€? mode), but it will not tell you what both settings are. And it will never tell you what the electronic gain is set at.”

But have no fear, HV20 lovers. Barry outlines all the necessary tricks and workarounds, like using the photo feature to report current iris and shutter settings, and the “cell phone trick” for repeatable auto exposure. Great writeup, not to be missed by new HV20 users!

The HV20 is available for $1049 from B&H and $1039 from Amazon.com. Purchases made via those links are a big help and directly benefit FreshDV.