For those of you who have read Barry Green's article on controlling exposure on the HV20 in CineMode (see link below).

http://www.dvxuser.com/jason/hv20/

I have an additional creative idea to add. I recently got a Sony PSP for video/image playback (and the occasional game) because it has an excellent looking 4.3" widescreen (480 x 272 pixel resolution). I actually did get the PSP for being able to quickly show others any videos I create using the HV20.

Anyway, in Barry's article, he made use of a white picture saved to his cell phone as a consistent source of light to be used to lock the HV20's shutter and gain for a given range of exposure settings. Well, I just did the same thing using the Sony PSP, and boy does it work, and what's more, the PSP has 3 levels of brightness control when operating on battery (and 4 levels when plugged in). I used a photo editing program to create an all white image then uploaded it to the PSP.

When pointing the HV20 directly at the PSP screen, you have the following f-stops that will occur for each of the three brightness settings on the PSP.

Low = f/2.6
Med = f/3.4
High = f/4.4

Using the Med f/3.4 seems to be just perfect for allowing a fully usable range of exposures on the HV20 with a fixed 1/48 shutter and 0dB of gain.

Thanks for that Nathan...and I was already thinking of getting a PSP.

great tip - I have a PSP but hadnt thought of that!

Great idea! Another way of doing this is with a video supported ipod the 30, 60 or 80GB. Create a white jpeg background in photoshop, import that jpeg into iphoto and sync that into your ipod photo section.