LS460w Exposure Settings - No Auto?

[ITFC_Alex]

Hi folks, I'm a newbie so please excuse if this is a daft question...

I've noticed that the exposure settings on the LS460w range from -3 to +3 but there is no 'Auto' setting. Am I to assume that leaving it on 0 is effectively the Auto setting or do I have to adjust the exposure daily according to Britain's wonderfully changeable skies? My brother has an LS430w and although I've never used it he says he has an 'Auto' setting for his exposure.

Is the Sony ISO gadgetry in the LS460w what makes the 'auto exposure' setting superfluous? It's just that I've been getting some very dingy looking footage back and can't help feel a little disappointed.

Any advice welcome,

Cheers!

 

[reverend]

To be honest I leave mine on 0 and it appeared to have changed accordingly - have you got any samples of your footage so we can see what you mean?

It might be a question straight for DOD to be honest that one.

I've not opened the replacement yet - it's still sat in the box!

 

[jokiin]

0 is the median value and you can add or remove some bias but it is automatic regardless

 

[ITFC_Alex]

I've got a still (see below). The day this was shot it was really cloudy (blanket white sky, little/no blue sky poking through) but still quite bright. When I looked back at the footage it looked much dingier than the actual day itself was. I've looked back at footage from sunnier days and that's much, much better. Just wondering if there was anything I could do to combat days like these. I've read a little about CPL filters, would that do the job?

 

[reverend]

Ah ok I've got an idea here - basically the LS460W from what I've seen uses the extra dynamic range to brighten up the street view - if you were running another dashcam at the side of this one you may find it would be a lot darker.

You probably need to really lower down the angle of the camera too which will help matters as it's currently got more sky than road in the pic.

I've got to admit it doesn't seem to affect the LS460W as much in my testing but try and get 70% road and 30% sky if possible which all helps.

One thing I've noticed is that as soon as the LS460W is brightening up the road etc the sky will wash out and go totally white. It looks very strange, and I wondered why it was doing it as well, but then I tried side by side footage with another camera and it became more obvious what was going on.

These two videos show the difference more between the LS460W and another cam on an older sensor - look how much brighter the LS460W is here

 

[ITFC_Alex]

Thanks for the advice reverend, I'll try pointing my cam down a little bit to see if that helps! I hadn't really noticed that I'd got a lot of sky in my footage until you said it.

 

[reverend]

I've got to admit in the testing I've done so far the LS460W doesn't really seem to care so much as other cams, they're doing something right in software but the more you can help steer it towards getting better AE the better Unless it's thunder and lightning then mine get pushed upwards