Using the AE Shift...
 

I've noticed the official manual and also quite a few guides kinda skip over the AE shift function without really going into detail about it.. anyone got a good explanation of it?

I find sometimes it affects footage a lot more than others, sometimes it'll give a really big boost to the lighting, other times on the LCD I can't tell the difference between -4 and +4.. how does it work in comparison to gain (unless the light enhancement is a sideeffect of using it) ?

When are the best times to use it etc

TIA

Since I almost never shoot in automatic mode I can't offer much detail. However I know that what it does is shift the exposure which the camera chooses to either a higher or lower f-stop.

This is nothing like the auto gain limit adjustment (which also works only in auto mode). The AGC limit will prevent the camera from adding gain beyond its setting in a dark situation.

With AE shift, let's say you were filming something in a room where there was a bright window in the background. The camera would "see" that an adjust exposure accordingly - for the sake of argument let's say it chose an iris opening of F5.6. But in reality, you want to see faces of people in the room, and you don't care if the window is overexposed. Using the AE shift you could force the camera to choose an opening of f2.8. However, if you then went outside, the camera would still shift exposure accordingly, and everything would be overexposed.

At any rate, that's how I think it works. Perhaps someone else who frequently uses the auto mode can give some real world examples.

Hmm interesting, its an Automatic mode adjustment is it? Maybe thats why I don't see anything half the time.. I shoot in fully manual pretty much all the time (due to the fact a lot of my stuff is live music and I swing the cam around like crazy, I do switch between Auto/Manual focus, but thats about it)

I'm guessing the times I've seen it "work" at those when I haven't gotten around to setting the iris control first... makes more sense now! Cheers.

Aha, AE = Automatic Exposure yeah? I've always ignored the "Program AE" etc settings on lower model cameras, so never really thought about what it stands for... wheres the placing for the AE Shift on the PD170 then? On the VX2000 I believe its in the Custom Preset menu, which makes a lot of sense.. but on the PD150, its placed on the back of the camera with all the other manual mode selectors.. what a stupid place to put it! Was always wondering why it'd lock me out of the function sometimes and why I could sometimes still adjust it even when the camera was on fully auto or Lock mode.

i use manual exposure. But if you use auto exposure and for example you film sky and then with same shot you move down to shoot street, then exposure changes automaticaly and it looks almost as stupid as auto white balance...
i would avoid that...