Hello
I am a new owner/ user of the Vixia hv40. I bought this camera for my school and students are working on shooting and editing their own projects. For the record I have found the HV40 to be a great camera so far.

I cannot seem to override the auto iris. Our work requires a lot of light changes and I need to be able to manually set the exposure. I have exhausted the manual and cannot seem to find out how to override the iris.

Can anyone help?
Thank you so much
Amy

Hi Amy,

Click the center of the toggle at the back - it says SET on it. Click it down once so it says EXP. Click it up once more so the - and + turn white. You're now able to override the iris setting by clicking left or right. A trick to make sure you're not dipping into gain (thus adding grain to the image) is to push the PHOTO button behind the zoom rocker so you can see the fstop the camera is currently at. (There needs to be a miniSD card in the camera for this to work.) The goal is to keep the camera at f1.8 or smaller (more closed down). If you're adjusting the EXPosure to get a brighter image but the fstop is already at f1.8 the camera is adding gain. At that point its time to lower the shutter speed or add more light if you want the cleanest image.

Joel,
Thank you so much for your help. We are slowly becoming masters. I appreciate you taking the time to explain it well.
Amy

When I press the photo button, I just get the red flashing warning that I'm not in photo mode. When I go into photo mode, that button just takes a picture!

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Do you have a memory card in the camera?

yes I do. This is very odd. Pressing the Photo button 1/2 way should produce the display discussed. But when I do that, I get a red flashing warning in the lower left corner of the display. Looks like a little red house with the word "off" on it. I just erased all the images on the miniSD card, and can take photos. Just can't do this technique in any mode.

Did you format the card It must be done in the camera

Sounds like maybe you haven't enabled Simultaneous Still Image Recording in video mode (the default out of the box is off). It's accessed via the Function button. See pages 57-58 of the manual for details.