USB MS Lifecam HD 3000 Exposure Issues

[billbo911]

Because of this thread, and because I had some time to kill, I pulled out my RPi 2 and tried a few tests to see what I could figure out for the LifeCam HD-3000 and adjusting exposure.

The first step was to see if

V4l2-ctl -L

would list out a setting for exposure. Sure enough it does. You can set it to manual or Aperture Priority mode (auto).
When in manual mode, you need to set the exposure value with exposure_absolute. The range of values it reports as acceptable are: min=5, max=20000.

In testing I found that it still had what amounted to a binary response to inputs while in manual. Any value above 5 resulted in over exposure. 5 resulted in under exposure. It didn't matter if I used anything from 6 to 20000, it was over exposed. 5 resulted in under exposure.

So now the next test is, can we set it to an exposure_absolute=5 and have a bright enough light shine on the target to get acceptable tracking of the target? (Enter the 3 X 3w LED ring).