I think in that range, my eyes would land on the HV20 or (new) HV30 which I think are under 1000. With any other money I would get an external boom mic (there are affordable options out there). I think because of the announcement of th HV30 (which does 30p), the HV20 probably will have or just had a big price drop too.

There are also a ton of new cameras coming onto the market - CES just happened.

The HV20 has shot some very nice stuff... If you wanted to spend more, you could get a 35mm adapter for it and then it would have film like depth of field. This will make a bigger difference than most anything else.

Here's a sample of a tricked out hv20 prolost.blogspot.com/2007/08...toy.html


I think ALL indie filmmakers should keep an eye on what RED will announce at NAB - the pocket camera. But that MIGHT be out of your price range, hard to know how consumer they are going for it.

Most of these range of cameras though know will not hand low light situations that great. Even the HVX200 doesn't.