Camcorder with night vision and over 30x optical zoom, mini DV or HDD?

Question

i want to buy a new video camera, right now i have a panasonic pv-gs39 and its a mini DV and im really into video editing stuff. i want to buy a new camera that has well over 30x optical zoom, and a really efficient night vision mode. the problem is that most mini DV dont have night vision and even if they do it probably will have less than 30x optical zoom or vice versa. so i thought i should buy a HDD camera since theres a wide selection of cameras with both features, but how bad would the video quality be compared to the Mini DV? if someone could find me a camcorder thats mini DV with more than 30x optical zoom and a nightvision mode or an HDD camcorder with those features and has video quality almost or just as good as mini DV that would be awesome. im thinking of spending between 400-600 dollars but if u find something thats not in the price range just show me anyway

Answer 1

nightshot is only good for 10 feet, you need an external or alternate infrared light source to get maybe 50 feet.

Sony cameras are the best for that, I prefer the older sony cameras that are modified to have the nightshot made more sensitive.  As for zoom, 560x zoom is fine for me, you can only use 80% of the zoom anyway, then the image gets blurry.

Answer 2

The Sony camcorders with "SuperNightShot" have a built-in infrared emitter so the camera can see in zero light.

MiniDV still provides the best available video quality because DV is the least compressed of the available consumer video formats.

How about the Sony HDR-HC7 or HC9?