Hi,
I currently have a jvc dx75 which i bought two years ago now and am now looking to replace.
I ride downhill mountain bikes and i make videos of this. my current camera is just not upto the job. Its light levels are rubbish, making filming wooded sections too dark an open stuff way too bright and with no light setting except for the lcd screen it makes the videos look rubbish. im looking for a camera that isnt too expensive but with allow me to make good quality videos, it needs to be able to recird good quality video and deal wih low and high light levels. zoom is not a massive issue to be honest and im not really bothered how much zoom the camera has got, a biasic 10x will do. I dont really know what i should be buying to be honest and am looking for a bit of guidance. is dv the way to go or 8mm/16mm. the ability to put diffrent lenses on would be extremely helpful. any suggestions at what to buy, whih will suit my requirements but be below £1000 will be much appreciated

I am not sure what is available for that price, as uk prices differ greatly to Australia, but if you want interchangable lenses the xl2 is probably worth a look. if you are mounting it on a bike a smaller camera might be better though. to that end something like the gs120 panasonic or the slightly better 400. difficult though as when you are ridding a bike you can't really make manual exposure changes and even the best auto exposure systems will lag behind as you move from light to dark and vice versa, maybe if you ride more slowly and manually change exposure, speeding the footage up in the editing process. otherwise do a pre ride to determine light and dark levels and set the camera at a best compromise setting manually

thanks for the reply. I wouldnt be riding and filming, i would be filming others riding. although i would probably inves in a helmet cam. ill check out your suggestions. If you have any others bearing in mind that size and strapping it to a bike isnt an issue that would be great. Thanks alot for you help, once i know what should be looking at spec wise i can start checking out a few different models.

thanks dave