welcome to the world of video! yes it is hard to find the camera that fits your needs, u first need to decide what u want out of it.
1. is the picture quality most important?
2. is the long range veiw most important?
3. and what about size?
4. digital, or not?
here is what i bought CANON ELURA 70, heres why
1. it has 1,330,000 pixels= how good picture quality is average is 800,000
2. it is a digital, record by tape or by memory card, it also takes still pictures
3. it is small, about the size of a grapefruit!
4.optical zoom of 18, that is the important zoom, it also has 360 digital zoom, not so important
5.and of coarse image stablize, real important
6. the price= $450-550.00 depends on what software comes with it, and what memory card.
hope this gives u some idea, oh and 50 yards u can count the hairs on their back at that range!