So ultimate electronics lost my MiniDV camera and I get money to buy a new one. I'd like to upgrade right away. I'm looking into the High Definition camcorders mainly for deer hunting and making them into movies. I found that some of the ones around $800 actually have manual focus, which is a huge plus. Any other advice from you guys? I've been hearing to go with the SD card models so that you don't have a damageable hard drive inside the camera. And it makes them lighter with just having an SD card.

The hard drive cameras also take sd cards. i personally like hard drive cameras, for 1 they hold alot of hours of footage plus you can use your sd card whenever you want.