Thanks for your input lak and william!!!!! and lak...i am "amateur eyes" too!!!! appreciate your "two bits!!" LOL william, i was gonna IM you tonight and tell you i got cam. glad you popped in here!!! I'm sure I'll definitely be bugging you with questions these days!! thanks for your offer to help!!!! night vision...nah...didn't play with it yet. zoom...yeah, that's first thing i noticed about this cam...zoom is completely different than the other Sony. i do feel quite comfortable already with this cam...has good feel to it and many features are the same. so i'm not completely lost. Can't wait to play with it more!!!! Thanks again to both of you!!!! decisions, decisions....