camera for human rights doc

I am planning on making a documentary in the UK, India, SA and Finland documenting the stories of victims of human rights abuse.

I have very little camcorder knowlegde. Can anyone advise me on which camera I should buy. He is as much info about the project and my requirements:

- I have a budget of 1000 pounds max.

- I will be interviewing victims and so need good sound as well - so needs external mic or should I go for a seperate sound recorder and edit the two together?

- I will be filming victims on the move as they visit locations in their areas so I think I need good auto focus and image stabiliser and potentially good optical zoom

- I will have a lot of footage so I need to be able to store it easily

- I want the doc to be viewed on dvd and distributed with a book i am writing and on website blog - I need the viewer to take it seriously and not notice that it is filmed by an amateur and not say 'this is crap quality' but I do not need it to be broadcast quality.

- I need something reasonably portable and light and hardy to take with me on my travels,

- I may be filming in low light but I am not sure of this - I will look to avoid it but this may be a consideration.

- Essntially should I go for handycam such as Canon Legria HF S100 Camcorder or should I go for a shoulder mounted camera such as Canon XH A1s (or something a bit cheaper) and try and get it second hand. Do I need this type of pro camera for my project do you feel?

- In summary, Which camera should I go for and which sound equip should I go for?

Best wishes,

Jonny Butterworth
 
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