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Hi Lynden and welcome to DVinfo!
The PDX-10 actually has a little wheel inside it with several ND filters. Sony has never documented it, but if you shine a flashlight into the lens and turn the iris wheel you'll see it moving in there. You can't control it manually, and you can't disable it. But it just automatically does its thing, which is to force you to use iris openings that make the lens perform well. So the end result is, you simply can't close the iris down very far. I can't remember the specifics, but I don't think the iris ever closes much further than f5.6. Instead, the camera drops in successively darker ND filters. But if you play a tape back and look at the data code.... it lies! The data code will tell you that a small aperture was used when in reality it is a medium aperture with a heavy ND filter.
But to get back to your question #1; yes, I would get a couple different ND filters - including the densest one you can find. I haven't really shot in the snow before, but at the beach on a sunny day I was glad to have my ND filter. If you don't have one then you'll be forced to use very high shutter speeds and this may create a strange effect with motion. I believe that high shutter speeds also contribute to the vertical smear problem on the PDX-10.
DVCAM vs DV SP - it's up to you really. If this is really important stuff then it can't hurt. Of course the quality will be the same, but it might be less prone to dropouts. But you will need 50% more tape.
I would not reuse the same tapes personally. They're cheap enough - how many hours total do you plan to shoot?
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