thanks Bryan for all the help and I hope all my decisions will turn out for the best in the long run.

One more quick point that is off topic but since you seem to be all knowing on Sony cameras and I am going to need to protect my investment -- Any recommendation for a VX series camera bag.

I was looking through the camera catalog BH sent me and the Lowepro Commercial AW DV bag looked like it would hold a bunch of room for asseccories for 188.95.

Of course you might know of a good hard case for it that is not over priced like the Sony model and so I thought I would bug you one more time. BH is out of stock on the Sony hard case so it must be a big seller. It does look like it would hold a great deal of equipment. Of course I am not sure I want to advertise to everyone on trips that I am carrying around an expensive Sony Camera since their logo in on the outside.

PortaBrace, Petrol and Kata all make excellent cases. They aren't cheap but they're extremely functional. I use a portabrace CS-DV3. The DV4 wasn't out at that time and it looks to be a nice case.
http://www.portabrace.com/asp/ProdDesc.asp?DescCode=CS

Aside from being very functional and made for the camera it provides pretty good shielding for bumps and thumps.

The petrol PCUB or PCCB look to be of the same quality.

http://www.petrolbags.com/cgibin/store/ptlstore.cgi

Neither bag looks like a camera bag. They look to be a very well made carry on.

They aren't cheap but they're lightyears ahead of the competition. JMHO.
Beas

Bryan, any vignetting with that Hoya on the Optex?
What do they call their thin filters?

There is no vignetting even on my production monitor looking at underscan. The glass is 1mm thick and the ring 3mm.
it's a super HMC Pro1. It has 12 coatings, 6 on each surface.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=168217&is=REG

http://www.2filter.com/prices/specials.html

It's $103 at B&H and Filter connection.
The filter connection has 20% off and free shipping. That works out to $83 including shipping