I hate the consumer camcorder look of the HC-1 without the lens shade- does that shade come with the HC-1 or is that an optional part?

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/images/upload/Image/Sony/Sony%20HDR-HC1/Sony-HDR-HC1_vanity(1).jpg

http://ai.pricegrabber.com/product_images/9108000-9108999/9108731_640.jpg

The good news is it comes with it
The bad news is you can't attach filters to the front (no thread) or back ( two tabs in the way)
sigh

Horrible.............should've threaded the shade- I believe B&H sells shaded 37mm rings- would fix the probelm but wont look too pretty!

You can attach a 37 mm filter to the front of the supplied hood. I have done it. Granted, because the threads are plastic you don't want to be putting it on and taking it off a lot. I suggest installing it and never taking it off. If you need to clean it on the inside, take the hood off along with the attached filter and blow it or wipe it or whatever.

Problem with that Lynne is that the front-mount onto the HC1 hood isn't actually a screw-thread. - it's concentric rings for the lens cap to clip onto.

So by screwing in a filter, you'll be damaging the rings. Not a problem if it's kinda a one-shot thing but there is another solution : several people have removed the two plastic tabs and this enables you to mount a filter between camera and the hood. Score the tabs with a knife and then bend them til they break off. Apparently it works.

rgds

Not to quibble, but the Sima filter I have screwed on the hood itself has deep enough walls to also hold the lens cap in place. So I think if one gingerly and carefully mounts the filter onto the hood without stripping the threads, you're good to go. But like you said, plan to keep that filter in place and not be taking it off very many times.

Because the HC-1 uses such tiny chips it's actually better if you can live without a filter of any kind. If you really feel you must have one, place it as physically close to the front element as you can - and certainly not 9 mm away inside the lens hood.

This is because of the huge depth of field that's always on tap. Especially down the wide-angle end of the zoom, and even though the internal NDs are often not allowing you to shoot below f/4.5. A filter is never really clean, and the more glass you place in front of your lens, the more surfaces you're introducing. These surfaces bring flare and dust and fingerprints.

tom.

Tom's right that these cams all have huge DOF and it's really important to keep filters clean.
I've got a 37mm 0.7x wide-angle lens often mounted on the front, and so that front-element will be approx. 2.5 inches in front of the camera's own front element. If WA lens glass isn't immaculately clean, the camera can and will focus on dust and specks on the WA lens glass, when shooting into or near a light source.

Hc1 isn't the wors for this as it's got 1/3rd inch chip which unless you spend huge money is about as big as comsumer cams chips are at the moment. Even the Z1 has same size 1/3rd in. chip (but 3 of them of course..)