so i recently got sony vegas 6, and im saving my summer job money for my first camera. i am new to this so i need some advice.

i'm thinking of getting a sony hdr-hc1 for the sake of it being compact and being HD. are there any severe limitations of this camera that i should know about? i have looked around for info on the internet, and i cant really tell what sets this apart from, say, a gl2, or a dvx100. zooming capabilities, image quality, aperture setting, etc...

if i do get the hdr-hc1, i will probably want to save up for some lenses as well... probably one telephoto and two wide-angles (one being fisheye... im a big fan of fisheye). what size lenses would fit the hdr-hc1?

also, how exactly does aspect ratio work? is that something i will have to crop in my editing program? or is it a controllable option on the camera? i'd really like to shoot in 2.35:1 for this project im writing.

for sound i will probably get a portable 4-track and a directional mic with a boom. are clip-on mics really a necessity? on one hand it would be nice to have distinct tracks recorded to pan about the stereo spread, but then again i dont want to have to deal with sound leaking between mics and the resulting phase issues (ive done audio recording for music, and phase issues can be tough to juggle). i will probably have some stuff (where moving lips wont be visible) re-recorded with my condenser mic and protools mbox. i have waves diamond and izotope ozone plugins to process audio. i will probably do the "foley art" myself since im really into sound design.

also, any recommendations on extra equipment that can help? i am about to make one of those homemade steadicams ( http://www.cs.cmu.edu/?johnny/steadycam/), i already own an ok tripod, and i will probably get a wheelchair as well. what other accessories (within a reasonable price range) could help me work the camera?

my final question involves lighting. i will shoot some stuff outdoors in natural light so that wont be an issue, but i would really like to have some night time scenes and some indoors scenes. any recommendations on how this can be pulled off with a low budget? im looking for a kind of edgy, high-contrast image, and i heard that they pulled this off in the godfather with cheap indoor lighting (no standard studio lighting systems). anyone have any info or links to tutorials regarding how to work with contrast and colors with lighting, on a budget? i can do color correction in vegas but i dont want to have to rely on that, i would like to have a good raw image coming into the camera.

thanks everyone for your time, any advice would be much appreciated.