Thinking about GoPro 2 but I want a camera with Zoom and that I can film longer distance shots with.

I've been looking at what I think might be my options and not only do I think I can get a more versatile camera than a GoPro 2 I think I can probably get one cheaper, right? That would be the plan anyway, if its gonna cost a lot more than that sort of range to get a camera that will film with the same sort of quality I'm not really interested.

I don't really know much about cameras and I made this thread by answering all the questions in the what camera thread. I have a Mini DV camera but the quality is shit and trying to get a new laptop that has a firewire port seems not to be possible anymore. so It has come this time to replace my camera.

I have a cheep fish eye for my camera that I use for follow cams. It's not mega wide but think it fits on most cameras around the price I'm looking at, I'm not really interested in a camera that I can't add a fish eye too.

I will almost certainly be using this solely for skiing, maybe for skating too, but its not a priority.

I would like something easy to use mainly cos I would be bribing my friends to be filming me and only using the camera a little bit myself, probably to return the favour, so no ones gonna be pro you know.

I wanna be filming a variety of ways, it will mainly be close up and follow cam like go pro is ideal for but also want to be able to film jumps from a distance and create good shots of that or maybe even powder lines from the bottom using zoom.

I'm gonna be buying a new computer, I'm not gonna be spending a lot though, the ones I'm looking at have about 4gb RAM, 2.1ghz processors and 500gb hard drives and seem to be capable of running hd graphics but I assume they are at the low end of that spectrum.

I'm gonna be editing on Ulead video studio 11 at the moment, I find it easy to use and understand it. If you wanna make a recommendation about a step up from that that I could benefit from then please do. You may be aware that am no film maker.

So guys do you have any suggestions or advice as to what I should be looking at here? Your input would be really helpful. Thanks.