I am unable to record in the minimal lig...

The MIT 305 is a small digital camcorder manufactured by Mitsuba. As with most small digital camcorders, the lens has a tiny aperture (opening) which doesnt gather a lot of light, so performance in dark environments are poor. The best you can do when shooting in a dark environment is to open the EXPOSURE to the highest setting. This lets in the greatest amount of light. Some camcorders have a special night recording feature that when selected, automatically increases the exposure while reducing the recording speed. The drawback is that the images develope an annonying flickering effect due to the slower speed. This poor ability to record in dim light seems to be a problem common to all tiny camcorders. I dont understand why no digital manufacturer wants to implement the infrared techique used by sony on their minidv tape camcorders that allows you to record in total darkness (0 lux.) If you need to record in pitch blackness, you may want to look at Sony camcorders with the "nightshot" feature. The smallest of these is the DCR-PC9.