It’s no secret that HDV camcorders have not been able to pull in as much light as their SD compatriots. (at least until the HVR-S270 & Z7 arrive)
Primarily this has to do with itty-bitty HD imaging chips squeezing in as many as 6x the number of pixels into the same physical space as SD chips. Each individual pixel has to be so much smaller that it can’t possibly gather the same amount of photons.
Well, FreshDV has a pair of very clean tiff images comparing Sony’s new PMW-EX1 to the HDR-FX1, what I’ll call Sony’s last CCD-based HDV camcorder. (or last CCD-based non-CineAlta HD camcorder.) We’ll see…
You can see that the EX1 has a clear advantage over the FX1.
Or should I say is dramatically improved.
Maybe that’s why the EX1 wears the CineAlta badge.
Well, that, and the ability to shoot 60p to flash media. :)
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I E B A Tech Thoughts 
We also did a side by side (unscientific) test of our new EX1 and our venerable PD170 to compare low light performance between the two cameras. I started the test with the opnion that the PD170 would win. It was just a matter of by how much. Well, amazingly, the EX1 took top honours. Not by much, but it did win.
– Don