MacBook Air. They are the only Macs made in the last 10+ years that don't have a firewire port. The MacBooks announced today at the Apple WWDC have a firewire 400 port. http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs.html

The only way you will get video from a miniDV camcorder into a Mac is via firewire. That means replacing or augmenting your current computer. There is no way to add a firewire port to a MacBook that does not have one - so "augmenting" = another Mac just for importing.

If you are unwilling or unable to "augment" or replace, then you are stuck with non-tape... specifically, hard disc drive or flash memory. I would suggest skipping hard drives and would suggest you investigate flash memory. The ONLY one that meets most of your requirements is the Canon FS series (specifically, the FS100). The FS series cams have a mic jack, too... but no manual audio control.

There is no camcorder under about US$1,400 that does well in "low light". Only Sony has the built-in infreared emitter with the NightShot, NightShot Plus or SuperNightShot Feature for zero-light monochrome video.

Two more advantages to flash memory is that it uses less power - so longer battery life between charges) and other than the zoom and focus, there are no motors - which means less noise when you want to be really discrete out in the wild.

For both flash memory and HDD camcorders, you will want to download/install/use MPEG StreamClip. You need to convert the files form the camcorder to a format the Mac's editors can understand (MOV or MP4) before you can start editing.

Use a "softy" for mic wind noise reduction/elimination... Also called a "Dead Cat"... there are consumer-cam stick on fuzzies that can do a pretty good job.

I don't know about the time lapse capability. Sony calls it Interval Recording. The other option is to just speed up a long video capture in post.

Download and read through the manual for whatever camcorder you *think* looks interesting...