The lens appears to be fine!

Good news!
The foreign body inside the camera lens is not visible at all when filming. I took some footage at various zooms and light exposures and on the computer screen I can't see anything untowards. What a relief!!
On a side note, the footage is lovely, it has so much more richness and depth than my trusty Panasonic camcorder, which despite being a consumer camcorder can still produce above average imagery in the right settings. Controlling the focus will still be tricky. The focus ring will help, but it has no markings as it is essentially an electronic focus ring, not a classic manual one, and I still don't quite trust autofocus to be looking at the right things at the right time.

Had my weekly wobble this morning, where I wake up panicking and feeling crushed under the weight of my various projects, wanting nothing more than to jack it all in and regain all my time, spending entire weeks ensconced in bed watching movies and eating cake with Dee. You see, as well as the video projects (got two on at the moment) I also work as a 3d model builder, level designer and producer on a video game project and I have a full time job with up to 3 hours of commuting a day. It's no wonder I feel overwhelmed. These wobbles always seem to follow the weekends, probably a side effect of the Monday blues. But this morning I have sat down and started tackling the problems that I imagine will cause me the most stress, and I've actually managed to work out creative solutions for nearly all of them, and I feel so much better and re-invigorated about the project.

I'm actually quite glad that I have certain restrictions regarding the amount of control I have over certain areas in which we will be filming. It means I have to be creative and plan things out to get the best out of a situation. It's always good to have limits and obstacles to your work, it gives you focus.