Using FPGA to interface with a camera via 1394/firewire
To be honest, if your goal is to get video/pictures from a camera onto a FPGA-based device, a firewire camera is the wrong starting point. You probably should find a camera more suited to your purpose with an easier interface to use. This probably also has the advantage of being much smaller than an off-the-shelf camcorder.

Wait, am I misunderstanding something? I just looked a bit at the link describing the board that has your FPGA on it, and it says it already has a camera built into it? (Omnivision OV5610 5.17 megapixel color CMOS image sensor array). Are you saying it's using Firewire for the on-board connection between the FPGA and the built in camera?