Canon 5d mark 2

It delivers good picture quality, good autofocus and light metering.

Canon changed its format raw a little bit, so much so my existing software cs3 can not read, I had to buy an update of cs4 in order to accomodate the new raw format. That adds up to increased cost of using the camera.

The extra "original" battery costs too much, luckily there are substitutes that are more reasonable, but then they require a different charger and is not recognized by the camera on the screen.

Cannon EOS 5D Mark II

This is by far the best camera I have ever owned. Not only does it feel great in your hand when taking pictures, it takes just awesome pictures. You can take pictures with a high ISO and still get beautiful pictures.

Now the best part.... It also takes great video. Canon just released a firmware upgrade that fixed one of my only complaints about the video. Prior to the firmware upgrade, when you shot video you had no manual control over shutter speed, aperture, etc. The latest release of firmware solves that problem.

With this camera, you can get the "look" of a film camera. Something you can not easily get with a regular video camera.

Bottom line. This camera Rocks!

Canon 5DmkII

This is an outstanding camera. High resolution, great ISO range, HD video and many other features. I am using it w/ the 24-70 and 70-200mm canon lenses. Unfortunately for me, I am having focus problems with this particular unit. Very soft images at best. I am having the lenses calibrated to the body. Frankly I don't think one should have to do this with an expensive prosumer camera NIB ! I am very disappointed. What good are 21 megapixels that are out of focus ! The AF system is archaic compared to Canon's other models and esp. compared to Nikon D3 and D700 full frame cameras. I would probably not buy this camera. I know many owners of the original Canon 5D who are keeping their old cameras when buying the new MarkII, because they prefer the old 5D for portrait work. I was planning to use the 5dMkII primarily for landscape work with the large sensor, so I hope I can resolve the problems I am having.
Canon should be ashamed of their QC compared to their competition.

rg rawlins

A professional camera for the amateur photographer!

Awesome camera. Upgraded from a EOS 500D and this feels like shooting a camera for the first time. The body is solid, the viewfinder is bright and big, and coverage is very good as well.

Shooting full frame is a bit of a learning curve at first but once you get a feel for how your lenses perform it's quite enjoyable. The DOF is more narrow than with APS-C. This camera is fantastic for portrait work. The tracking and AF are a bit slow but who cares unless you're a sports shooter. Color rendition and metering are excellent. I'm able to get some fantastic looking portraits with a simple one-light umbrella and this camera.

Landscapes are great too, although highlight range is limited compared to current Nikon and Sony models. This camera DOES have a high DR option(called HTP or highlight tone priority), but you can only shoot from ISO 200-6400. You also lose a little bit of definition in the shadows, but there is a way to get it all- turn on HTP, and expose for about 2/3 to a full stop brighter. Highlights are well preserved and the shadows aren't so dark that they are noisy. If you shoot JPEGs this probably isn't viable, but you won't be doing a lot of post processing anyway (at least like you would with RAW) so you can leave HTP on with 0 EV comp. and still have highlight detail that would otherwise be blown out.

Usability is good, controls are easy and intuitive, although some of the menu items are hidden pretty well (but you can customize them to a favorites tab).

I wish Canon was better about making firmware updates, or allowing 3rd parties to easily mod the OS. I'd love to be able to set up auto-shooting for time lapse videos, or at a minimum have an adjustable timer for longer than 30sec exposures. I'd like more than 2 stop exposure bracketing too, but probably wouldn't use it very often. Maybe all cameras will run on open source code one day?

5D Mark II

It's a great camera, new, exactly what is specified, but it is a grey market camera not a USA waranteed version, they say this in the listing in more or less words but I somehow missed that, so the software is for asia not USA. I happen to already have the software so I wasn't worried, but it was a little annoying and I Can see it being frustrating for others. The instruction booklet is a different size than the standard usa Canon booklets, but it's still got all the info you need. The other stuff that came with it is of course of lesser quality, but hey it's free stuff that comes with a nice camera, so keep it or sell it back to ebay LOL. All in all a fine product from Canon and a worthwhile price when you can't even get one from the stores you can get one from these guys.