I have owned the following cameras: EOS 30D, 40D, 50D, EOS 5, EOS 1D Mark III.
I am a semi-professional photografer and I have published 8 books with more than 2000 pictures taken with these cameras. I am not a new beginner.
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I worked with the camera with no problem a couple of months ago, stored it about two weeks without taking the lens off, when I took it out again I could not use the camera. When I took the lens off both the focusing screen and the superimpose plate fell out of the camera house.
This has happened on numerous occasions for several users even on brand nes cameras, see: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-eos-5d-mk-ii-hd/484053-focusing-screen-fell-out.html
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Canon does not acknowledge this problem and do not accept that this is a construction fault or a guarantee matter. I had to pay fully for the “repair”, even though they “found nothing wrong with the camera house”.
This is obviously a bad construction!
I cannot recommend this camera house to anyone because I just can´t trust it anymore working out there on a sports arena or taking pictures out in the field, worryingabout the entire thing falling apart!

Very unprofessional behaviour of Canon Corp!

Since I don’t have the camera – we return them as soon as we’re done reviewing them – I can’t tell you any more than what’s in my review, which I felt was quite thorough. I recommend you read it again, and if you have specific questions about certain features, I’ll certainly try to help.

Thank you

Great review. A few things I’d like to add:

1) the high-ISO capabilities of this camera are not to be underestimated. Someone told me, “If you can see it, you can shoot it with this camera.” They were right. I’ve taken night-time shots, moonlit shots … High ISO capabilities will save you in many situations and locations. Dark wedding venues? No problem. Shooting sports in dark gymnasiums? No problem.

2) I recently went and shot a lot of sports over a three week period (at the Deaflympics – photos at http://photos.usdeaflympics.com ) – I was packing a 5D Mark II and a 1 D Mark III. The 5DII photos were consistently clearer, had less noise, and were sharper than the 1DIII images. After several days, I traded in the 1DIII for another 5DII – and it did great on the 300 f/2.8, 400 f/2.8.

3) Much ballyhoo is made about the “extra reach” of the 1.6 crop factor. There is no extra reach. It is just a cropped sensor. If you want the apparent extra reach of a crop factor sensor, then just take the picture with a full-frame camera, and crop to the middle, discarding the outer pixels.

4) 21 megapixels isn’t really necessary in most situations for a final print. However, having 21 megapixels to START WITH allows for much more creativity in cropping to a final image. I can crop a horizontal to a vertical (or vice versa), and still have an image that can print large.

5) The movie function – I agree, it’s not as easy as your Handycam – but it is capable of so much more. Right now, it’s the equivalent of an Indy 500 racecar – amazing capabilities, but it’s missing a lot of comfort. Look at the work of Vincent Laforet, and many others, to see what they are doing with this camera. There is a convergence coming, and the 5DII is at the forefront of this.

Keep up the good work.