I can honestly tell you, my first impression was changes were made to the footages in post production ; color, hue etc. BUUUTTT What surprises me, not only the video was unedited in ANY way, but the sheer quality that came from the 5d mkII (albeit using very expensive glasses!!...gotcha). Its excellent.nevertheless, the Canon 5d MkII presented me with the possiblity of having the best of both worlds. Photography AND videography. We were thinking of the getting either the cinemek g35, the highly recommended letus extreme, redrock m2 and many other high quality lens converters. So we can just spend more for the prime lenses.

This versus the sony HZ7P with interchangeble lens..hmmmm..what made me think about the lens converter was the light loss. Some -1/2 light loss, some even go to -2.

The Canon however can shot with prime lens and the iso boosted to even iso3200 as in the examples from reverie; see alex rush red dress shot.

the price was nearly sgd5k here in Singapore. body only. rest assured that the following lenses are needed to get more or the less the same effect; (taken from reverie tech.equip)

EF Lenses used in the making of REVERIE:
FD 7.5mm f/5.6 (converted to EF mount)
EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye
EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM
EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
EF 50mm f/1.2L USM
EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM
EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM
EF 135mm f/2L USM
EF 200mm f/1.8L USM
EF 400mm f/2.8L IS USM
EF 500mm f/4L IS USM
TS-E 24mm f/3.5L
TS-E 45mm f/2.8

enlighten me on the use of cheaper (not necessarily inferior)sigma or tamron prime lenses...than the canon ones..

read more about vincent rant here and his behind the scene video. 5D mk II specs in US here and Singapore's Canon here.

so..should i get the canon 5dmkII? you know what still bugs me? the 12 minute windows recording on a single..i assume maximum size lexar file. it reminds me of the p2 panasonic cards.

Edited 5th April2009; Unfortunately this came to light. Just food for thought...the shutter mechanism and undue exposure of the sensor to the air.

DSLR is unlike the Videocam where the lens and the sensor are housed in air tight (or close to air tight) compartment where dust don't dirty the interior. The same cannot be said about DSLR because the main feature of the SLR is the interchangeable lens and depending on where the equipment is used, the air in the compartment will be dirtier than the video cam.

Next of course is the shutter mechanism. Everytime the shutter is released, it has to hold it open. Akin to an arm holding the window open, think how long the mechanism will last?

And the above is also due to the usage of live view which shortens the life span of the mechanism too. Live view is a good addition if used sparingly but I find more and more people using it without understanding that it may shorten the life of the product.

Some people might say that's paranoid. As things do spoil if over used or overexposed, putting in the video in just makes maintenance all the more frequent but how many consumers who bought such DSLR actually do maintenance?

There are many things to improve the DSLR but having the video is something for us to think about. I am also sure that Sony is brewing something to ensure that the A800 has HD video capability.