Say what you will about Canon, but this video taken with the EOS5D-mkII looks pretty good to my eyes- it’s even shot at night and I can’t see any particular noise or anything. It’s on a tripod, so there’re no jello shots.

It’ll be interesting to see if the D3x has video or when we’ll be seeing a top of the line Nikon body with video.

I’d love to see the same thing compared against the drool-inducing 85mm f/1.2.

Canon EOS5DmkII, One night in Beijing. from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

Ok, she ain’t a dedicated HD video camera, but she actually does pretty well against real video-only cameras if you don’t wobble the camera too much while you’re shooting.

If you can get past the ads between every page, you’ll eventually come to the conclusion- and keep in mind, these are video dorks, not stills-dork (like me):

Comparing the Nikon D90 to HD camcorders may be unfair, but, being the first of its kind, its the only product we could put it up against. The Canon EOS 5D Mark II, the second SLR to record video, has impressive specs—a 1920 x 1080 video quality, stereo microphone input, and an H.264 video compression codec. The question will be, would you rather pay $999.95 ($1299.95 with the lens) to play around with video on the Nikon D90, or shell out $1700 more to get your hands on the Canon? Then, of course, you need to question whether a first generation product is ever a good investment. Stay skeptical.

Here’re some movie samples from Canon’s latest. They look good to me- but putting hot chicks in your samples always works for me so…

Canon eos 5d mark II movie samples

Here is an official sample landscape from Canon taken by the Canon EOS 5d Mark II.

Now- we all know I ain’t no landscape pro (if fact, I’m not a pro at all- I can’t take the vests, they’re so unstylish) but you tell me if this looks great to you:

Canon EOS 5d Mark II

Here’s a portrait and it looks better but I’m not wowed.

So I’m curious, if this is about what we can expect from their new camera, then it looks like all they’re getting is a bigger file.

Maybe this camera will actually be able to focus too! We wish Canon luck.

The sky is not falling- it’s just Canon dropping bombs on our heads.

Canon has announced a new full-frame SLR able to take “full HD” (1080p?) movies.

Oh, and what’s the price? Body-only for $2,699 or $3,499 with Canon’s 24-105mm f/4L IS USM zoom lens.

Canon 5d Mark II

This is actually really good news for us Nikon watchers- given that Sony has a high MP camera (A900) and now Canon has another full-frame high MP camera WITH movies- we’re likely to see a swell machine come out of Nikon sooner than later, I’m guessing.

With the Canon selling for about the same as the D700, it’ll also hopefully put some downward pressure pricing on Nikon too!