When Canon announced the 5D back in 2005, it was a game-changer. The camera was the first full-frame DSLR--meaning that its CMOS sensor is the same size as a frame of 35mm film, about 60 percent larger than the sensors in most DSLRs--in a standard sized SLR body, all for just a bit more than $3,000. Three years later, its successor, the 5D Mark II, pushes the image-quality bar higher and the cost of entry lower. But 2009 offers a more crowded field of competitors, and this camera comes with a few things--like full 1080p HD video--that puts it in a category all its own.

The price has come down, but at $2,699, the new 5D is certainly no entry-level camera. The price does buy quality, however. It’s chunky and well built, has monster resolution, and can produce images that rival anything you’re likely to achieve with a high-end consumer or pro camera.

It’s astounding that the Mark II, at 21.1 megapixels, offers nearly twice the number of pixels as its progenitor without incurring any negative consequences with respect to image quality. In fact, low-light images are actually cleaner--and the ISO range of the camera is as good as it gets--from 100 to 6400 standard, and it can be pushed all the way to 50 on the low end and up to 25600 on the high end.

Throw in automatic dust reduction, live view with contrast detect autofocus, a killer 3-inch LCD, advanced battery management that tracks shooting history and battery stats for up to six batteries, a micro adjust feature to perfectly calibrate the autofocus for each lens in your collection--and there’s enough here to get excited about, if you’re in the market for a high-end piece of photographic equipment.

But let’s be honest. What makes the new Mark II not just an awesome upgrade, but killer device, is what it can do with video: beautiful, crisp, 1080p HD video that easily rivals pro-level cameras.

Forget the stuff you get out of high-end HD digital video camcorders with three chips--this is something altogether different. Because of the huge size of the CMOS sensor in the Mark II, the camera is able to shoot video that looks like what you see in blockbuster films at the theater: totally isolated subjects with razor-thin depth of field (the so called “film look,” where one part of the frame is in focus and the rest is a buttery smooth blur), incredible low-light sequences, and the sharpest, cleanest colors this side of a Hollywood studio. Even the mighty Red One video camera doesn’t have a sensor as large as the one in the Canon.

But as with all good things, there are limitations, and the Mark II has enough video limitations that the world’s filmmakers probably won’t ditch their current rigs. For instance, the longest you can record at full HD is 12 minutes (around 4GB worth of video). It’s not the end of the world--how many films have any single shot that runs longer than a couple minutes? So although it’s not a deal-breaker, it is an inconvenience.

Worse, in video mode, one is left with little in the way of manual controls for things like exposure, aperture, and ISO. A workaround for these issues is to use the video mode with older manual focus, manual aperture lenses that are adapted to work with the camera. But this is a whole separate project.