Lens, Sensor, Memory, and Battery
The Canon EOS 5D Mark II is priced just under $2,700 for the body only and just under $3,400 for the body and the EF 24-105 mm f/4L IS USM lens, which we strongly recommend (if you’ve decided to buy the camera, that is). If you have a couple of lenses that are already in the same focal length area, you should buy it anyway–it is that good a lens and will likely lighten your camera bag as well. We assume that if you are considering buying this camera, you already own at least one other lens.
The EOS 5D Mark II is equipped with a CMOS sensor that measures 24 mm by 36 mm, which is the same size as a frame of 35 mm film. The sensor has 21.1 million effective pixels, equaling the pixel count of the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III (an $8,000 camera). And while the camera has only nine focusing points, compared to the EOS 1Ds Mark III's 45, we did not find this to be detrimental to the operation of the camera nor did it inhibit us in our picture-taking ability.
The camera stores images on a compact-flash memory card. There is only one card slot. Power comes from one of Canon's LP-E6 batteries. You can also purchase a battery grip separately that carries two batteries and extends the picture-taking capability of the camera or you can carry an additional battery, which is something we would strongly recommend. Our testing indicated that we could capture 350-450 RAW images with a fully-charged battery.