I'm getting a 5D Mark II. Enough of these bells and whistles. I want image quality - not a small rotating LCD nor a tachometer.

That's it - I'm getting a Canon 5D Mark II. Better image quality and less whistles.

but (the) said outlet?

Canon is SOOOOOOOOOOOO going down with this one. It's taken them 3 months to get out their 5D Mark II, and guess what? It's barely even out. The D3X is just about OUT.

If you compare the specs, the 5D Mark II absolutely SUCKS. It's destroyed. The D3x uses the same high performance lithium-ion battery (EN-EL4a) as the D3. The 5D2 uses a pathetic new battery format that costs hundreds.

Canon is going DOWWWWWWWWWNN.

Simple. I'd pull it off the shelves and recycle the parts.

My point wasn’t that people will RTFM. My point was that the D700 has way more useful features than the 5D2 and this is evidenced by the size of the manual. Virtual horizon, matrix metering, real spot metering, and more (i.e. non-invisible) AF zones are a few examples. 5D2’s measly 9 AF points cause distraction since you have to keep recomposing shots. Cheapest price anywhere for 5D2 batteries is $150 - 4x price of Nikon D700 batteries to recovery camera manufacturing cost. Nikon doesn’t rip off everyone like Canon does. It’s easy to get a cheap D700 now

5D2 = bulkier 40D + Video + FF sensor + 21mp + IR detector + way less FPS. That’s it! 40D does ISO 6400 too! Higher ISO is useless. 5D2 is more expensive than the D700 thanks to $200 batteries! Nikon charges $40 for Nikon EN-EL3e (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/409071-REG/Nikon_25334_EN_EL3e_Rechargeable_Lithium_Ion_Battery.html)

5D2 + 3 batteries + tax = $3840 (ripoff!)
D700 + 3 batteries + tax = $2904

Buy Nikon, save $$, get more features.

D700 manual is 472 pages, 5D2 manual is less than half of that. Pay more for Canon, get less than half as much as Nikon.

Is that even a camera?

You can pay $1700 for a D700 and get no noise, or pay $1500 for a 50D and get plenty of noise, or pay $500 for a 40D and get a little bit of noise. Nikon beats Canon again !

Yeah, the 50D is pretty fucked up. They're just making the 40D even worse by throwing in a couple of new parts (crammed sensor and digic 4) and changing the label on the outside. Hopefully their 6D won't be the same - just a few more megapixels and useless features. At least nikon has a bubble level built into the D700 - that's useful. Squishing megapixels and providing "light balancing" crap that photoshop or a filter can do is a waste of time. They knew their 40D was bad, so they release a "replacement" 10 months later. Seems like they liked their 5D in comparison - no release for 3 or so years.