The Empire... er... Canon strikes back

So the long awaited announcement for the 5D replacement came today... "Destined Evolution"

So here are the key specs for the 5D Mk II from DP Review

• New 21.1 Megapixel CMOS sensor with improved EOS Integrated Cleaning System (E.I.C.S.)
  
• New Full HD 1080 resolution movie recording
  
• 3.9 frames per second continuous shooting
  
• High performance DIGIC 4 providing superb image quality
  
• Maximum 310 large JPEG images in a single burst with a UDMA card
  
• 3.0” VGA (920k dots) Clear View LCD
  
• ISO 100-6400 (expansion from 50 up to 25,600)
  
• 9 AF points + 6 Assist AF points
  

So... it looks pretty sexy to me :). 21 MP is great, but far beyond what I'd need... tho it'd be great for large poster sized prints (you know... like for my living room wall). The real sexy thing is the movie mode, sure Nikon came out with movie mode first on the D90... but full HD 1080 resolution movie mode... I can't wait to try it out!  The higher ISO performance is also kind of exciting, but I'll have to wait to see the full review and test shots... Either way, I'm not one to pre-order, but I am certainly going to watch my spendings a lot more carefully in the up coming months.

Canon also announced a new EF 24mm f/1.4 L Mk II lens.  Great for them, but not so much for me. They also announced a few point and shoot upgrades:

• Canon Powershot G10 - The best point and shoot offered by Canon. 15 mp and 5x zoom (28mm wide)
• Canon Powershot SX10 and SX1 - Two new compact super zoom  (20X!!!) offered by Canon, with image stabilization. SX1 also has 1080p HDTV movie capture mode.... Sweet!
• Canon IXUS 870 IS and 980 IS - Great super compact P&S... some new features which is always cool :).

So things have finally gotten interesting. Now we'll have to see how Pentax, Olympus and Sony will respond.