Canon EOS 5D Mark II Body Only Digital Camera

I guess the real reason for buying the mk 2 was the usual one - gear lust, but my excuses are as follows and to be honest they are very worthwhile improvements over the mk 1: The auto sensor clean is always welcome, not so sure how effective it is yet but anything helps; the increased screen size is always welcome, however the change in control layout takes a little getting used to and has already lead me to almost delete files mistakenly when working quickly and working in the dark (more on revised layout later); the ISO boost has proven incredibly useful to me - my main areas of work are stage and weddings so extra range in this area is a must; the choice of full size or small RAW is very useful for weddings as you have a choice between super quality for shots likely to end up as large prints, or space saving for less crucial stuff. The downsides of this camera include the new layout - particularly on the top panel as this, at least to my mind, was unnecessary with some buttons simply swapping position - again when you're working in the dark you really have to think about whet you're doing - still I suppose I'll get used to it; then there's the battery situation - if you've a BGE4 battery grip and a stock of original mk 1 batteries built up over a couple of years, the change of both of these coupled with the battery price and the general lack of availability at the moment will annoy - I just hope the new battery monitoring facility proves worth the swap - I doubt it somehow. All in all this is a very worthy successor to the mk 1 and I've already taken considerable advantage of the improvements after only about a month of ownership, I would have liked a smoother operational transition however. Shop around for this camera as I've seen prices as high as £2500 body only, but units can be found as low as £1800.