Well folks, here’s something I haven’t been expecting for a little while longer: our Canon 5d Mark II units are now in general stock. Heck, we have enough to call stock.

Since I hired in here back in October, the shadow of the Mark II has loomed across the world of digital photography. Being one of three 20+ MP cameras on the market (including the D3x from Nikon and the alpha 900 from Sony), it’s already a big deal but the inclusion of HD video and a more than perfunctory marketing emphasis on that feature sets it apart from the others.

Now that the Mark II is, presumably, to become more widely available I’m intrigued to see what more amateur videographers (or photographers dabbling in shooting video) will produce with it. I am faced with the reality that it is primarily a still camera designed to take advantage of Canon’s powerfuL lens set so the novelty of shooting HD video seems the sort of practice that will remain a fringe phenomena until the invisible hand pushes expense relative to other comparable options down. Of course, those on the fringe can as easily be on the cutting edge as the trailing and in that regard -being the first or last of a trend- has for me a mystique. Aren’t the brief, the rare, and the elusive things the more difficult subjects of the photographic craft? Ok, maybe finding right moment is the difficult part.

Here’s hoping for this being the cutting edge of media, not the trailing.