What factors have the greatest influence in choosing a DSLR Body or System?

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rkodama1
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What factors have the greatest influence in choosing a DSLR Body or System?
5 months ago

For the last year, I have been shooting with a 7D and a 5DMKII and for the most part, I have been happy with this combination:  The 7D for soccer and high school sports and the 5D for everything else.  A few weeks ago I decided to give my 7D to a family member so this created a dilemma for a replacement body.   I went with the 5DMKIII through the Adorama deal – 5DMKIII, 24-105L and 600EX for $3900.  I am selling my 5DMKII/24-105L kit and 580EXII and will go forward with a single body approach.  I did consider a 6D and possibly moving to Nikon but ended up with the MarkIII.  As I read many of the Canon vs. Nikon threads (which many have been reduced to chest pounding, my-sensor-is better-than-yours, childish mudslinging), I started to think about what factors had the greatest influence on my decision.

Here is in order of priority the main features, benefits and factors that drove my choice.  It was much more difficult than I thought to document them and some of these are very general.  I probably need to vet this list and it will probably change as I think about it more. The top 5 items had the greatest weight on my final choice.

  1. Lens Investment and satisfaction with current system
  2. AF system and performance
  3. High ISO performance
  4. Resolution
  5. Frames per second and buffer
  6. Price
  7. Dynamic Range
  8. Built-in flash (for convenient fill flash)
  9. Ergonomics and control navigation
  10. Weather sealing

For those cynics who believe that I listed DR lower in my list because Canon sensors are weaker in this area, all I can say is this is my honest perspective.  While DR is important, with the advent of HDR software I feel less strongly about this area.  Also, when I look at my photos, I see a very limited number of shots that can significantly benefit from greater DR where there is a much larger group for high ISO noise.  In the end, choosing a camera or system is always a compromise and this list tries to show my thought process on how I made my decision.

So, how would you rank the areas that have had the greatest influence on your DSLR choice?

--
Randy

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