Granted the 5D Mark III and Nikon D800 are directed towards completely different markets. I don't get why everyone is still trying to justify one camera over the other... For me, coming from a 5D Mark II; I am very pleased with the improvements in the Mark III and can understand why there was a price jump. [...] In other words I wouldn't trade the performance of the Mark III for the megapixels of a D800 just to save $500.
It appears that the Nikon (Sony) sensors are delivering significantly better dynamic range; for me the price of the 5D3 would be much more acceptable if the sensor wasn't like a generation back in this respect.
The other issue is that I got the 5D2 for landscapes and studio, the best choice for the price at the time; of course the 5D3 doesn't do anything worse than the 5D2, but compared to the D800 the situation is suddenly reversed:
The 5D3 is a very well rounded wedding/street/journalist/(sport) camera, and the D800 would be my first choice for landscape and studio. If it weren't for all the Ls in my cupboard...
What I'm seriously wondering: Is the inferior sensor technology just a temporary "one horse pulling ahead, then the other", or is this the first step of Canon being left behind due to inferior engineering and/or less economy of scale compared to Sony.
(To use the analogy of 3D video cards for computers, is Canon a Matrox or 3dfx, or are they an ATI or Nvidia?)