hi shara,
i dont want to burn my fingers anymore in saying that one system is "the best", cause its
1. somehow subjective and
2. depends too much of the indivdual shooting style.
so everyone knows his system best and also there is a human tendency to justify such huge investments.
i would say which is best depends at first on the subjects you want too shoot. so for fashion or for longtime exposures i would prefer another back than for architecture
. as you easily can see, in this treat also, we fight us with arguments just to come to the result that many of these lenses and backs we are talking about can make stunning results......
its for sure not easy to decide where to jump in. even i dont advise to rent gear, cause the learning curve is too big with each tool, you just will scratch the surface and so it remains a decision which is not founded on a serious "quality" comparation.
even less i would suggest to let you demonstrate the gear by some dists of the company, probably noone will tell you the true shortcomings of their products, these guys want to sell you something not to chase you away...
i can tell you for me... and for my way to work, my emotion sinar backs are doing a very good job, but till i could say that it was not an easy way also.
my gottschalt camera is very special but surely for architecture its very usefull, but an alpa or cambo will do it also, maybe with some features less or more..... but its possible to make great images with them as well ( as with my ricoh gr8 too ).
what amazes me is that so many here have so high illusions either in the H3 or in the AVI/HY6.
i bought some weeks ago a contax 645 camera together with 5 excellent zeiss lenses, waistlevel and prism finder, battery grip, film and pola backs ( which i probably never will use ) for around $5500 all together. thats a lot of money saved in comparation to the new mf system cameras and i cant see what they should do better ( maybe aside from the "sw corrected" 28mm hassy lense ).
in general i think it might be impossible to go in a shop, to pay $ 50.000,-- and to come out with a system which works flawless and easy. digital mf does not work in this way. these backs are not "consumer" products, they act a little bit as racing cars, which means it can be pretty uncomfortable to use them for driving to the shopping center,- and if you dont know how to use these cars they even will not move you 1 meter forward,- but ofcourse they can be fast in the right hands.
you will know more ( or be much more confused ) after reading some of the longer treads here in these forum.....