Hi Greg, I work solo a lot of the time. It sounds and appears (by your work) that you already have a good deal of what you need (gear and knowledge) to do the work that lays ahead. When planning your approach to collecting the material for your thesis, will you require equipment that you don't already have? For example lights? If not, keep the Canon. I kept mine because it's a solid photo camera that just works and will keep working. God knows about the Sony stuff and what the depreciation will be like on it in the next year or 2. But if you've currently in a cycle where you don't feel the need to shoot stills for the next period (say a year or more) then maybe it's ok to dump the Canon for something knowing that you will pick up something better down the road. In the end, you will make/ find more money down the road to buy new equipment anyway. Hope that helps.