How did *you* choose your primes?

How did I choose my primes? By selecting those with tje combination of focal length, speed, weight, IQ and other features (e.g. IS, tilt-shift, macro) closest to what I needed, of course...

In this priority when I bought my primes:

1)Focal Length
2)AF accuracy and consistency
3)IQ - sharpness, Contrast, Saturation, Bokeh, etc.
4)Speed - prefer faster than f/1.8
5)construction

Price never an issue, if I can't afford it then I'll save up and wait till I have enough cash to buy it. AF accuracy is utmost important once I figured out what focal length I need. Other criteria like IQ, speed and everything else won't mean a darn thing to me if the lens can't focus worth a crap.

Thanks everyone for your great replies so far! When I came back to POTN this evening I was surprised and flattered to have gathered four pages of responses already.

ccp900 wrote in post #10883089
some people use software to get statistics based on their historical shots.

This is an outstanding idea that hadn't crossed my mind! I am definitely going to try it.

software is a nice starting point, but since I have had 30mm and 50mm primes, it shows me that I shoot at 30 and 50 a lot. It doesn't tell me if those were good focal lengths for the shots or if I even like them. So don't count on them 100%

spamster wrote in post #10882999
Focal lengths that I find myself enjoying.

Pretty much this. So 28mm/50mm/135mm for me and with that knowledge gained I go out and choose the best lenses that fit my budget.