My experiment with Micro 4/3 is over for the time being. The Olympus OMD-EM5 took nice pictures and had some nice features, but I never really bonded with it. Given that (as many people have said) camera technology is now good enough that most cameras will get you the pictures you want, then you have to shoot with that which gives you the most pleasure and which feels the best to use. So the OMD got traded in, and I got a pretty reasonable price for it.

For now I'm back with an old friend, the Nikon D7000, which is probably as good as you can get before you hit full frame (and given that we hear about focus issues with the D800 and oil spills with the D600, I'm not inclined to go in that direction). The 7000 ticks a lot of boxes: handles well, very good IQ, can do low light, good AF, does video (for those into video)....oh, and it's QUIET. Put it on "Q" mode and it's not far off the sound of the Fuji X100. Perfect for times when a noisy shutter is going to be a problem.

The title of this post (half) refers to the lens I chose to go with it. Keeping with the "one camera, one lens (or as few as possible)" idea, I took a chance on the 28-300 VR. This lens has seen some fairly heavily worded criticisms leveled at it, mainly from people who don't like the fact that it's not at the absolute top of Nikon's line and has the audacity to be a 10x zoom.  Then I saw Jay Maisel using it on his training videos, and...well, if it's good enough for him, I should have no qualms about using one.

I only picked it up yesterday, but here are some initial shots with the combo.

Couple of shots from a local festival. It was pretty busy, especially given that it was actually incredibly cold.

"Bags"

The cherry blossoms have passed their peak, but that doesn't mean that there's no colour around.

I had an interesting thought this morning: many photography enthusiasts say that prime lenses make you more creative because you have to move to get the shot. I just thought of how zooms could be seen as more creative, but for another reason. Let's say that you're carrying a 50mm lens. Subconsciously, you might only be looking for "50mm shots" because that's the lens you have. You won't look way into the distance or close around, you'll look a little bit ahead because that's the 50mm lens' zone. Whereas when you have a zoom, you will have significantly fewer restrictions on where you will allow yourself to look because you know that you have it covered.

Just a thought, anyway. Here are a couple of shots using the wide end as well (gives the 35mm equivalent of 42mm, which is probably about as wide as I ever shoot).

Some of the cherry blossoms are still out

Local music scene

Tasty car

Pretty flowers

As with every time I exchange cameras, I get inspired and shoot a lot. There should be more pictures (and a few words) coming up soon.

Thanks for looking!