The cherry blossoms are starting to make their presence known, although this week has been conspicuous by the almost entire absence of the sun. The sky has been one continuous streak of grey for the most part. Not that this is the end of the world; you just shoot the sakura and keep the sky out of it. But I would relish the chance to see some blue to go along with the whites and pinks. They do go well together.

I finally got hold of a second lens for the OMD-EM5. After trying out a few different lenses and suffering from option paralysis, I eventually got the Panasonic 100-300 F4-5.6 with inbuilt stabilisation (which you can use, or you can use the OMD-EM5's inbuilt stabilisation system, which is very good). I'd been debating what to get (among others, a 12mm 2.0 or the Voigtlander 0.95) but in the end I picked up the Panasonic. This is partly because I've seen it described as bringing out better detail than the Nikon 70-300 VR, which was one of my favourite lenses when I shot the D3 and D7000. The Panasonic sells for around the same price as the Nikon (maybe a touch more, but only a touch), so I was interested in seeing what it could do.

Let's begin with some cherry blossom shots. Some with the new Panasonic, and others with the Olympus 75mm F1.8.

Hopefully there should be another sakura-themed entry soon, once the sun decides to turn up and the flowers hit full bloom. In the meantime, here are a few initial shots with the 100-300. So far I'm pretty impressed. A longer focal length seems to be more natural to me than a wide, although I do want to have a wide option available. I think I may get something like a used Fuji X100 for when the situation requires a wide angle view, but for the most part I see things in a more telephoto way.

First shot I took with the 100-300 came out quite well; I call it "cat kid among the pigeons"

This next one is a classic case of what you can find if you're in the right frame of mind. There are some days where I would have walked right past this and not seen anything, but today I saw the patterns. This is nothing more than a car park, but if your eyes and brain are working then you see things anywhere.

Couple of flower shots...

and finally one of the regular inhabitants of the body of water around Nagoya Castle. This is why I like to have a telephoto handy; the bird was a considerable distance away and the 75mm would have been nowhere near long enough.

Hopefully the next sakura-themed post will be along in a while, and hopefully it will involve blue skies.

Thanks for looking!