A difficult choice

           I heard about the Olympus OM-D EM 5 and I looked into that, but it's a bit too bulky and pretty close to a DSLR's size. What I was looking for was something lighter and as close as possible to the quallity and abillities of my old Nikon D700.

Picture: dpreview.com

       
             Even though I started with a Nikon N8008, followed by the Nikon N90s which is still my favourite camera body. My entry into the DSLR world came in the shape of a D40 which was a great camera for its price and size at the time. Later I bought a D300, followed by the D700. So you can say that I am a Nikon guy, and Nikon has their own V1 and J1 systems, but I never warmed up to them when they first came out, and that hasn't changed now. Which lead me to the conclusion that I had to look at a different camera manufacturer, which is a big step for any photographer due to many reasons. So where to next?

Picture: gizmodo.com

             I have some old film cameras, and the feel of the controls is incredible, you feel at one with the camera, every single rotation of a knob and the click of it falling in place...So was there something that could evoke that feeling combined with the benefits and quality of a digital camera? Turns out there was....

The seeds of doubt

       You dont go from using your favourite full frame DSLR with all of your nice lenses to something completely different out of the blue, so this is how it happened for me...

Picture: NikonRumours.com

       Through the years I've done a lot of wedding, fashion, commercial photography, but my true love has always been travel photography (landscapes & architecture). And this is where I've been feeling the strain of carrying a 12 kg backpack and a 4 kg tripod on long trips around Europe and the rest of the World.
       This year my travels took me to Switzerland and after the first few days I found myself in the strange situation of having a Nikon D700 with my trusty Nikkor 16-35mm f/4 VR; 24-70mm f/2.8; 80-200mm f/2.8 lenses in my backpack and actually reaching for my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 smartphone when i saw something interesting that caught my eye. I always thought of it as the neccessary evil, if you want nice zoom lenses and a good camera you have to carry the weight, thats it..end of story! And for the last two years I never went to a camera store or looked for the newest gear online, why would I? I thought I had all the gear that I will ever need. Something was not quite right though, for the mere thought of taking pictures with my smartphone instead of my camera to occur, and after the next day of long walks in the heat with all my gear I decided to look online and see what's going on with the camera world....

Picture: by the Author