John, I have come to hate rechargeable batteries, I prefer Duracell alkalines.
Zooms, I am not really a super duper photog like some of you guys, I purchased my Nikon F back in college and bought my second, an FE, during grad school and my third, the FM2 when away on an unexpected assignment and the need for a camera that did not require batteries to operate arose and still have a full range of shutter speeds. I took the photos for my thesis with my FE. Anyway, I have never understood the fascination with telephoto zooms. I would rather go wide and get close. My favorite lens is my Nikkor 50MM F1.2 and my Nikkor 24MM F2.8. I have several telephotos and zooms but rarely use them. If I had to choose a lens, only one lens, it would be my 24MM though a 28MM is perhaps a bit more useful. My fav films were Kodachrome ASA25 for print and Ectachrome 64 and 160 for field work. I also have dark room equipement, not used in years and used to like fooling around in the university dark room. Oh well, digital cameras fullfil our modern need for instant gratification I suppose and heck, they are a lot of fun. I am often taken aback though when I am told how they have superior resolution to 35MM, not so unless we are talking the disposable cameras from the check out lane at Wally World. There is even an anti-digital campain in music and I hope that this digital stuff will someday become obsolete when chemical memory or crystal memory technology allows more than --off and on--- but also in between, or put another way, there is a whole world between off and on, like maybe, just ask a woman ( I should not have said that but I did). J
