I was just going about my business, adjusting my camera position. After I exited the camera view, I found that I could only orbit around the camera. I also found that I could only zoom out, and not in, until I could no longer see my project at all.

This has happened many times before, and I have had to abandon numerous projects because of this pesky problem.

Any help about how to break free from the camera's orbit and properly zoom would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I see to have just had the same issue. I could select views via the numpad keys but as soon as I tried to go to the user perspective with the middle mouse I was taken miles away from the scene and could not zoom in to get back there. After a lot of trying different things I found that if I unchecked the Auto Perspective option (which I like to have on) in the User Preferences/Interface tab then all was back to normal and if I rechecked the Auto Perspective preference then it worked still correctly and all was still normal.