Mom's here - that means new toys (longish)

[Mad Aussie]

Yeh I'm looking at a similar lens for my cameras as well. Was unsure for the same reasons but have decided my processing skills should be able to overcome any short-comings of the lens. Pretty cool to able to catch such a range of shots (and they all look good to me) potentially within a few a seconds with no lens change.

[Bambi]

congratulations!!

[asnow]

Congrats Q1. From the type of pics I've seen you take I think this is an excellent choice.

[QuietOne]

Thank you, all. I'm hoping Wednesday will be decent, so I can take it out to lunch (it's rainy right now, and I don't want to fight too many factors while I'm getting used to it).

JAS, I got both a CPL and a UV filter. There are some of the things in the hangars and on the paths in the spring that I'd rather try to clean off a filter than the front element of a lens. I don't have Lightroom. I've ordered Capture NX, because I tend to thrash trying to get things right in the initial processing, and I have better luck with the View NX than Adobe's ACR. I've just wanted more tools for the initial RAW processing, and from the reviews, Capture NX has some good ones. The U-point stuff might even work better for me than the more normal tools. We'll see how that works out.

MA, it is slower to refocus than the kit lens. I used the same trick as with the kit lens, of having it refocus on something nearer, but it sometimes was noticeably slower than the kit lens. That may be a matter of practice, for all I know. I'll throw stuff up as I get a chance to use it some more, so you can see something of how it performs.

[QuietOne]

A couple more "see what the lens will do" shots. The field across the street from the office, the parking lot (really exciting!), and an unused section behind my cubical. I get some nice light through those trees in the afternoon.

xxx

[Marko]

Congrats as well you will love the versatility. When I'm just shooting for myself I too have a large range lens (28-300) on my camera a good 75% of the time.