In resposne to Patricio's post in V4#224 which is too long to quote here My 2 cents: 1. Most modern zoom lenses, if not used wide open are fine performers, no matter the manufacturer. Your vision, perserverence and creativity are more important than your equipment. 2. That said... try to stick with Nikon. You will have consistent color cast to all your photos. Nikkor lenses will hold their value much better than third party lenses. 3. If you must buy 3rd party, do it because it's a range that Nikon doesn't offer or is a fraction of the cost of a similar Nikkor. But if you do, try to buy the professional line rather than the general consumer grade of lens (ex. the ATX line of Tokinas). 4. In general, don't buy a zoom with more than a 3X stretch, regardless of maker ( I know some one will tell me that the 24-120 nikkor is great, I said in general). Unless convenience is much more important than sharpness, contrast, lack of distortion and a bright image for composing and focusing, though less so now with AF. 5. With regard to bird photography, you'll need at least a 400mm lens. Moose Peterson recommends the Tokina 400mm f5.6. (of course, he also recommends all the Nikkor long lenses, I've seen him with a monster Nikkor 600mm AF-S which last I checked was about US$ 8,000) Check out his web site for information about wildlife photography. Note that both Nikon and Tokina sponsor him. 6. For landscapes, you can't go wrong with either the 24mm f2.8 or the 20mm f2.8 Nikkors (AF-D or manual focus AIS). 7. For both landscape and wildlife photography (probably for anything other than photojournalism), invest in a Bogen or Gitzo tripod leg set and an Arca Swiss B1 ball head. These two items will seem expensive... heck, they are. But take it from a guy who's had to waste too much on experimenting with inferior tripods, start off with these and you probably won't need to purchase another set for the rest of your life. 8. Get a Cokin P filter attachment and Tiffen resin circular polarizer and graduated density filters. That way you only have to buy cokin filter rings for various diameter lenses and not a new filter for each lens. 9. Go out, shoot and have fun. Nothing is as good a teacher as experience.
