Some photos with my new Nikon 18-300 lens: Taken in my back yard and a local canyon trail. Backyard was in good light, the canyon was pretty dim. The lens is much smaller and lighter...

wings42 Loc: San Diego, CA

Taken in my back yard and a local canyon trail. Backyard was in good light, the canyon was pretty dim.

The lens is much smaller and lighter weight than my Nikon 70-300 lens. It is a bit soft at all settings and distances. The lens distortion is considerable but handled pretty well by Lightroom. It will probably be my everyday and travel lens.

Cooper's Hawk. Notice fluff on talon from prey.

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Rusty resting. Sweeter than he looks.

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Anna's Hummingbird female

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Black Headed Grosbeak female with a seed

Black Headed Grosbeak female with a seed

Twisted Eucalyptus trunk in Penesquitos Canyon

turp77 Loc: Connecticut, Plainfield

wings42 wrote:

Taken in my back yard and a local canyon trail. Backyard was in good light, the canyon was pretty dim.

The lens is much smaller and lighter weight than my Nikon 70-300 lens. It is a bit soft at all settings and distances. The lens distortion is considerable but handled pretty well by Lightroom. It will probably be my everyday and travel lens.

Looks like it's working for you! As an every day walking lens it has an excellent reach, enjoy

Greenguy33 Loc: Rhode Island

wings42 wrote:

Taken in my back yard and a local canyon trail. Backyard was in good light, the canyon was pretty dim.

The lens is much smaller and lighter weight than my Nikon 70-300 lens. It is a bit soft at all settings and distances. The lens distortion is considerable but handled pretty well by Lightroom. It will probably be my everyday and travel lens.

Nice shots!

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Interesting dog. Not sure about your meetup description of the breed. Not so sure about the 'dingo' origin but then again... Look under 'Carolina dog breed'...

As to the pictures and lens? Good, you seem to have a wide diversity of critters in your backyard!!!

Mr PC Loc: Austin, TX

Was the hawk taken at 300mm? Looks very sharp to me. I'm considering this vs the Tamron 16-300.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

wings42 wrote:

Taken in my back yard and a local canyon trail. Backyard was in good light, the canyon was pretty dim.

The lens is much smaller and lighter weight than my Nikon 70-300 lens. It is a bit soft at all settings and distances. The lens distortion is considerable but handled pretty well by Lightroom. It will probably be my everyday and travel lens.

Looks good... nice to have an 18-300....nice range... only thing better would be an 11-300! :)

The hawk at 300 was pretty sharp indeed!

wings42 Loc: San Diego, CA

turp77 wrote:

Looks like it's working for you! As an every day walking lens it has an excellent reach, enjoy

Thank you for your comment turp77. So far the lens is good for some shots, really bad for others I'd expect to come out good. I might post some of the bad ones and ask for advice.

wings42 Loc: San Diego, CA

Greenguy33 wrote:

Nice shots!

Thank you Greenguy. That hawk terrorized the birds at our feeders all morning and took at least one. He owed me at least a short modelling assignment!

wings42 Loc: San Diego, CA

Rongnongno wrote:

Interesting dog. Not sure about your meetup description of the breed. Not so sure about the 'dingo' origin but then again... Look under 'Carolina dog breed'...

As to the pictures and lens? Good, you seem to have a wide diversity of critters in your backyard!!!

Thanks for your comments Rongnongno.

We're convinced about the breed, Aussie dingo mix. His behavior is pure dingo: aloof, one man dog, doesn't retrieve, shy but extremely protective, jumped high enough when younger to knock my cap off, has a high pitched but very loud bark, all dog (doesn't think he's human), scary fast runner. He has all the dingo physical characteristics except his ears flop and he's 15 lbs. too big: eye liner, primitive dog wide stripe on his back, hard coat with little undercoat, dingo tail, teeth larger than expected, white blaze on chest, white hairs on all 4 paws, no dewclaw in back, lives to chase small animals but has never hurt anything, even when he overuns them.

Our yard is small but full of life and we love it. 2 hummer feeders, 2 grain feeders, 2 goldfinch feeders, a peanut feeder, two bird baths, and lots of plants help!

wings42 Loc: San Diego, CA

Mr PC wrote:

Was the hawk taken at 300mm? Looks very sharp to me. I'm considering this vs the Tamron 16-300.

Thanks for the comment. Taken at 300 mm. This is acceptably sharp for me, but I can't get this good consistently. I may ask for advise in this forum about it.

I have two Tamron lenses but they are never on my camera anymore. Nikon lenses are much better constructed. The Tamron lenses are soft at full telephoto.

wings42 Loc: San Diego, CA

Dngallagher wrote:

Looks good... nice to have an 18-300....nice range... only thing better would be an 11-300! :)

The hawk at 300 was pretty sharp indeed!

Thanks for the comments Dngallagher. This is acceptably sharp for me, but I can't get this good consistently. I may ask for advise in this forum about it. I have about 1 week to return the lens.

Today I had to delete about 2/3 of my bird photos taken at the San Diego River estuary in good diffuse light. They were blurry and distorted in a weird way.

I can't figure why the lens is OK, like yesterday, and almost useless today. The problem may be how Lightroom handles the lens distortion of a superzoom lens.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

wings42 wrote:

Thanks for your comments Rongnongno. br br We're ... (show quote)

The Carolina dog is classified as a dingo of Asian origin. I looked that breed up and down. It has been domesticated only recently and display the characteristics you describe. You may want to consult a specialist (not me) as the robe is identical to the Carolina dog which attracted my attention in the first place.

Mr PC Loc: Austin, TX

You might see if the new Lightroom 5.6 update has the 18-300 lens profile and give it a try. The profile for my Sigma 18-250 corrects a lot of stuff very well.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

wings42 wrote:

Thanks for the comments Dngallagher. This is accep... (show quote)

Are you using a UV or skylight filter on the 300? An inexpensive filter can cause all sorts of trouble, in fact it is my belief that ANY filter will degrade performance of other wise good lenses in odd ways. I pulled all of my UV filters from my lenses recently and image quality improved dramatically for me across the board.

angler Loc: StHelens England

Excellent set.