Since you will be here for the Ballon Fiesta you will want to take the derive up to North 14 to the small town of Madrid (Turquoise Trail) as someone else mentioned. This is where they filmed "Wild Hogs" with John Travolta. Also, you will want to take the 9 mile drive up to the top of Sandia Crest, which overlooks the city of Albuquerque. City lights and sunsets from up there can be spectacular.

This was one of the first pictures I shot when I first got my Canon 7D (With kit lens). Saw this fellow on a drive up to Sandia Crest east of Albuquerque. He stood and looked at me just long enough to snap this standing outside my car before he took off. ISO 250, zoom @ 105mm f5.6 1/160th.

I thought this was going to be pictures from Spring Break! Nice shots!

I like the US Army patch on his garb! A Native American and a veteran.

I've been looking at that as a possible addition to my lens collection for my Canon 7D. Do you have any pictures taken with it you could post?

I would agree! The Canon 70-200 ""L" series f4 was the first lens (other than the kit lens that came with the camera) that I bought for my 7D. Spectacularly good lens for the money IMHO.

It's not so much that I'm "against" the Sigma, but I looked at both here: http://www.photozone.de

The Sigma they rated 3 stars for IQ whereas the Tokina they rate 4 stars. Their bottom line for the Tokina says: "The Tokina AF 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X Pro DX is currently the best ultra-wide angle zoom lens for Canon EOS APS-C DSLRs. The resolution is impressively high throughout the zoom range (albeit a short one) and across the image field."

The Sigma, however, did rate slightly higher on mechanical build (4.5 versus 4 stars for the Sigma vs Tokina)

Plus I looked at reviews of both on Amazon. I'm not 100% sold on the Tokina yet as I won't be buying for a while yet, but so far it is definitely in the running. The Sigma and the Canaon are still possibilities.

Based on the responses so far, I'm starting to consider either the Canon 10-22mm or the Tokina 11-16. I have read many reviews on the Tokina from people who had the Canon 10-22 who were dissatisfied with the IQ on the Canon and got the Tokina to replace and were much happier. (of course these reviewers could be working for Tokina LOL). The Tokina is $100 less expensive, so worth a serious look. On the other hand, I've read that the Canon, while not an "L" lens, supposedly has "L" glass (just not the "L" build quality). In some side-by-side comparisons I've found, the Tokina does seem to beat the Canon in overall IQ . Still a while before I'm ready to buy so have time to look at more reviews and ask more questions. I do like the idea of f2.8 on the Tokina I must say.

Good name for it. I've posted this before, but here's a moon shot I took with my recently purchased SX50

I have operated a car-related discussion forum for the past 13 years (no, I'm not going to use UHH to pimp my site URL). My biggest frustration is spammers trying to register on my forum. I use VBulletin forum software by the way. I have found that I get a large number of bogus registration attempts on my forum despite having lots of anti-spam procedures. My Anti-spam software compares IP addresses and email addresses of registrations with a database of known spammers, and blocks them from completing registration when a match is found.

Nevertheless, I get some that make it to the registration form. I can usually tell when they are SPAM-Bots because they answer the registration questions strangely. For example, I ask "What car do you own?" and the Spam-bots will answer that question with something like "QLC" or "California" or similar gibberish. I must approve all new registrations personally, and those I just delete so they never make it through to post nonsense on the forums.

I don't know what sort of spam protection UUH uses, but if none, then I'd assume a lot of spammers get through.

On a related topic, if I may offer some friendly advice to members here - never ever post your email address in an open forum unless you want every spam-bot in the world to harvest your email address.

I agree. The SX50 images just seem to "pop."

SX50 just dropped to $319 on Amazon.

I have the 28-135 Kit lens that came with my Canon 7D and also the 70-200 "L" Series f4 (non-IS) lens, which gives me pretty good range for most pictures. However, I have been thinking I'd like to 1) Try my hand at lightening photography (We get good T-sorms in the summer here in New Mexico) and 2) I'd like to have a good all-around landscape lens (Wide Angle). Also, I read that using a good wide angle is recommended for lightening photography?

The Canon 16-35 F2.8 looks like a great lens, but it's very expensive. Then there is this 17-40 "L" Series, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009R6WO/ref=s9_simh_gw_p421_d0_i2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-5&pf_rd_r=03CTHQBJV0CNRN8CWQC5&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200422&pf_rd_i=507846

This is "only" an f4 max lens, but I'm thinking for most landscape and for photographing lightening, this might be a good choice? It is half the price of the 16-35 "L" Series.

Does this seem like a good under $1000 choice for what IO'm wanting to do?

That was the one thing that almost made me go with the FZ 200. Almost.

I had the same dilemma - between the SX50 and FZ200. I ended up with the SX50 after looking at all the reviews and reading a lot of posts on UHH. A small part of my decision was also the fact that I already owned a 7D and felt the learning curve might be less steep. I suspect I'd have been happy with either camera, but I'm ecstatic with the SX50.

I think the one thing that had be considering the FZ200 over the SX50 was the 2.8 across the entire zoom range, but in the end I decided that for most of the shooting situations where I'd be using the SX50 the wider aperture probably would not be a big factor, at least not very often.