I think there are two versions, one cheap and one expensive. I got the cheap one, on sale at Nikon factory refurbished site. I think it is a full frame lens, unexpectedly big on my D5200. No cons I can see, I still have not used it very extensively, waiting for better weather. I used to go out in subfreezing temps and catch cold shooting, now I am waiting for the 70's. All test shots so far are postive, did some extreme range shots, very nice detail. You have to be carefull with depth of field on lenses with a long focal length I am finding. I am getting into trying focus stacking techniques. Wide angle lenses are better for the Ansel Adams type of depth of field. I used to have a Tamron 28-300, as far as I was concerned it was unusable at 300mm. Best try them out first to see if it works for you. Since I have tried Nikon lenses on my D3200, upgraded to 5200 Nikon camera, all results have been excellent. The only reason I would deviate to a third party lens is price. I am thinking of the Tokina 11-16 for extreme wide angle for instance. You should google "reviews" and eventually you will find test shots from each brand side by side so you can compare.

Really cool. I play a Les Paul myself. I ike all those guys, though I always thought Mclaughlin technically flawless but emotionally empty for some reason...bought some of his albums over the years, I really tried to like him.

Wow. I wish all my photos looked that good. At 300mm? ISO 4000? Jeez! Ok , and maybe it is more obvious when I download it and open in my Photoshop, I do see some noise at 100 per cent; but there are people out here with DSLR photography equipment that they may have spent a couple of thousand on, and can't take a picture this good at 50mm and ISO 100. You full frame camera users are spoiled br.....! I know... if If I had equipment like that I would still find something to complain about after a while. (My Ferrari engine makes too much noise! Like something is wrong with it! Then after fixing, "My Ferrari engine is too quite, doesn't sound like a sports car!") Ok, I tried to find some bad noisy pictures of my own and couldn't find something right away (my recent stuff is with better new equipment, I really revamped everything since a year and a half ago)...I think my problems also come from doing a lot of post processing, I like to use color intensification effects now and then on dull low light pictures for instance, even solarization just for starters, and then I push them to extremes, and a little noise seems to become magnified into big splotches and stuff when I do that. I'm just saying your pictures look great.

What was the name of that plug in? "reduce noise"? Where does that come from? Who makes it?

What did the original look like? A previous comment shows a raccoon with two versions, I see not much noise difference, only color and detail changes. Full frame users I thought were in a minority, but from what I have seen you don't have the same problems the crop sensors have. From what I have seen if I had a full frame camera I would not be complaining about noise much. But I have never used one, so I can't say. I just happen to seem to want to exploit lighting conditions that attract big granulated noise. So far I haven't seen any photos before or after that have hardly any noise to deal with for a nose reduction program in this thread. Can some one show a photo with bad noise and how it was corrected?

I notice the samples are taken from the Topaz screen. I have noticed on my own system that what you see after the image is reopened in photoshop seems a bit decreased in effect. I have noticed this with other Topaz plugins too, I have compensated by over doing the plugin, then the "dilution" effect makes it look right. Especially with the Topaz Star Filter. It really makes the rays intense looking on the plugin screen, but when it opens back in photoshop the rays are about half as intense. Has anyone else noticed this?

I am interested in learning more than I already know. Or if something I said is in error please specify what it is and don't resort to name calling. It is not my opinion only, I give you the sources, by people who are eminently more qualified than you or me: Read what was stated in "Photography, Art and Technique" by Alfred Baker, as far as focal length for a good portrait lens. He has photo examples and explanations to prove it. Gregory Costillo explains the second part of my statement about the 50mm not being a true portrait (85mm) lens just because it gives a similar size crop on a DX camera. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG1pN5Vic8E I have gone over the infomation many times, of course at first I took your position that these guys may not know what they are saying, but after carefull review I had to admit they were right. I am only the messenger here!

One trick I learned from an old photography book is that something in the range of 85mm is best for portraits. You must extrapolate to size for your digital camera, but this is based on film 35 mm. I have a Nikon 50mm f1.4 prime lens for a full frame or FX lens. Being a crop sensor camera, my D5200 uses this like an 85mm lens, but it is not a true portrait orientation, it is just a crop. You really must get an 85mm DX lens to avoid the facial distortion of being too close that the "normal" range (50mm) lens gives. Or buy an 85mm prime, but they only make full frame primes, so then you have like a 105mm equivelent on a DX or crop it.sensor camera, which is workable. Or buy a DX zoom lens that has 85mm somewhere on it.

I actually tried the penny auction site, beezid or something...had to put up like $35 in advance, that's how they make their money. The wait til the last minute trick didn't work, there was always a list of people bidding constantly on items, you could watch an item and it seemed like there were people who did nothing but sit around in front of their computer bidding, even as as I watched an item, someone would go up a penny, a short time later someone else would up a penny. I tried one that was expiring, but a bunch of "people" were upping the bid every few seconds, it was not possible to wait until the last second unless you were very very lucky, but the real sticker was that all those "great" items were almost non existent, as a matter of fact, the several times I logged in to bid there was nothing I wanted, just really stupid stuff, no motorcycles for $15.00, big TV's etc. 50% of the bids were for discount packages of more bids! And from watching the bidding action, I decided it looked like an automated program, like it wasn't even real. If everyone knew to wait till the last minute, why did each item have a long list of names bidding at a constant rate? I lost $35 very quickly there.

I can't get over those long legs in the unadulterated version. Do you have any horizontal shots at 10 or so mm? You would not normally take a group shot vertically with wide angle lens. What you have is the exception to the rule! That is probably the only place in the USA where you would need to do that because the redwoods and sequoias in California are probably the only trees in the world like that, and you would want to show that in the photo. Strangly enough, I just did a panorama of a tree, combining 4 photos. Here is an attachment of it. I find the form of a tree to be very aesthetically pleasing.

(Download)

Oh, a step ladder like in a small portable 3 step foldable design? That sounds like a good idea for the group shots.

Yes that does sound workable for Flickr. I also Googled "Google Web Albums/Photos and found references to Picasa or Google+. Which one are you referring to? From what I can see they are separate but Google seems to try to redirect Picasa users to Google+.

Looks like that is the one I want. Just have to get the nerve to click!

Ok, I see what you are saying. That never occurred to me nor have I seen it mentioned elsewhere, but it does make sense. I will have to try it when I have occasion too. I don't think carrying a ladder would work for me, I would have to improvise with what I have like a chair or something. It has made me think of another possibility, If you can't shoot higher, have the subject pose lower...of course i have seen shots done now that I think of it where the front row sits or stoops or kneels, actually a combination of all three could produce 3 different rows of subjects. I am also thinking though that family reunions like the last one I did have a majority of older folks, because they want to get everybody together before they start passing on. The older folk might not be able to contort on a restaurant floor sitting and kneeling, they have enough trouble getting around standing up. But you have opened up my thinking on this, thank you for that!

Thanks for taking the time to answer. I had never heard of Tokina before I posted the question. Now I am pretty much decided to try one of their lenses. I am thinking of the 11-16mm instead, because I already have the 18-55mm Nikon lense, which pretty much covers the same range. When i was doing interior arctitectural shots, I wished I had just a little more range, and the same goes for an interior shot of a family reunion where I barely had enough range to get a medium size group of people in one shot.