State Park Wildlife from Montana | Nature and Wildlife photos | Photo Forum

Thanks Mandrake and patindaytona–I appreciate the comments.  I think I am doing well with the equipment I have, although that 300mm F2.8 is looking pretty good to me now…..(at $6k!)

You are definitely right Mandrake, it is far too early for me to be worrying much about equipment like that.  At least, I need to get experienced enough to not forget to turn VR on before I start shooting  

I am taking an Elements class starting in a couple of weeks because I am a total newbie in terms of editing.  Your edit of my fish pic looks great.  All I can do at this point is crop and lighten, basically.  

At the same time, this weekend I am going up to the North Fork of the Flathead River in the western portion of Glacier Park, in the hopes of seeing some wolves.  (very small chance, they are very secretive).  I have done enough research (DoXmark) to know that the 55-300 really falls short (as do all $400 lenses I suppose) in terms of the quality of the images.  For example, I think the maximum MPs that this lens can transmit to the sensor is about 9, making the 24 MP sensor not seem so great (obviously I am not making full use of it with this lens).  The 300mm F2.8 and lenses like that (even much less expensive ones) can get to 24 MPs and beyond.  The trip to Glacier is not particularly unusual for me either–it is my third trip there this year and I have been to the National Bison Range, Ninepipe Refuge, and many other places in Western Montana.  So, I am frequently sitting 50-100 feet from a bison, antelope, elk, etc., and want the best lens for that.  I do like the 55-300 though and love that it is lightweight and I can carry it on long hikes.  

On the other, other hand, I certainly know that I have A LOT to learn and need A LOT more experience (note the inability to remember to check if VR is on or not), and that it will be quite a while before my equipment can be blamed for anything.  

Thanks for your thoughts.  

John

Hi Mandrake: 

Thanks for your reply.  I am just a rookie and still trying to figure all this out, but here is what I was basing my conclusions on: 

http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews…..n-help-you

The key description is this: 

“P-Mpix is the unit of a sharpness measurement. The number of P-Mpix of a camera/lens combination is equal to the pixel count of a sensor that would give the same sharpness if tested with a perfect theoretical optics, as the camera/lens combination under test.

For example, if a camera with a sensor of 24Mpix when used with a given lens has a P-Mpix of 18MPix, it means that somewhere in the optical system 6Mpix are lost, in the sense that as an observer you will not perceive the additional sharpness that these 6Mpix should have added to the photos if everything was perfect.

In other words it indicates the ability of the lens and other optical components of a camera to utilize, from a visual perspective, the number of pixels of the camera sensor.  P-MPix expresses the result using a figure that can easily be compared to the camera sensor’s MPix figure to show the quality of the lens.”

I have also heard Tony Northrup talk about this, and others when they “mock” the huge number of megapixels of some cameras that are useless unless you have a lens that can take advantage of it.  To my understanding, this is the advantage of something like Nikon’s F2.8 300mm versus the 55-300; the former has a much higher P-Mpix value (not that the P-Mpix per se is the advantage, but it is what the P-Mpix measures that differs between the two lenses).  This is why we might pay 20 times as much for the former than the latter.  

Now, all that said, I suppose it is true that you wouldn’t even notice the difference between a 9 P-Mpix versus a 24 P-Mpix lens unless you blew your photo up to poster size.  And, let me close by saying that I LOVE the 55-300 and it might as well be permanently fixed to my camera because I never change it unless I have to for a class assignment     

Thanks again for your thoughts.  

John

No problem–interesting stuff!  

Thank you so much Rama!  I am just learning but it is great to get positive feedback.  I am humbled when I go to flickr and search for “waxwing”, for example, but I am getting there. 

Thanks ergig!