Mark, you kind of hit the nail right on the head. Yes the 55-200mm is a great lens, I like it but sometimes kick myself for getting it in the first place but at the time money made my choice for me. For me the 55-200mm it's too short on the long end and too long on the short end. Changing lens is not an issue for me, I have the stock 18-55mm for the short end, but a lot of environments I shot in I'm not comfortable opening up the Camera to change lens. One example Stock Car Dirt track racing. I had a lot of good shot but when I adjusted the zoom out I said to myself, Ah, wrong lens, too close. When I went to shot far I wanted just a little more to fill up the frame. I never came away with anything I was happy with. I don't like using Photoshop to make the shots bigger grain and noise comes in to play even if I use filters. I use Photoshop as little as possible, just use it enough to "tweak" my shots. Because I use the D3000 setting the camera the reduce noise and grain will slow it down if I am speed shooting. This is why I have another thread up on upgrade to another camera body. Come the fist of the year I'll have a large budget for an upgrade and right now I researching my options on Camera bodies, and or lens. I'm going to have a hard time throwing down the money for a 28-300mm lens and if I do I want to make sure it's money well spent, the finance department (my wife) is only going to let me do this once. According to her standards she wants to see me get "Set up where I should be" to get those eye popping shots but with out taking out a second mortgage to do it, and we want to stay with OME lens, we have nothing but good thing to say about Nikon lens. So anything above 300mm is out of the question and you start to lose the short end also at that point. I would rather not have to worry about changing lens at an (action) event unless I have to for special shots, so I need a all around versatile lens that goes short and really long, and the 28-300 mm sound like the ticket for me. When you get your new lens try to remember to drop me a line and let me know how that long end is on that lens compared to the long end on the 200mm Thank for you reply. Rick