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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lokatz" data-source="post: 644539" data-attributes="member: 43924">Stan,  Your comments are more general than the specific 18-140 discussion in this thread. Allow me to add an even broader observation:I agree with almost everything you say. What I ask you to consider, however, is that it does not apply to wildlife photography.  I'm not talking squirrels on a lawn or egrets on the local pond.  I cannot count the number of shots I have taken over the years that left me disappointed because I only ever saw one animal of its kind, or I observed a special situation that would have been a great shot, on a multi-week trip - but it was too far away: that beautiful rare quetzal sitting up high on a avocado tree in Costa Rica, that intensely colored kingfisher on the other side of the river in Ecuador, that female lion taking a shit in a distance in South Africa, or that tiger crossing a river in Nepal more than a quarter-mile away.  I've had days where more than half of my pictures might have been keepers if only I had a longer or sharper lens.Pro wildlifers solve this problem by doing two things: they spend $5-10K+ on long AND sharp glass, and they hang around the same area for days on end until they have the shot they want.  When you are married and travel with the wife, neither is an option. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" />  This is why I pixel-peep, and I suspect there are many like me.  Sharpness is crucial to me because no matter how much money I spend, that lens is still too short for a lot of pics.  If the lens is pin-sharp, however, I can sometimes still get a decent crop that has at least web quality, which is what most people are happy with these days anyway.  I'm adding a 200-500 to the 300 PF I already had because at the same crop frame, the shot is sharper (no surprise).  I am eyeing a Sigma 100-400 even though its reach is shorter, because it is much lighter than the 200-500 and according to some reviews and comparisons I saw is also pin-sharp.  (Naturally, weight is the other factor to consider for remote wildlife shooting.)We all shoot different subjects, and this means our requirements and our likes are different.  I happily shoot lots of other subjects and care far less about the sharpness of the lenses I use for that.  When it comes to shooting faraway animals, though, lens sharpness is almost ALL I care about, and every pixel counts.  No change in composition or lighting is going to help me here. What triggers me to post this is that there is a tendency among photographers to bash pixel-peepers. Sometimes that's for good reasons. When it comes to long lenses, it is not.</blockquote>

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