New Lens

The new lens I have been waiting for was delivered while I was out yesterday. It is a replacement for the Pentax 55-300mm kit lens that developed a habit of wildly malfunctioning regarding the exposure after a couple of months, and attempts to get it fixed under warranty have met with no success so far. The new lens is a less expensive but highly commended Sigma 70-300mm, which has a macro facility.
I had promised myself that when it arrived I would treat it to a day at Marwell Zoo to test it, and the first clear day I have when the weather is fine I will do this. Today was not such a day as it was grey and dull and raining, and reading the instructions there were dire warnings about allowing it to get wet.
Therefore, I only took it on a short walk down to the River Marden in Castlefields Park this afternoon, keeping it in my shoulder bag most of the time and with the settings on Auto to save time. I took some test shots using its Macro setting which seem to indicate that it will be extremely useful. The light levels were appalling given that this was at 15:15hr GMT, and the ISO was ramped up to a ridiculous 12,800, creating quite a noisy image, but I think the new lens has held its own under difficult circumstances.
I like zoom lenses so that I can use them for framing the image as I want when I take it, and generally only use the full extents of the zoom when necessary, but this I took at 300mm, handheld, again for testing purposes, and the image is uncropped.
I've read that it is a common beginners' mistake to use zooms at each end of their range, ignoring all the focal lengths inbetween. A look at the stats provided by Blipfoto seems to indicate I'm not guilty of this, but I pass it on in case it applies to any novice blippers reading this.

Lens: Sigma 70-300mm

Yesterday was back-blipped.