In article <32C0BEA8.5173@cybertron.com>, boz@cybertron.com says...

>I'm torn between buying a zoom in the range of 100mm to 3oomm or a non
>zoom or two to reach out past my 90mm. The zoom offers a lot in
>composition advantage, especially on people or photo journalism type
>shots. I have almost been scared off zooms by comments on these
>newsgroups about poorer sharpness. Then I see in the Traveler Magazine's
>photo contest that three of the top four winners were made with zooms.
>Three of the next five were also made with zooms. Some of these were
>supposedly by professional photographers. CRAP! I still don't know what I
>want.

Depending on the particular mfgr., and lens model, tele zooms can be
excellent - and for me, the tele range is where zooms make the most
sense. The negatives: they are often slower than primes, and the X-300mm
zooms are rarely as sharp on teleconverters as primes. For a first lens
longer than 90mm, I am tempted to recommend starting with a high-quality
75/100-300mm, and if that doesn't work out, sell it and get a 300mm f4.
Another option is a top-quality 70/80-200/210mm f2.8/4 combined with
a good 1.4X converter...
Hope This Helps