On Sun, 22 May 2011 09:59:12 -0800, Jon Anderson wrote:

I don't have a lot of
money to blow on fancy lenses.

A good camera needs a good lens. This is absolute.

Many people, after sinking a lot of money into a good SLR body,
will become reluctant to invest further in good lenses. Instead,
they may become tempted by the cheaper models offered by third-party
vendors such as Tamron and others. These third-party models
are not worth the price. Buy only from the same manufacturer
that builds the camera.

If you can only afford a single lens, make it a zoom. However,
zoom lenses are the most difficult lenses to make in high quality.
Every zoom lens is destined to be inferior to a fixed focal length
counterpart, and this is especially true for zoom lenses that
attempt to cover a very long range (e.g. 20-200mm). Zoom lenses
that cover a shorter range can be made in higher quality, and
I would suggest acquiring a zoom lenses for wide angle and another
zoom for telephoto.

For aircraft photography, a zoom in the range of 70-200mm can
be obtained in high quality. For other subjects, a range of
20-60mm would also be recommended.

Close up photography can be done with some zoom lenses but
the best solution would be a dedicated fixed focal length macro
lens.

You should maybe begin with a high quality 70-200mm zoom and
as the years go by you can acquire other lenses later.

Unless you have lots of money, I would avoid fixed focal length
lenses. They may be superior in optics but zooms are far more
convenient.

Rule #1: Avoid third-party suppliers (especially their zoom
lenses).

Rule #2: Avoid extreme-range zoom lenses that promise to do
it all for you.