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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SteveClifton" data-source="post: 1844592" data-attributes="member: 48420">For the money and versatility I really don't think there's much to grumble about with this lens. Before I bought it I too had concerns about sharpness after everything bad I've read on the net, but after owning it for 6 months, I agree that there is a learning curve to get the best out of it, but then that's probably true with any lens.The attached are some examples of the sharpest shots I've taken with it. All were shot from a tripod except the warbler which was hand-held using IS. I do find that to get the very best focus it helps to use magnified live view (5x), which was what I did with the two dragonflies.The warbler was cropped to about half the area of the original, as was the female mallard, and both dragonfly pics represent crops to about 1/4 the original size. These are all jpegs, and to be honest once I begin to master RAW processing, lens sharpness will be the least of my concerns . It's certainly sharp enough for most of my needs. I have a Sigma 180 macro too which is sharper, but not by a huge margin. All of the above have a little sharpening applied except for the Mallard, which is perhaps the sharpest of the lot, and all were shot at either f8 or f9, except the warbler which was f5.6. It does make some difference in sharpness to stop down, but not a huge one IMHO. Likewise I backed the zoom off a little for most as reviews I've read say the lens is sharpest between 100-300mm, but again the warbler was at full zoom and wide open.</blockquote>

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