Tomorrow I will be somewhere several thousand miles away but today has been the most amazing day in London, sunny and whilst not warm, perfectly acceptable weather…mind you it does put global warming rather at the forefront of your mind.

The fading light provided a fantastic sunset over Hyde Park as I wandered home after picking up a huge coat to battle the cold, and I had a great chance to try out a new lens; a 70-200mm Image Stabilized lens with a maximum aperture of f/2.8. Whilst not the lightest lens I could have chosen it holds a few marked advantages over the alternatives, in my view at least. Firstly the maximum aperture allows shooting in most light conditions that you would hope to work in, added to this the IS and usable shots can be had at very much lower light levels than with non-IS lenses, secondly the fact that it has weather sealing which means it wont clog up with dust so much or decide it can’t work because of some reason associated with the ingress of moisture etc, given I intend using my camera in conditions where water and/or other elements may cause problems I’m very happy to have it on this lens…One of the first things I noticed was that this lens fits snuggly into my Crumpler bag – a great relief since no further bags are required to accommodate the [now expanded] collection of lenses I use, trust me more kit is not always a good thing but being young, fit and able bodied certainly helps when you take it all with you somewhere.

But is it any good? Well, in only a short time that I have had this lens so far the verdict can only be ‘yes’. Very. It focuses fast, accurately and smoothly, the zooming of the lens (which is entirely internal and therefore doesn’t alter the length of the lens) is also very easy to operate. I think I’m going to enjoy using this lens and getting as much from it as possible in the coming years…