I'm impressed

This 12-24mm lens by Nikon is a gem.  I'm very impressed.  Sure, it's not super fast, nor is it razor sharp when it's wide open, but stop it down at bit and it's sweet.  I wasn't sure at first that there was a huge difference when compared to my 18mm lens.  Well, perhaps I should say I wasn't sure the $2000 price tag of the lens was warranted for the difference it presented when compared with my 18mm lens.   Now, after playing with it a bit more, I'm becoming very tempted to get one of my own.  First shot in this post is at 12mm and f11.  It's a single shot HDR image of the lakes at the back of Druces Road in Manukau City.  We've had a fair bit of rain recently so the lakes are full to overflowing and quite still which has allowed me to get some nice reflections.  The wide angle lens also lets me get more sky and clouds which were quite pretty today.

Switching to portrait allowed me to concentrate more on the rather nice Gum Tree and see some more of the reflections in the water.  I mentioned earlier that we've had a lot of rain, hence the rather murky brown water ... but look at the sky!  Believe it or not we had fog earlier this morning so I really wasn't expecting to see what you see in these images.  This second shot is again a single shot HDR image processed in Photomatix Pro.  Perhaps leave a comment and let me know what you think of the shots?

A little to the left is the view you see in the third shot in this post.  Quite a pleasant park area with some lovely trees.

On the way home down Great South Road we tried some shots of St. David's Anglican Church.  This building is a very old timber structure (from 1880?) and I've never managed to get a shot that pleased me.  I'm not sure I've managed yet, but think I'm getting nearer!

 Again an HDR shot for the church and hopefully the warm autumnal colours come through in the image.

So there you go.  Fun with a 12-24mm Nikkor and hopefully you like my efforts.  Perhaps leave a comment and let me know what you think.