Putting my new 55-250 IS through its paces..

     After many many days of drizzling rain, thunderstorms and gloomy, overcast skies, the sun finally came out yesterday, in all its glory.  Even though I was feeling under the weather I was not going to miss this.  There was not a single cloud in the sky and it looked and felt more like a day from mid June than October.

     I wasted no time.  I gathered the troops - that's the wife and kids, and off we went to Zoo Negara (National Zoo).  With my 450d and small, but growing (to my wife's dismay...) arsenal of lenses, I went out and took photos.  Almost all the photos were taken in M (manual) mode.  I had about 70% keepers.  The balance of which were either OOF or under/over exposed or people just got in the way at the last minute.  At the end of the day, I discovered a few things:

1. A 4GB SDHC card is not enough for a single day's shoot if you're shooting RAW.
2. My 55-250 IS is really a bargain - the images are fantastic and it was quite easy to nail good shots.  However, in low light, it struggled just a little bit.
   
3. I'm feeling the need to get a good low light lens with a bit of reach.  I see an EF 135 mm f/2 L in the horizon.

Here are some sample shots taken with the 55-250 IS.  The rest of the pics from this outing can be seen here.

This is not photoshopped.  The goat was actually balancing itself on the fence.

Flamingos in the pond.

The tiger actually made eye contact with me..

This was actually the first pic.