laurencea wrote:
i think the Tamron 70-300 is my most used lens. i sometimes think its biggest problem is the price - it's a 'cheap lens, therefore it can't be any good. i think the small issues (i don't agree you have to do a lot of processing with the lens) are easily outweighed by the price and good points of the lens. the macro switch can be annoying, but the facility it offers is excellent - and the manual aperture ring means extension tubes can be used.

as iceblinker said, you could save up and miss out on loads of shots, or you could get the 70-300 and gets lots of practice in and experiment with a good quality lens and your camera.