Well, Santa (and Grandma) have been good to me this year, and have given me the chance to upgrade to a new lens

I have about $500, and I'm looking at these lenses so far. They will mostly be used for shooting sports, with some landscape stuff:

I am looking for something around the 12-17 starting zoom, and the end zoom doesn't really matter to me, but I'm looking around the 30-50mm mark.

A couple examples:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...goryNavigation

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...goryNavigation

http://www.adorama.com/SG1530NKAF.html