The 24-105L is a greatgeneral purpose/walkaroundlens, I have used this on 3 crop bodies and love the range and the IQ--This is a good choice. As far as more reach, I started out with a cheap 75-300 and was constantly disapointed. My suggestion: Go with the 24-105L and save for one of the 70-200Ls. The other thing you might consider is go straight for one of the 70-200Ls, Here is why:


First: You can take some wonderful landscapes with a midrange zoom just by targetingthe interesting features rather than the whole scene, even sunrises and sunsets look great with these types of lenses.---Check out some of the famous landscape photographers and youll see what I mean.


Second: If you spend most of your time outside, youll probably find the range more useful than even the 24-105.


Third: the 70-100 range (even on a crop body) is often used for portraits and other people photography


Finally, I have a friend at work and his only lens is a 70-200 F4L and he has done some wonderful work with just that Lens.


Just my 2 cents worth, Hope it helps--others chime in if you think i am in error here.


Good Luck,


Bob