I recently bought the Canon 55-250mm zoom lens because I was finding myself missing the higher zooms since I switched to the T2i (from a compact superzoom). I didn't have super-high expectations, given it's a pretty inexpensive lens (<$200), but figured it would be serviceable. I have been quite pleased with the results.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mkgray/5821806196/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mkgray/5821806196/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49503153577@N01/5794784783

G+ may convince me to switch over to Picasa, but the inability to have purely time indexed photos is a pretty severe flaw.
(edit: spelling)
Oh, and just so you know, one of my other offers is from the Google+ front-end team. Which is awfully tempting. :)