There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
If that is your kit lens, then the complement to it is commonly the 55-200mm DX zoom. It is affordable, has VR, and gets decent enough reviews.
My first DSLR was a D80 that had an 18-135mm kit lens. The lens had a good zoom range, but otherwise not so good. I bought a used 70-300mm lens for just what you want to use it for. Mine was the older pre-VR version. I find it is a bit poor with contrast and is nearly as bad with chroma aberrations as the 18-135mm lens was. I still use it, have taken some nice pictures of wildlife using it, but always requires some extra attention in with the photo-editor to clean up the image. The VR version can be bought for reasonable prices now, but it generally gets criticized for "soft" images at the longer zoom ranges.
My all-in-one zoom now is a Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-6.3 VC PZD. I have been happy with this lens as it overcomes all of Nikon 18-135mm lens shortcomings. It can be used for wildlife, but it does not give the same frame field of view as the Nikon 70-300mm lens does at equivalent zoom lengths. It looks less zoomed-in, and it has to do with how focal length is calculated with the different geometries of the lenses. But it is an option.
So going back to 2011, here is an image I took with the D80 and 70--300mm combo. I think this is a JPG straight from the camera.
This was a favorite wildlife photo of mine for a while, and I always tried to work with it to make it a bit better. One of several post-processed copies...