Did I do good?

[GhengisKhan]

I shopped around a little bit, and I had a budget to stick to (<$200).
Before this purchase, all I had was my Nikon D3000, the kit 18-55mm lens, a cheap Sunpak flash, and a circular polarizing filter.

I think this is a good start, and I got a few good deals, but I'm open to listening to why some of these were stupid purchases and what I should look for next.

*as of now, all 4 orders are listed as "shipped", and I should be getting the 70-300mm delivery tomorrow.

**before someone says something about it, yes, I know that the auto-focus on this lens will not work on my D3000, but I prefer manual focus anyway.

 

[madFive]

lol - yeah, just so you're good with a lot of manual focusing, should be a fun setup. I'm not sure from just looking at these listings if the lens will auto-focus on your camera, but I'm pretty sure using one of these adapters would kill the auto-focus even if the lens did work. Hopefully there are no physical incompatibilities with getting these all attached to eachother - though I doubt that will be the case. You can always get adapters to attach them if it is. Also, the lens should come with a hood - don't think you needed to get that extra.

Can't wait to see what kind of images you get with this setup - good luck with it!

 

[GhengisKhan]

The lens adapters do actually pass the connections from the camera body to the lens, so AF would still work (one of the reasons I picked these particular ones over others available), but the AF on this lens has been specifically noted as not working with my camera in particular, but when I do upgrade the body of my camera, it might work with that one (though I probably won't be doing that for another year or 2)

 

[MN Scout]

The top 3 shipments will be fun to play with, and are useful. Edit: The extension tubes work best with shorter lenses like your 18-55mm, so you'll be able to play with them immediately.

I would recommend refusing the shipment for the 70-300G AF and instead getting the 55-200 with VR. They can be found on craigslist for $150 or less as BNIB. I have this older 70-300. It is not very sharp until F/9 and needs to be focused in live view for best results and for even better results at the long end mounted on a tripod and triggered with a cable release. Also after using the newer 70-300 with VR that my Father has, I can say that the VR is very very helpful, and that the newer lenses are significantly sharper. The D3000 doesn't have liveview focus, so that would concern me also.

You'll be able to use the 55-200VR so much easier. It'll be a joy, and you can just pick it up and snap photos. To get the framing of the 300mm you can just crop your 200mm photo.

Edit: Slrgear has some dynamic graphs. http://slrgear.com/reviews/showcat.php/cat/13 The 55-200VR is significantly sharper wide open than the 70-300G AF (The "Nikon 70-300mm f/4-5.6D ED AF Nikkor (Tested)" is the same optical formula as what you bought, but has a metal mount instead of plastic).