Hi Marty,

You've been SO helpful. This almost wraps it up for all my lens questions. On ebay, if there was a seller you didn't know, but had a 99.5 reputation selling over a 1,000 items, would you consider making a purchase over $2,0000? If a particular lens was advertised as "no returns", and only had "Ebay Buyer Protection," would that be a deal-breaker for you? A professional photographer on ebay is selling his AF-S 300 2.8D (no VR) for $2,850 (current starting price, no bids yet, expires in 2 days). Can I even use a "D" lens, (which I believe is designed for F-mount bodies), or do all of my considerations need to be for "G" only with my D60? Finally, if I could find a compatible 300 2.8 lens, is that lens going to be so heavy (at 6 lbs) that I would need a tripod for four hours of shooting, and thus wouldn't absolutely require the VR feature?

On to a new area: birding itself. Does the Nikonians website encourage forum discussions on bird photography, or should I go somewhere else for those particulars, e.g. where is a great place to go in eastern Massachusetts for viewing and photographing northern flickers?

Do Nikonians ever organize themselves into small-group (3-20) photographic day-trips or longer, either local, in-state, or out-of-state? If so, how do I plug into that?

Thanks again.

Bill

P.S. You have no idea how valuable your advice has been to me. I've known of no other source in my lifetime who has had the patience to deal with my barrage of questions, who answere a specific query succinctly, and who also gives just the right amount of additional information so that I walk away a man who has indeed been taught "how to fish."

Visit my Nikonians gallery.