Recommended things to buy for Nikon D3000?

I want to buy a Nikon D3000 for airplanes spotting, I would like to know what everyone recommends to buy like filters, lenses, etc…

Nikon D3000 is perfect and an incredible DLSR.

Well, if you want to take photos of airplanes (assuming the ones in the sky) you will need a relatively fast telephoto lens. Fast-telephoto lenses are the most expensive lenses you can buy, so be prepared for sticker shock.

Are you talking Air Show close, or 5 miles high in the sky distant?

There's also a limit as to how much of a telephoto lens you can use, as you need to perfect a panning technique to take photos, which pretty much means you can't use a tripod. To compensate, you need a VR telephoto lens, and you will have to limit the focal length to 300mm maximum.

With practice though, you should be able to use a monopod, so consider buying one of those. I do recommend going that route as well - but you should be able to pan your target with a monopod, which will also help reduce blur (but if you use the monopod, shut VR off on the lens).

Even then, at 300mm, you will have to learn panning to get blur-free shots. Also, you need to set your shutter speed at a pretty good value to also cut down on the chance of blur.

Consider the Nikon AF-S 70-300mm f/4.5~5.6. While it is not a particularly fast lens, it will generally be OK in daylight conditions. But if you can afford it, consider the Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8, but be prepared for sticker shock on that lens. These lenses work OK for air shows, but not necessarily for high-in-the-sky photos.

AF-S is a must for a beginner, although I have used AF lenses on my D90, and even used them in manual focus mode at air shows. It is often better to pre-focus the lens in manual and take the shot than trying to track focus.

Manual focus is possible, but it does take some practice and experimentation to be good at it.

For air shows, you also want a lens that has a big zoom ring. Often, you have to start out wide angle (to find the aircraft), then zoom in for the shot. A big zoom ring that you can find by feel is a great asset.

I have used a Nikon AF 80-200mm f/2.8, Nikon AF-S 70-300mm f//4.5~5.6, and a Tokina (AF) 80-400mm f/4.5~5.6 at air shows, and have captured good photos of aircraft with all of them.

And there's a lot more than just putting the lens on and taking photos. You have to learn a few things. In addition to panning and selecting the correct shutter speed, you also should realize that taking front-to-back photos (with the airplane coming towards you, or going away from you) is a lot easier than side-to-side. Of course, experimentation is the key here.

Finally, you will likely have to crop the photo a bit to get the best composition, as you have no time to compose a fast-moving target. But especially with your 10Mp sensor, avoid the temptation to crop the photo to enlarge it, as you will be losing too much detail.

A little cropping to compensate lack of time to compose the photo is OK, a lot of cropping to enlarge the subject is taboo.

You can see a few sample aircraft images that I took with the above lenses here:

http://www.althephoto.com/coppermine/thumbnails.php?album=1

You will have to scroll through the images to find the air show ones (generally on page 6, 8, and 13).

Here is my favorite air show photo of the bunch:

It was taken with a Nikon AF 80-200mm f/2.8

One thing is sure you will need high quality PLR optics http://ity.im/061h3

A tripod maybe and a telephoto lense

A photography class.