See Canyon, it has a terrific view of Morro Bay and Morro Rock; Montana de Oro State Park south of Morro Bay; Shell Beach for sunsets; Really Right Stuff office in San Luis Obispo.

I also highly recommend RRS. In addition to the accolades already posted, their equipment is made in the USA. Really nice people too.

Field (angle) of view from a specific mm lens, such as 50mm, is also affected by size of your sensor: full frame (FX), crop (DX), etc. FX is the size used most often to relate mm to FOV. In the end, just try your different lenses and see how what's framed changes (or zoom in and out on a zoom lens).

A smart ass answer is that more "mm" means "much more money". :)

I agree with MT shooter. Its trial and error. You have to get up before sunrise and get where you want to take the shot(s) well before the sun rises. I look at an internet weather site (weather.com) to tell me when the sun rises where I live or where I happen to be traveling to, and if there will be any clouds. Usually, sunrise is best (lots of red) if its partially cloudy. If its too cloudy, then shots will be gray. If its totally clear, then they'll be much much more boring IMO.

From the east coast of Kauai

I haven't used a trigger (have found one with good reviews yet) but have had some success capturing lightening using long exposures. I used manual mode, a 6-8 second exposure, f8-f11, ISO 100, and keep taking shots until lightening strikes. Adjust exposure as necessary. Repeat as long as you want and its safe. Then delete all the dark shots. This obviously works best when strikes are often. During the day I've used a ND filter to allow for long exposures.

Try a subject that is much farther away, say 100 feet, rather than a close-up. Certain lenses change their focal length at different distances. I think the Nikon 70-200 f2.8 has this issue. From DPreview:
Change in Angle of View on Focusing ('Focus Breathing')

One of the more striking optical characteristics of the 70-200mm F2.8 VR II is that its angle of view widens considerably on focusing closer. This isn't, in itself, unusual, but the extent of the change is quite large (and rather more than the old lens). Much of the time it simply doesn't matter - you can just zoom in a bit, or move slightly closer to compensate - but in certain situations it's a genuine disadvantage. If you regularly find yourself with the lens always set to 200mm, and at a fixed distance from your subject (closer than about 3m), then the new lens's design may well cause you some real frustration.

This is an effect that's quite difficult to demonstrate in a visually meaningful fashion, especially with a 200mm lens, but the rollover below should give some idea of what's going on. A sequence of frames was shot using the D3X at 200mm F22, simply changing the focus distance as marked. Note how the lens appears to 'zoom out' as you focus closer. By our reckoning, at closest focus the image field is about 1.2x larger in each direction, making the effective focal length roughly 160mm at 1.4m.

A modified version of Joyfullee's suggestion is to allow 3 votes with numeric values 5, 3 and 1. Winner is photo with highest sum after all votes are counted. Using weights greater than 1 should create greater dispersion of total votes.

Many of my dollars go to my wife never to be seen again.

Better tools provide a higher probability for many of us with lesser skills to take better photographs. Would you like your surgeon to use a steak knife and pliers or surgical tools?

Welcome. I used to live in Alamo in the East Bay. Beautiful area for photography.

Welcome. Love the bridge photo...makes me want to go far a walk

Great shots on your site! Very well done.

Agree with snowbear use single point. Then play with different f stops in aperture mode to get the depth of field you want. Unfortunately D5000 doesn't allow you to preview the DoF before taking the shot. Also think about the lighting. I like natural light, rather than a flash, so shooting next to a window may produce very nice photos.

For landscape, I would go with the 10-24mm. At 10 mm the view is 108 degrees vs 75 degrees for your 18-270 mm at 18. That's a 44% wider view. You can compare the angle of view under "specifications" for lenses on a site like B&H.

Thanks.