Earlier today ole Pissed and Broke was talking about me having to take 5 minutes per shot fiddling with my controls...you wouldn't believe how fast I am at setting up ANY given shot with the D5000 and a manual lens...my eyes are a good enough light meter because of the bracketing feature and plus they can see the histogram and my brain knows how to read it...I guess I am not 100% manual and I bet Daniel knows exactly what I mean...
Stopping down after you have focused wide open is the crucial thing and yes you need to know about where the exposure is going to be.
IMO this picture is overexposed a bit.