Hi I am new here
 

Hi there I am new to Photography I have just purchased a Nikon D7000 with a 18-200mm DX lens and a SB600 speed light, should a purchase another lens and which one should I go for.
Is theer a course that specialise in Nikon cameras i stay in pretoria south africa.

Goeie more! Welcome to the forum!

Nice purchase - that's a whole lot of camera you've got there! You could get a new lens - as you're new to photography perhaps a macro or wide-angle will help you choose a "path" - i.e. Landscape, portraiture, macro-photography, sports photography etc. Or you may find yourself liking ALL types of photography! Either way, it might be wise to learn all the tricks that your camera has to offer before shelling out on another lens. The 18-200 lens is pretty versatile and should just about cover all the bases you need for the time being. If anything, I would invest in a fixed prime lens, i.e. not a zoom lens as the image quality it always a lot better (and they also tend to be a lot "faster", meaning the aperture can be set larger to capture more light with a faster shutter speed - don't worry, you'll understand why it's a good thing before long! :) ).

Have you got yourself a decent tripod yet? I remember when I lived in Jo'burg that the skies were always full of stars, and always thought that it would make a stunning photo with the city in the background!

No I have not got a tripod yet, what do you suggest. with regard the fixed prime lens which one would you recommend for the D7000

Hello Harold and welcome to the forum.

The most important thing when buying lenses when you're starting out is to assess what range of focal lengths will you need to cover for the types of photography you might be shooting. For instance, for landscapes you may need to go as wide as 10 - 14mm, for portraits you need 55 - 80mm and for sports and wildlife you may need something that reaches 300mm. Most people would cover this range from 10mm - 300mm with probably three lenses. The first would be a 10mm - 20mm, their kits lens would normally cover 18mm - 55mm and a 70mm - 300mm would cover what remains. On top of that they may purchase a 50mm fixed prime lens for macro work that would also double up for portrait work.

What Adam has touched on is the fact that with zoom lenses the image quality isn't as sharp across the whole focal length range and the wider the range the worse it gets. You may find that the images you take with your 18mm - 200mm may look a bit softly focused at 18mm end and the 200mm end than they do say between 80mm and 130mm. This is because zoom lenses have what's termed a 'sweetspot' where the lens focuses at it's sharpest, but beyond that area it's basically trying to be all things to all men and it can't. A fixed prime lens has only one focal length and as such can be optically optimised to produce very crisply focused images over a wider range of aperture sizes. It has less scope for the quality to be compromised.

For starters though whilst you're learning how to use your camera though, your 18mm- 200mm will be fine, but you may find as your skills improve you will see a need to replace this lens for one that is optically superior, but that's how it is for all us fellow photographers.

Finally, as far as tripods go I'd recommend either Giottos or Manfrotto. Both produce good sturdy tripods for reasonable money.

Hi Harold007 and welcome.
The D7000 is an excellent choice and should give you years of enjoyment. The 18-200 is a superb 'all-rounder' but whether you need anything else will depend on what direction your photography takes. With Kuger National Park just up the road you might like to think about a 300mm - and I would recommned a fixed focus rather than a zoom for that. Or, with the vistas presented by the high-veld a 10mm wide angle might be your thing. Maybe it's portraits and glamour that you want to do, in which case a good, fast (say f1.8) 50mm would be a fine choice. It all depends on what you want to do. Photography is peculiar in that it is a marriage of art and technology. The artist in you needs to decide what images you want to record, this will determine what technology you need to acheive it.
It's doubtful that you'll find a dedicated Nikon course - such things don't even exist here in London. But any beginers course in digital photography will be useful. Cameras differ in the way the controls are laid out, but they all do pretty much the same thing.
Finally, I echo what Ian P says about tripods, you can add Gitzo to the list as well. The trick is don't go cheap, it'll let you down.
Good luck

don't buy a lens, don't buy anything. Go out & use the kit you've got, get used to it, take lots of photos then in a couple of months or more you'll start to get a feel for what you like about photography & what you want to take photos of.

It's when you have an idea where you're going with your photography that this will lead any future purchases.

You might go out now & buy a macro lens, use it to take 3 photos of some flowers & decide you want to do sports photography, you've probably then wasted your money.

Money you don't spend now (when you don't need to) is money off that thing you really want when you know where your photography is going.

BTW My first purchase was a better quality all-round lens than the one the camera came with because it's the lens which will be on your camera the most, after that I got stuff as my interests were determined.

Just an alternative viewpoint.