Queenstown.

Queenstown is a hard place to beat for nice scenery, the backdrop of the Remarkables can be quite spectacular in the right conditions. We had a great trip down there earlier in the year and I managed to persuade the kids to put up with sitting still for a few minutes one tea time. Some nice golden light was hitting the remarkables and the addition of a strobe with a 1/2CTO gel through a white umbrella at camera left helped create similar light on their faces. The camera was set to manual f/5, 1/125th sec, ISO200, this underexposed the background a bit to give more colour to the sky. The flash was on TTL -0.3EV, using commander mode from the Nikon on camera flash.

Monochrome.

This shot was processed to black and white using Nikon's Capture NX2. The Black and White conversion feature allows the user to configure colour filter settings to achieve various effects identical to using a coloured filter on camera just like back in the black and white film days.

Te Paki.

Cape Reinga and Te Paki are located at the northernmost area of New Zealand on the small, narrow Aupouri Peninsula, approximately 60 km north of Kaitaia. Just follow State Highway 1 north. From Te Paki onwards, follow the Cape Reinga Road.
Cape Reinga Road is an unsealed road and gets very busy over the summer months. However, September is a great month to visit this area. In fact it is a great month to visit the whole expanse of Northland. The temperatures are positively balmy! Okay, maybe not tropical but 16-20 degrees centigrade anyway. The photography details for the above image are f/10, ISO200, 1/250, -0.7EV, 95mm lens.
The Te Paki sand dunes are quite a phenomenon, they cover many square kilometers and are a great playground. To reach the dunes from Te Paki turn off Cape Reinga Road onto Te Paki Stream Road. At the end of the road there is a car park and toilet and usually a bodyboard rental van.
Hike into the dunes and have fun, the image at left was taken at 105mm,1/320th, f/5.6 and ISO200. The only drawback is that this is possibly the worst possible environment for camera gear. Super fine sand and a breeze.

Summer Holidays.

The Abel Tasman National Park (established in 1942) is renowned for its golden beaches, sculptured granite cliffs, and world-famous Abel Tasman Coast Track. It also has a mild climate and is a good place to visit at any time of the year.

For at least 500 years Maori lived along the Abel Tasman coast, gathering food from the sea, estuaries and forests, and growing kumera on suitable sites. Most occupation was seasonal but some sites in Awaroa estuary were permanent. The Ngati Tumatakokiri people were resident when, on 18 December 1642, the Dutch seafarer Abel Tasman anchored his two ships near Wainui in Mohua (Golden Bay), the first European to visit Aotearoa - New Zealand. He lost four crew in a skirmish with the local people and soon moved on.
Permanent European settlement began around 1855. The settlers logged forests, built ships, quarried granite and fired the hillsides to create pasture. For a time there was prosperity but soon the easy timber was gone and gorse and bracken invaded the hills. Little now remains of their enterprises.
Concern about the prospect of more logging along the coast prompted a campaign to have 15,000 hectares of crown land made into a national park. A petition presented to the Government suggested Abel Tasman's name for the park and it was duly opened in 1942 - the 300th anniversary of his visit.
The most noticeable features of this park are the golden sandy beaches, the fascinating rocky outcrops (mainly granite but with a scattering of limestone and marble) and the rich, unmodified estuaries. The landscape has been modified, perhaps more than in our other national parks. The vegetation cover varies and reflects a history of fires and land clearance, but the forests are regenerating well especially in damp gullies where a rich variety of plants can be found. Black beech dominates the drier ridges.
The more common forest birds, like tui and bellbirds, can be seen along with pukeko around the estuaries and wetlands. The park's boundary excludes the estuaries and seabed but in 1993 the Tonga Island Marine Reserve was created along one part of the Abel Tasman coast. Like a national park, all life in the reserve is protected.

Lucy and Louis.

Another weekend at Castle Hill and it's cool rock formations. This image wasn't going to work without some fill light. Taken with a 20mm focal length, camera settings were f/5.6, 1/640th, -0.7EV, ISO200. The flash details were off camera TTL at -1.0EV with a Nikon SB800.