Welcome to New Zealand!

Probably the most travel-filled month of my life, February was a month where I visited Hanoi in Vietnam and also Queenstown in New Zealand. You'll find the Hanoi photos further down. This is one of the first shots I took when I arrived on a bright sunny morning in New Zealand. Needless to say, the view is simply breathtaking. A little walk down from the hotel in Queenstown, NZ and you get this view. One of the reasons I love taking panoramas is that I naturally like to frame photos with stuff on the sides, and it works really well with panoramas. Nikon D7000, AF-S 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Lake Erskine

Ever seen one of those mountain scenes with a beautiful mirror-like lake? Well I've actually had the privilege to visit exactly that in Queenstown, New Zealand. Lake Erskine is apparently a UNESCO World Heritage site that sits right on top of a mountain. In a word, it's breathtaking especially since it's only easily accessible by helicopter, and above a lot of clouds. The chopper landed on a narrow ridge on which I shot this photo. On the other side of the ridge is yet another breathtaking view:
Yes. This view. I think I've died and gone to heaven. In fact, the view is just so great it's practically impossible to shoot a bad photo. So here's another one:



Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 12-24mm f/4, AF-S Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Chopper Panorama

Here's a shot I took as a panorama but forgot about until I went through all my New Zealand photos again. :D Thing is that each photo in this particular series that I took for the panorama looked like it could stand on its own so I didn't really think they were connected until I took a long look at them recently. As far as my numerous panoramas go, this is one of my favourites, as the framing is just right -- there's some foreground interest, and a nice background of mountains and right at the corner on the right, a helicopter. Doing panoramas these days has become a lot easier -- I never put it on a tripod these days and instead just stand and shoot so the virtual horizon helps keep the horizon as level as possible as I pan across. After that Photoshop CS4 does all the work and stitches it all quite seamlessly. This is a 180-degree shot made up of 5-6 shots. Unfortunately, Blogspot's resizing of photos means that you can't really appreciate the photo at the size that's ideal. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6VR

Maori

This Maori was part of the troupe who performed the Haka. Just a nice portrait, I thought. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Busy bees

I often hear that shooting photos of insects with a 60mm macro isn't easy as the minimum focusing distance of the lens is so close that it will often scare away the insect you're trying to shoot. In my experience though, I've rarely had such problems -- I find insects are usually so busy doing their thing that they usually ignore you even when you get really close. I spent some hours shooting these honey bees collecting nectar and pollen from the lavender plants around the hotel and I literally came back with about a hundred sharp shots. The reason I shot so many was that the bees were so compliant that I could really spend the time just concentrating on getting a properly framed shot. I kinda like this one the best because it has a bee actually with its head in the flower while in the background, you can see another one in flight. I also have this shot:

I like the framing and the depth of field in this shot because the lavender stems seem to be framing the bee nicely. Nikon D7000, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8

Salmon of doubt

I was fascinated by this metal sculpture on the wall of the Heritage Hotel in Queenstown where I stayed. I wanted to shoot a picture to showcase the interesting (and surprisingly realistic) colours on the back of the salmon but at the same time, I wanted it to be an interesting photo and not just a record shot. I think I hit a good balance. Click on the image to get a closer look. D7000, AF-S 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Lake Wakatipu Pano

This panorama of Lake Wakatipu in New Zealand is actually the same balcony view as the one below this post, except taken at a different time and of course, made up of four different shots. I always resort to panoramas because I often feel that its difficult to convey the full majesty of a place unless you get a wider view. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR

Happy (Star) trails

I've always wanted to shoot star trails, and the clear skies in Queenstown, New Zealand afforded me this opportunity. The problem is that with digital cameras, there's one drawback -- to take a really impressive star trail photo, you need to leave the shutter open for several hours. However, with DSLRs, taking long night exposures is a two-fold problem -- long exposures heat up the image sensor quite a bit, and consequently results in noise, and on top of that, running the sensor that long, you risk the sensor being damaged from the heat. With the new Nikon D7000, I decided to risk it and leave the shutter open for a maximum of 10mins at f/8, ISO320. Ten minutes is all I dare -- my thinking is that the D7000 can shoot video for 20mins in one go, but with still images the camera needs an equal amount of time for its Long Exposure Noise reduction which uses dark frame subtraction (essentially the camera shoots the actual exposure, then closes the shutter and shoots another exposure of the same duration and removes noise from the first image by comparing the two shots in-camera). What this means is that for a 10min exposure, the camera's sensor is essentially running for 20mins. Contrary to what it looks like in this photo, the landscape was in almost total darkness and I could only focus by manually focussing the lens to infinity. Nikon D7000, AF-S Nikkor 12-24mm f/4.