Camera Labs

With all the great views and whales to watch, are there enough small things worth carrying your macro-lens all the time with you?
Flowers, insects, what else?
Need a flash, because all those things are hidden in the darkest corners of the jungle, caves etc?

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

Hi Thomas, well there's certainly lots of different types of trees and flowers here, some or even many of which you won't find in Europe. I guess it all depends on how much of your time you'll be able to (or want to) devote to macro-photography.

Since I'm no flora expert, I'd recommend getting yourself a guidebook to see what they recommend! The Lonely Planet New Zealand edition is a pretty good all-round guide and has a flora and fauna section which could whet your appetite.

As for insects, I almost tripped over a massive dragon-fly the other day on a hike which was about 10cm long! I didn't need a macro lens for that one! You certainly won't want to reminded of the sandflies either - little biting beggars! Hopefully they shouldn't be so many around when you come, but watch out near water, especially around Fjordland.

Gordon

Speaking of sandflies,
any recommendation as to what is the best repellent?

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

As to the sandflies...
1. The sandflies were not half as ugly as some bites I got here in Germany
2. Buy BushMan water resistant insect repellent. It's 80% DEET (heavy duty). Just be careful to NOT apply it to plastics, as they crumble from DEET.

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

As to macro photography...
Well to be honest: I only shot around 25 of 3000 pics with my macro in NZ. Mostly shells from clams and snails. See http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=3891211 ... and&m=tags
But many of them were large enough to capture them with the 18-200mm at magnification of 0.2 and below. Just watch out to stop down to f8 or f11 to improve the close-up picture quality and depth of field of the zoom.
So it was not really worth it to carry the heavy 105mm VR with me all the time.
To decide for yourself: just consider, what you normally shoot with your macro lens...

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses