Wanaka Sunset, New Zealand (Kyle Jones)

I recently took a vacation with my wife to New Zealand and Australia, including 6 days based in Wanaka (rhymes with “Monica”) on New Zealand’s South Island. I figured I’d share my experience here, where it can hopefully be useful for anyone else planning to travel to that beautiful country. This wasn’t a “photo trip”, so while I did make sure to place myself in a couple of good locations at sunrise/sunset, it wasn’t the focus of my trip. With that in mind, this isn’t really a photo guide and some of the shots included are more for documentary purposes than artistic. I have included some thoughts about conditions that might be good for some of these locations and am including the equipment and settings I used for reference. I’m splitting this guide into three parts, the first covering some general thoughts, gear, and the area around Wanaka. Next is the Haast Highway and Lake Matheson and then the area South of Wanaka including Queenstown and Milford Sound.Continue reading→