Wide Angle Lens - opinions please

jm10 wrote:

PeterFXCassidy wrote:

Prepare for rain. God, I remember tramping and camping out that way years and years ago, rained for 11 days. My feet were rotting so finally gave up the outdoors for a bunk at a quonset hut run at an RV park that was filled with campers who were similarly soaked to the bone. The smell of thoroughly soaked flesh and charred clothes and scorched vulcanized cloth (people were holding their soaked clothes and tent flies over a cast iron wood stove) haunts me to this day. Still, it was a glory to be dry, indoors and puttering about in a clean dry lava lava.

Thanks for the warning Peter! I think I am mentally prepared - always planning for the worst case. Physically - not sure. But not exactly planning to rough it the way you did...

I will also make it a point not to show your post to my better half who is going with me on this trip

That coast experiences serious wet. I just sort of cruised into it on a general tent, pot n'knife backpack meander but everyone I bumped into along the way afterwards had gotten rained on to some degree of soakedness though it may have been a seasonal condition. The Paparoa park has been expanded to include easy day hikes that are manageable with sneakers and good socks. The official park tracks are well maintained in NZ (though slides and falling foliage can disrupt them) and the grading system is accurately applied. Most parks have campsites with huts and their own rules. Never stayed in one as families were so prevalent that I let my spots go both times I'd managed to snag one but they were well maintained if spare. Use them. After a few days of silence with a chance to focus, your perceptions as a photographer will shift, after a few weeks or months, even more so.

https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/west-coast/places/paparoa-national-park/?tab-id=50578