The Pūrākaunui Falls are a cascading three-tiered waterfall on the Pūrākaunui River in The Catlins, on the southern South Island of New Zealand. As one of very few South Island waterfalls away from the alpine region, it has long been a popular destination and photographic subject. The falls are an iconic image of The Catlins region and were featured on a New Zealand postage stamp in 1976. The Pūrākaunui Falls are a short walk from a car park area through impressive podocarp and beech forest. Everywhere you look, there are ferns and tree ferns. Some of the tree ferns are 12–15 ft. (4–5 meters) tall. This area is a subtropical rainforest, much like parts of Olympic National Park in Washington.
Prior to our departure from the USA to New Zealand, I had scouted this location on PhotoHound and determined that it was a must-do location for one of my wall-mural-sized photos. We specifically planned our itinerary to take us past this location.
This wall mural is derived from 4,037 focus-bracketed images, yielding 240 focus-stacked images in a 10-row × 24-column array. The original full-sized image is 4.36 gigapixels, 54,724 × 79,668 pixels, and measures 182″ × 265″ (462 cm × 672 cm). I shot it at 200mm, f/13, a 1/4-second exposure, and ISO 200.
