Rhapsody in red

PLEASE VIEW IT LARGER, THANKS

Valle Stretta is a short and narrow valley of the Western Alps in

Piedmont, right at the border with France, and it's doubtlessly one of

the best alpine environment I know. Beautiful peaks, huge vertical

rock walls, streams and an incredibly rich and varied vegetation that

includes most of the species you can find elsewhere in the whole Alps

range, such as larches, maples, aspens, scots an swiss stone pines

among many others.

I went to the valley last Wednesday looking for some good fall picture

but couldn't imagine I would have found such a caleidoscopic palette.

As the ice on the cake, I was also blessed with some nice warm light

at sunset to top everything else off. Here's what I came out with.

This is stitched - as usual - from five vertical takes, each double

processed for better dynamic range. As compression hurts a whole lot

here, a click on the larger file is definitely required.

Your C&C are as always greatly appreciated, thanks in advance for your

time.

Techs: Eos 50D, Tamron SP 28-75 f2,8, GND 4x, tripod 1/5 f11 each frame

Splendida immagine, Paolo, come sempre. La composizione è ben bilanciata e contenuta tra gli alberi a sinistra e la montagna a destra. Solo il contrasto mi sembra un po' eccessivo, anche guardando l'immagine full size... Nel primissimo piano può andare bene, ma dall'abete centrale in poi i contorni meno netti restituirebbero quella piacevole foschia e quel senso di distanza che immagino vedendo questa scena autunnale...

Alberto.

Paolo, this is a double WOW!!! Every item of interest occupies it's own space in the frame. Your processing is remarkable. I just returned from a foliage weekend and came away with some great shots, but I doubt any this good! Totally stunning and it will get the big 7 from me as well!

Love this colorful Rhapsody. Regards.

Luce e momento sono davvero favolosi... avrei però evitato gli alberi sulla sinistra così mozzati escludendoli dalla compo...

I love this light but I don't like the composition with those trees on the left cropped.

Beautiful work with impressive colours, Paolo!

well, composition and colours are beautiful - still I don't think I can completely join the praise, because I think due to HDR postprocessing you've lost some of the dramatic atmosphere the real scene must have had. I can imagine if trees in the foreground would be darker the 'glowing' peak would have a much stronger impact. Admittedly this is a matter of taste.

What strikes me is that the (main) peak has rather little detail contrast - I'd have expected that postprocessing would have revealed details better (similar to the rightmost peak) - yet that might be due the haze.

Nevertheless: still a very good image!

cheers, Wolfgang

Hello Paolo, wonderful landscape with beautiful colors especially the red colors of the trees, the  hitting twilight the peak's top is cute, the clouds look pretty nice. Wonderful perspective and wonderful composition.

Best regards. 7P.D. If George Gershwin had seen this picture, surely he had composed The Red Rhapsody instead of Blue Rhapsody.

Excellent image, I think it's pretty hard, to stitch those images, because every image will have a different white balance, and different hues, saturations. Especially on these kind of images, when colours are powerful and rich. I've tried once, but I ended on b&w. Congrats again.

Thanks all for your comments on this one, that's greatly appreciated.

Zsolt, actually it's not a big deal, you only need to process each frame with exactly the same parameters of WB, exposure, contrast, etc. If you do that, the stitched image will come out consistent pretty easily. I use Canon DPP for pre-processing the frames, and to chose what set of parameters is the best one I try many times and not only on one single frame, but on all of them. When I feel I found the right set, I save it and simply apply it to the whole batch. I suppose you can do the same with Lightroom, ACR or whatever RAW converter tool you're familiar with.

Cheers,

Paolo

Ciao Paolo,

trovo questa magnifica salvo i celo dove io faria taglio senza includere il nuboli superiore.  I colori, bellissimi.  Nuovamente trova il tuo camino.  Per me, 6/7.

Daniel.

I want more!

Incredibly well composed image Paolo! Stunning fall colors, lovely light, and fabulous depth, round out this superb image.

All the best,
Neil

Excellent colours

Really lovely! Looks like paradise!

This is really one of your finest landscapes to date!  All I can do is sit back and enjoy every scintillating detail of the scene and marvel at your skills.  Bravo, my friend, Bravo!  Cheers!  Chris

Like a painting in the best sense, everything well balanced. The sharp detail in the trees shows that it is a photo, but the magical light on the mountains still looks like a painting and then the gorgeous clouds top it off. I hope you've made a good print of it. Thanks for putting larger versions of your work so we can enjoy it better.