Where eagles dare

Hi everyone,

I'm just back from a short vacation to the Verdon Gorges in southern

France, where I spent a few relaxing days.

I had the chance nonetheless to take a few photographs of this

incredibly beautiful region. The canyon of the Verdon river is nothing

but a must-visit place for anyone living in EU and for anyone planning

to visit France from abroad. It's 60 kms long and 700-800 meters

deeps, with huge vertical sandstone and limestone walls and fantastic

spots at every corner.

 

I took this picture at dawn a couple of days ago, from atop the

highest cliff of the canyon, at about 1300 meters of altitude. This is

a stitch of 7 vertical takes, so don't forget to check out the larger

size for much better details.

Your c&c are as always highly appreciated, thanks in advance for your

time.

 

Details: Eos 50D, Tokina ATX-Pro 12-24 f4, GND 8x + GND 4x, tripod.

incredibile!! che panorama stupendo....uno dei più belli che abbia mai visto. ben fatto. ciao daniele

Spectacular!

 

Paolo, good to see you posting again. I need a regular fix of healthy landscape photography, either my own or someone else's and you always churn out spectacular stuff. Thanks for feeding my soul. This is extraordinary. Everything came together for you, the fog below and the rich color in the sky. I am used to seeing panos with the horizon closer to the middle. You have the horizon very near the top, which is very appropriate, yet makes me wonder how you managed to place it there. It is almost as if you placed the camera facing downward somewhat and then panned through the various exposures. Well done!!!

This is a real WOW nature photo ............... Stunning !!!

Damned... Your picture gives me the idea to go there. After all, it's only 300 km. I have no excuse.

 

Thx!

What a view! Fantastic shot, very nicely done

Excellent work, Paolo ... and incredible & beautiful landscape. Best regards.

Great capture indeed . Love the fog patterns,light and the distant mountain peaks !! Thanks for the location tip -I have 1 year left here in Euro , before returning to Canada.

El color tan magnifico y ese encuadre tan abierto convierten a esta foto en unica... muchas felicidades

Perfect circular composition, and one I try and teach the students "One goes in and does not come out!". Superb, one could not do better here if they tried... well, maybe a bald eagle on the bottom right rock- oh, and looking into the scene too. :/).

 

This one replaces a great shot of me holding a big bass on my desktop, so you KNOW it's great.

Ciao Paolo, luogo straordinario, le nuvole danno immediatamente l'idea dell'altezza, mi piace il punto di ripresa.. davvero una foto e un viaggio incredibile!

great one palolo. you have got it all in this shot. 7 stitches. wow.

 

what does GND X4 mean if i may ask. is that a 0.4 neutral density graduated filter? ... excuse my lack of understanding.

 

i have a set of hightech grads, and if i tried to take this i would probably end up with flare and ghosting from the direct sun. what make grads do you use P.

 

 

 

Thanks Jonathan for your comment.

A 4x filter is just another way to refer to a .6 filter. 4x means that the light hitting the film - or sensor - will be dimmed by a factor 4, which means two full stops. You're right about flares and ghosting, it's always a issue with grad filters, no matter what brand you use, when shooting directly into the sun. In this case though I took the picture at dawn, and when the sun is so low above the horizon flares are often very small, if any. In this particular case the mist also added a lot in reducing the issue. If my memory doesn't fail, there was only one very small green flare just below the sun, that I cloned off of course.

 

Regards,

Paolo

ah, that clears things up. ; )

This is of course a fantastic landscape image with lots of drama, but I must say that looks very strange with the sun at the far horizon and yet the nearby rocks are illuminated from the other direction. Or maybe that is just a little bit overdone dodging/warming?

Inge, thanks for your comment, that's highly appreciated.

I get your point, but please consider that this is a panorama made by stitching 7 vertical pictures. The field of view here spans almost 180°, so those rocks "seem" to get the light from another direction, but actually the only source of direct light is the sun. This is more or less what you get with a fish-eye lens, barrel distortions apart, of course. I played with dodging a bit of course, but nonetheless the balance between highlights and shadows is totally natural, and quite close to what the real scene looked like.

 

Paolo

fantastic!!

fantastic view and mood!!!!