The mountains north of nearby Ojai usually get decent fall color (only yellows in the west) around the second week in November and I had been holding out for an evening forecast of a nice sky. On November 10 I finally got one, and drove up there. I looked around for a bit, made a few ground images, and then found an overlook into the Sespe River Valley. I parked at a pullout on Rte 33, launched the drone, and flew it down onto the valley.
I am at about minus 150 feet from my launch point, not sure how far above the ground. I made a number of images as the light changed and liked this one the best. For post I had 5 bracketed images and merged 4 of them in LR HDR, then de-noised, set levels, added contrast and some saturation, and some burning in various spots. Also deleted a few annoying hot spots here and there.
DJI Air3 S (the 35 min flight time was invaluable to produce this image as there were many different lighting "looks"), ISO 400, F2.8, 28mm, various exposure times
3 comments posted
Drema Swader
Nice sky and beautiful lighting on the hills. Although the trees are yellow, as you mentioned, I do not look at this image and immediately think fall color. What I do see is a wide expanse of an interesting scene. But for me, I would prefer to see a more close-up view of something that would provide a more well-defined subject. Perhaps flying lower, making the tree on the lower left appear larger. (I do recognize that a lower view might block the nicely lit hills, however).
I like the diagonal line the river makes... it provides a nice leading line up and to the right away from that tree. Posted: 12/03/2025 18:40:19
Richard Stauber
Very nice golden hour image of orange- red mountains with contrasting blue sky. Also I like the other distinct bands of green and yellow running diagonally through the image. As Drema pointed out, a main focal point subject could improve the photo. Posted: 12/05/2025 01:43:08
Lou McLove
Very nice image Pete, I love the lighting and the colors. For me the red mountains are the main subject and the foreground just leads me there. In my opinion I find the larger tree in the lower left to be a little distracting, that said I have no suggestion on what to do differently. I think it is a very nice landscape. Posted: 12/07/2025 23:15:17
