Maroon Bells in Fall Regalia

Maroon Lake, Aspen, Colorado

Sept. 28, 2023, 10:00 a.m. — While the Maroon Bells are often described as one of the most photographed places in Colorado, photographs simply don’t do the peaks justice. Having lived in Colorado since 1980, I had never been to this location. Because it is photographed so often, I had never had much interest in creating another “me too” photograph of this popular scene. My wife had seen photographs of the Bells online and kept encouraging me to photograph one of my wall-mural images here. After some research, I found that nobody had ever created a gigapixel image of the Bells. Because of its close proximity to Hanging Lake, I booked an RV park near both locations for our fall 2023 photo tour. For this image, I waited until later in the morning, when sunlight was filling the valley and illuminating the fall colors, which were nearing their seasonal peak.

This focus-stacked panorama was photographed with a Canon EOS R5 and Canon 300mm lens at f/11, 1/200 sec., ISO 400. It was created from 1,603 individual photographs, the majority of which were focus-bracketed and processed into 180 focus-stacked images. The final panorama consists of 6 rows × 30 columns, photographed in portrait orientation.

The original image is:

• 3.24 gigapixels
• 36,025 × 90,062 pixels
• 120.1 × 300.2 inches at 300 PPI
• Approximately 1:2.5 aspect ratio
• Available in a variety of fine-art print and mounting options
• Native resolution supports wall murals up to approximately 10 × 25 ft. at 300 PPI, or 20 × 50 ft. at 150 PPI
• Large-format wall murals can be custom cropped and sized to fit specific wall dimensions

 

Click here for information about purchasing a license for this image.