Having visited Tuscany in the spring of 2008, we decided to try it again during the fall 2010 harvest. After a couple of days in Florence, we (with 10 other photographers) headed south and used a villa in San Quirico d'Orchia as our base. From there we visited the villages of Montepulciano, Monteriggioni, Montalcino, Pienza, Radda, San Gimignano, Greve, Monteciello and Impruneta where we enjoyed a wine festival complete with parade. The photo ops were plentiful and we were fortunate to get rained-out only one time. Unfortunateley, that was at San Gimignano where you can shoot all day and not run out of subject matter both within the walls of the village or looking out from its many vistas. All in all, we came back with lots of photos (major Gigage as Jamie Spritzer of D65 would say). Terry Eggers and Adam Jones were terrific tour leaders. Of course, the food was excellent (seemed we were eating all the time) and did I mention we were there for the harvest? Did we taste some wine? You bet - everything from Chianti to Brunello.

The above photo is a nine-image panorama composed vertically and captured at sunrise with a Nikon D3s using the Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR lens set at 170mm. This lens has become my "traveling light" substitute for the 70-200mm f/2.8 VR. The 70-300mm VR is a great bang for the buck - quite remarkable in fact. Panorama processing was in Photoshop CS5. Click on the image for a larger view.