Wide-angle pion-<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Δ</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo><mml:mn>1232</mml:mn><mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo

High-energy wide-angle photoproduction of <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:mi>π</a:mi><a:mi mathvariant="normal">Δ</a:mi></a:math> final states is investigated within the handbag mechanism to twist-3 accuracy. In this approach the process amplitudes factorize in a hard partonic subprocess and in form factors which represent <d:math xmlns:d="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><d:mn>1</d:mn><d:mo>/</d:mo><d:mi>x</d:mi></d:math>-moments of <f:math xmlns:f="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><f:mi>p</f:mi><f:mo>−</f:mo><f:mi mathvariant="normal">Δ</f:mi></f:math> transition generalized parton distributions (GPDs) at zero skewness. The subprocess, calculated to twist-3 accuracy, is the same as in pion photoproduction. The <i:math xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><i:mi>p</i:mi><i:mo>−</i:mo><i:mi mathvariant="normal">Δ</i:mi></i:math> GPDs are related to the proton-proton GPDs exploiting large-<l:math xmlns:l="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><l:msub><l:mi>N</l:mi><l:mi>C</l:mi></l:msub></l:math> results. The proton-proton GPDs as well as the twist-2 and twist-3 pion distribution amplitudes appearing in the subprocess are taken from other work. Reasonable agreement with experiment is found in this almost parameter-free analysis.