Monsoon Season in Arizona

[fangars]

Most of these images are from last year.
This years the season has just begun.

This image has clouds and the smoke from a west side Phoenix fire giving the clouds that brown underbelly. Taken at Papago Park.

 

[Rallyroo]

Most of these images are from last year.
This years the season has just begun.

I love this shot. It captures the mood very well.

 

[Every Miles A Memory]

This is an awesome series!! It's too hard to pick which one I like the best, but that first one and the one with the mountains painted in red hues sure do stand out!!

Thanks for sharing!!

 

[photoman]

Very nice series indeed.


Now I really want the storms to show up!

 

[1leglance]

Ok for us newbies please mention your camera, lens used, settings and any post processing to get those amazing shots, please
Very nice

 

[fangars]

Ok for us newbies please mention your camera, lens used, settings and any post processing to get those amazing shots, please
Very nice

Not sure if my settings, shown in the exif if you have an exif viewer, will help you. I tend to underexpose my images so as not to blow out any details of the skies.
Images 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9 are all panoromas or vertoramas stitched together using Hugin, a free open source application that does a pretty good job but can eat up a lot of time. Stitching software is a cheap alternative to owning pricey wide angles.
Faster option would be to use AutoPano Pro, a commercial application. Both of those run on linux which is my operating system of choice but will also run on windows.
For batch operations I use digikam which only run on linux, and for layered editing I use GIMP from www.gimp.org which is yet another free and open source application that runs on linux but will also run on mac and windows.
If you have photoshop already I suggest you stick to that, probably more bells and whistles and you paid for it so you will want your moneys worth.

My widest and sharpest lens is a nikkor 24mm prime and my camera is a Nikon D70s.
What really makes these images has to do more with being there then the gear or software I used. It is monsoon season presently here in Arizona and its a drag every evening I look up at the awesome skies and I am in my driveway rather then the desert.
Here are some driveway shots.

Not as good as having desert foreground but now and then the sky is enough all its own.
Its a fun hobby and I am glad my wife bought the camera, that she never uses since I confiscated it almost immediately after its purchase. She has her own canon now.

 

[fangars]

 

[SafariPacific]

Great shots!

 

[Tucson T4R]

Outstanding shots! This will be my first AZ monsoon season with decent photography equipment. I am hoping to capture some good ones too (will be a challange though due to my early stage of skill build up).

Should we all pile our AZ monsoon photos here on your thread or leave this thread for you?

 

[fangars]

If your images are Arizona Monsoon images, pile on.

 

[Tucson T4R]

A few Tucson Monsoon shots from my porch. I need to get off my butt and get out in the desert to get some better natural landscape shots. :sombrero:

 

[fangars]

Very nice.
This is the last from July 4, 2008 I will post.

 

[adi]

A couple from last year, back porch:

 

[wikid]

Unfortunately all I had was my camera phone 07/03/09 Chandler

 

[fangars]

Not too bad for phone camera, no way would images from my phone look that good.

Took this tonight, kind of meh, but I felt obligated to post since I had to hike up Papago Buttes to get the shot.