Start of spring

This is HDR well done. Looks very natural. A bit early for Spring but it is nice to see the little flowers. Do you nave a horizontal comp showing more of the rocks on the right and more clouds?

Not HDR, sorry, the six blended images were for DOF, I guess I forgot to put that in the description. It does seem a bit early for spring, but down here in AZ seasons tend to start early. It has been a mild winter and almost no rain since the start of the year, very surprising to see any flowers. I don't have a horizontal of this comp, my tripod couldn't get that low, and there were some intrusive plants on both sides.

Great work Peter. I love it. I'll be checking it out soon. Thanks for the update and I hope we get some rain.

Thank you Michael, forecast shows rain for this week. Hope that stays true.

This is stunning! Gorgeous colors and dramatic mountains. The flowers add a nice splash of color. My only nit would be that one flower in the lower right. Its a little distracting. I would consider cropping or cloning it out. Great shot!

Beautiful color all the way through this shot, very nice. I have been noticing a lot of blooms on our hikes this last week. I haven't seen anything quite this nice yet. We got some rain overnight, hopefully that continues.

Thanks Phillip, which flower are you talking about specifically? The one closest to the right edge or the one towards the very bottom?

Quinn- Reports are saying the area around peachville mountain is just about to peak with the poppies. So far I have noticed some nice blooms in the superstitions as well as the Mcdowell mountains. I haven't checked anywhere else yet.

Real pretty combo, Peter! My only nit is that the top of the peaks seem a bit dark in comparison with the bottom, i assume from the grad. IMO, images for DOF is overkilll here--you could have hyperfocused at f/11 and the entire image would have been in focus, with no worries about blending (and even the slightest movement in the flowers will cause worries...)

Thank you stan. I see what you mean about the mountains being dark, I have a totally reprocessed image up on my website, this was just a quick edit. As for the blending, that was really the best way to have detail from top to bottom. I did shoot a few single frames at f/18 but being so close to the foreground subjects, the mountains were still a bit soft.

Flowers in the desert are always beautiful, and these are no exception. Overall, it looks slightly underexposed to me, but that's an easy fix. Makes me wish I was there.

A very beautiful scene Peter. The light and colors look wonderful and I like your comp. Those clouds look awesome!

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI

I agree with Stan on the mountaintops, but otherwise love the image. Nice to see some poppies already in bloom...probably have a few more weeks to go in my area. I see that you're hoping for rain but, based on my experience at least, any significant rain and wind will destroy the early poppies.

Thank you for the comments. As I noted, there is a different processed version on my website that brings out the mountains a bit more.

Phil, hopefully the rain isn't too heavy, but so far it has been fairly light drizzles and moderate pouring. Snow up in the high country too.

The wildflowers do a great job of leading to the mountains and the pastel colors in the sky are icing on the cake. Very nice!

This is sweet, Peter. I saw a few flowers down in Tucson last week, but nothing like this. Those December rains were good for the flowers.

Thanks Tony, Still not a whole lot, very isolated little patches. I had heard saguaro NP was starting to see some nice patches. March should be a great bloom with the looks of things (knock on wood).

A lovely shot, Peter. The composition works well and you got some killer clouds here.

Not really sunset/sunrise flowers, are they? Those are mid-day flowers in soft light IMO. A classic scene here for sure. Not sure the blends for DOF will help or hurt image quality, but I'd wager neither they nor the grad are necessary here if you want to get to this result as efficiently as possible. If you're blending anyway, I wouldn't use a grad. If you're blending for DOF with a wide angle, make sure it's an extreme enough scene to warrant it. Images blended at f/8 to create one are not necessarily any sharper than an f/16 rendition and the DOF blending can cause problems at times. Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback Marc. These flowers will be open during the day and close up for the evening, some will stay open. This was about 15 minutes before the sun was gone. I've heard from others about not needing to blend for DOF here, but the shot's I had shooting at f16 and f18 were a little softer from at the edges of the foreground and background when blown up big. These flowers were pretty low and there were some shrubs that blocked some of the light on the foreground, thus why I used the grad ND. I've mostly been shooting for blends lately just to get a good technique down. I will have more chances to get similar shots, hopefully with much more flowers in the foreground as well.

Nicely done - there are some very nice elements her with the flowers, peaks and clouds. I agree about the light on the mountains but this definitely works.