Good riddance

Man, I am so glad that summer here is ending. It has been way too hot and we have had nothing but fires all summer long. I am looking forward to some cooler weather and haunted houses next month.

I really like when flowers die. They look super spooky. These sunflowers are cool when they are dying because of their spikes.

For these shots, I was using my camera with my Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens and my Canon Speedlite 600EX II-RT. Using the speedlite allows me to close down the aperture to get some nice crisp focus. It also allows me to darken the background of the image, which makes it easier to focus on the subject of the photos.

This shot was a bit tricky because I was shooting up into the sky and the sun was almost shining directly into my lens. The wind also didn't help to make things easy. Without speedlite, I would have had to open the aperture up, which would have made more of the flower out of focus and it would have also made the sky in the background blown out.

The speedlite also allowed me to get a decent shot of this yellow jacket. When doing macro photography without a flash, it is hard to get most of the bug in focus because the aperture is so wide open. So if you want to take better macro shots, investing in a nice speedlite is definitely worth it.

Speedlites can also be a fun way to experiment with light as well. They do take some practice though and a good understanding of aperture and how lenses work, but once you get a hang of it, they can really open up a whole new world of photography for you.

Over this next week, we should be having some cooler weather, which will make it a lot easier to get out and explore nature. Plus the leaves in the mountains are going to be changing colors soon. Fall is probably my favorite time of the year. It is a nice break from the summer heat here.