My very first SLR, purchased used in 1975, was a manual Pentax K1000. The person that sold it to me included a 50mm prime lens - what we now call a "Nifty Fifty" - and for over a year that was the only lens I had at my disposal. I finally added a 135 mm telephoto lens to the kit, but for years my only lenses were those two fixed lenses. It was with that in mind that I set out to for today's photo. I do have a "Nifty Fifty" in my digital bag of tricks - it's a Canon EF 50mm f1.2L - but it's rarely on my camera. I need to change that. It's such a high quality lens that it really should be getting more light time, so today I decided to work the Nifty Fifty.
The scene before you is Butterfly Pond along historic Great Road in Lincoln. It's past peak foliage in this section, as you can tell by the rust colored leaves on the trees. The reflections and the tranquility of the two swans-a-swimmin' caught my attention. Now, this is precisely the type scene that I'd recompose with my zoom, and probably the 70-200mm zoom, at that. I'd focus the subject on the swans and, while it would make a great composition, it would lose the overall beauty of the entire location. Inching my way out on a rock overhang - there's a dam right beneath where I'm kneeling for this shot - I went with the wider view using the size lens I used exclusively for the first year of my photographic life.
I wasn't able to locate any historical information about this site. It's known primarily as Butterfly Pond, but it's also sometimes called Aldrich Brook. The stonework below the dam suggests an early 19th century origin, and there is a mill about a mile down the road from here that dates to the late 18th century, so it's highly likely that this pond serviced some type of grist mill in the distant past. Today it's a peaceful fishing spot and contains large mouth bass and trout. The water is clean, which means it was not associated with any of the mills that sprang up in this area throughout the late 19th century.
Post processing was in Topaz Adjust. I started with a brilliant cold filter and then adjusted the adaptive exposure, contrast, strength, detail boost, adaptive saturation, and protect highlights sliders. A very slight levels adjustment was applied in PSE.
