It’s would almost be funny if it weren’t so tragic at how quickly the best seasons of the year (read: Autumn and Spring) seem to blast by so quickly in New England, whereas the less savory ones (read: Not Autumn or Spring) tend to linger around a bit too long. Kind of like that one last guest who just won’t get the picture and go home. So when we were greeted with the close-to-perfect weather that we had on Saturday, Lisa quickly rallied the troops and we headed over to the Ashland Reservoir for a steady 4-mile hike. A voice in my head dared me to take just one lens and leave the rest of the glass home. I admit that this is pretty uncommon for me. Unfortunately, one of the tasty slices of compulsive tendencies is to urge to plan to everything. But, I settled on the Canon 50mm f/1.4. It afforded me a faster shutter speed in case the light under the canopy of leaves would prove to be dim and, when shooting wide open or at around f/2.0, the bokeh would be pretty silky smooth.
And so, Lisa, Zilla, Chaca, and I started on our little hike around a beautiful blue reservoir in Ashland, MA. I had asked Lisa to keep an eye out for any particularly gnarly fungi growing out of the ground. I’ve been meaning to get a good set of mushroom brackets but have not yet been successful. In any case, either most of the fungi died out or were eaten because I don’t think I saw one during the entire hike.
To add to the melodrama of the great mushroom famine, Zilla somehow managed to get a pretty sizable gash above her front leg and was bleeding, although not profusely (thankfully), and seemed just as content to carry on. She is the most accident-prone dog that I’ve ever met but she takes it in stride and that is why she is the best.
All in all, the walk was a very pleasant one. Zilla and Chaca had their fun time swimming in the reservoir and Lisa and I were able to decompress, if only for a few hours. Randomly, we stumbled upon a capsized boat, secured to a tree, with some awesome metallic texture. I was very impressed with how well-kept the trail was and was thankful for the abundantly available trail blazes that helped guide us around the sizable reservoir. In the end, the 50mm Prime did prove to be a good choice. It seems that every time I use it (as infrequently as that is), I question why I don’t use it more. It’s an outstanding lens for the money and provides both very sharp subjects and extremely pleasing bokeh.
At the end of the day, the score was:
One-lens Whimsy – ’1′ | Compulsive Tendencies – ’0′
Cheers,
Brian
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