My new Daguerrotype Achromat Lens is actually a re-issued version of the first optical lens used in photography in 1837. It can be used on my Canon 5D, but i am realizing it cannot be controlled or directed like a regular lens, with auto focus and image stabilizers.

Maria and I went out this afternoon (Sunday) to do the afternoon farm chores and check on the animals, we knew there was a beautiful Blue Heron nesting on our pond in the rear pasture, and we hoped it would take off and fly around the pasture, as it has been doing, when we brought the sheep back there.

We were both surprised when we saw the Heron standing there so gracefully, we are glad to have it in residence on the farm. I only had my new lens, the temperamental and complex Daguerrotype Achromat, and I wished for a faster lens with auto focus so I could catch this shot. I knew there was not much time.

This is a good example of why some softer photographer can be more captivating than the clear and distinct digital picture. No regular lens I know of could get the feeling of this shot, and certainly no smartphone can yet do it either. In an age when everyone is taking pictures, this one is distinctive.

Necessity is the mother of invention, so I just started trying to focus and get the right aperture setting, I put the camera on AV and started trying different things.

The ISO was set at 100, as it almost always is for these art lenses, f/was 0, aperture 1/100. The lens liked the photo, it looked like a landscape painting to me, which was just the right feeling to capture the magic of the moment, seeing this magnificent bird in her new home, with fish and frogs all around.

The scene had a timeless, almost spiritual quality and the lens captured that perfectly, it wanted to take the picture.

We wonder if there isn’t a nest nearby, she lingered a long time with us before she took off.

My lens has a mind of its own, just like a donkey or a barn cat, it will take the photo it wants to take and not take the photos it doesn’t want to take. For every success, there are a thousand failures, you just have to put your head down and keep going until you mess up enough to learn what you need to know.

With lenses, it is just as important to know what not to take a picture of as what to photograph, and I never thought this was the right photograph for this lens. But it caught the other worldy, somewhat magical feeling of the scene better than I would have imagined or anticipated.

I have two weeks to decide whether or not to keep this lens, it costs about one fifth of what the Canon L series lenses cost, mostly because it is so simple in construction.

I am much buoyed by today’s breakthroughs. I give my photographs away for free, I don’t copyright or watermark them.

The  Blue Heron is a very special photograph, I think I will have George Forss  print this one out and I will sell it if Maria wants to use it in the Open  House. I will also sign it and limit the number of copies, probably to 25, so it will be a limited edition printing.

I think it’s special, I think it needs to be sold cheaply, I don’t believe in expensive photos, and I’ll use any profits to help pay our expenses for our upcoming trip to New Mexico in October. We’re not going anywhere first class, but vacations are expensive. We have a room in a lovely bed and breakfast not too far from Georgia O’Keefe’s Ghost Ranch.

if anyone wants it, you can contact Maria at [email protected]. The photo reminds me that creativity requires courage and determination, nothing worth doing is ever easy.