Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels

Last year, I had a chance to visit the cathedral of Los Angeles, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels, which has amazing post-modern architecture.  Here are some photos I took (click on any photo for a higher-res version).

Choosing the Exposure for Dynamic Range

Over the weekend, we visited Knott's Berry Farm, one of the first theme parks in the U.S.  What I like about Knott's is that the lines are much shorter than those of Disneyland therefore we get to experience more rides within the same amount of time.  I also think Knott's has a more interesting variety of rides for young children like our 5-year old, and has more thrill rides (though not as many as Magic Mountain).  Although the production value is not as high as that of Disneyland, it is still quite high.

During our visit the heat was intense, reaching 95°F (35°C), just one degree below the all-time record of 96 for that area, and 10 degrees hotter than the average for this time of the year.  With the sun blazing overhead, the dynamic range was very wide.  I used two different exposure strategies to deal with the dynamic range.

Lightroom 4.1 Defringe Tool

Have you downloaded Lightroom 4.1 yet?  If not, you're really missing out.  Check out this shot:

This was shot with a Tokina 10-17 fisheye.  I am working on a review of that lens but for now note that the Tokina fisheye is very susceptible to purple fringing and chromatic aberration:

Lightroom 4 includes a command to Remove Chromatic Aberration but Lightroom 4.1 takes this further and adds an additional tool for removing aberration: the Defringe tool.  It has an eyedropper and all you do is click on any purple or green fringe color.  Check this out:

Boom! Gone in just one click!

If you look closely there is a little bit of green fringing.  Just click the eyedropper a second time, this time on green fringing.

Now both purple and green fringing are gone.  Tokina should include a copy of LR 4.1 with every lens they sell! :)