Adobe updated Lightroom to beta 4 a week back. I’ve been playing with it a bit so far, and they have definitely made some improvements.

Since purchasing Pixmantec (and RawShooter code), Adobe has some new features in the develop module, like Recover and Fill Light. Recover is a highlight recovery tool, and Fill Light lets you lighten dark shadows. Both seem to be nice additions. Photoshop news has a great overview of the Lightroom develop module. Existing Adobe Camera Raw develop settings are still incompatible with Lightroom, though that’s supposed to be fixed “soon”.

In addition to sprucing up the UI, Adobe seems to have added more options for import and export, and continued support XMP files. However I’d still like to see the program making as many file changes as possible, in addition to internal database changes. Photoshop news also has a good overview of the Lightroom library module.

If they can address my archival/multiple machine fears, and fix Camera RAW compatibility, I can definitely see my workflow changing to Lightroom.

Update: RawWorkflow.com has some great Lightroom tutorial videos up for free here. I’m really starting to dig the way Adobe has broken contrast out by the four sections – Highlights, Lights, Darks, and Shadows. Being able to manipulate all of these on the image, histogram, or curve is really cool.

Kurt Andersen has written a great piece over at NY Magazine. Titled “The End of the World As They Know It”, it dives into culture and attitudes obsessed with apocalypse.

Five years after Islamic apocalyptists turned the World Trade Center to fire and dust, we chatter more than ever about the clash of civilizations, fight a war prompted by our panic over (nonexistent) nuclear and biological weapons, hear it coolly asserted this past summer that World War III has begun, and wonder if an avian-flu pandemic poses more of a personal risk than climate change. In other words, apocalypse is on our minds. Apocalypse is … hot.

Millions of people—Christian millenarians, jihadists, psychedelicized Burning Men—are straight-out wishful about The End. Of course, we have the loons with us always; their sulfurous scent if not the scale of the present fanaticism is familiar from the last third of the last century—the Weathermen and Jim Jones and the Branch Davidians. But there seem to be more of them now by orders of magnitude (60-odd million “Left Behind” novels have been sold), and they’re out of the closet, networked, reaffirming their fantasies, proselytizing. Some thousands of Muslims are working seriously to provoke the blessed Armageddon. And the Christian Rapturists’ support of a militant Israel isn’t driven mainly by principled devotion to an outpost of Western democracy but by their fervent wish to see crazy biblical fantasies realized ASAP—that is, the persecution of the Jews by the Antichrist and the Battle of Armageddon.

When apocalypse preoccupations leach into less-fantastical thought and conversation, it becomes still more disconcerting. Even among people sincerely fearful of climate change or a nuclearized Iran enacting a “second Holocaust” by attacking Israel, one sometimes detects a frisson of smug or hysterical pleasure.

He doesn’t have much trouble finding examples these days. I must admit, to a certain extent, I have also slipped into the mindset that the future will get worse, before it gets better. Why? I don’t think any one thing can be singled out. It is probably equal parts climate change and dangerous energy dependence, a sprinkle of looming brinkmanship, and a dash of perpetual war. Top with consumer and government spending and savings habits, and bake for 10-20 years.

But after thinking about it some more, I have to add in another ingredient to my pessimistic future pie. It is the increase in apocalypticism – the very subject of the article. Growing up on the evangelical side of the christian spectrum, the view point was not uncommon. The rapture was going to happen any day now. In that environment, it didn’t seem like such a strange thought. Now of course I fear what that does to one’s mindset and motivations. I mean, why fix this world, when doing so will delay your god’s coming?

Enough of my ramblings, the article is definitely worth a read.

I’ve been curious to try out some other lenses and different ranges for my Rebel Xt. The problem is that unless you have a friend that owns one of these, its unlikely a store is going to let you wander around with hundreds of dollars worth of product for a few days. And that is assuming they even stock the lens.

Rentglass to the rescue. For $50 I had access to a Canon 10-22mm lens for a week (shipping included), and had a good experience with the service. However, there are some difficulties. The biggest is that it is only on a first come first serve basis, so it would be next to impossible to rent a lens for a specific event. The other issue is that almost everything is out of stock, they seem to be a victim of their own success. It still seems like a great way to try out a lens before you drop some cash one one.

While I didn’t get to try it quite as much as I would have liked, I enjoyed using a Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM lens. It gave me a lot to think about with regards to replacing the wide end of my range. The one thing I learned is that I don’t seem to rely as much on image stabilization as I had thought. I took quite a few photos in low light without really missing the benefits of IS. However, I think that is more of an indication that my current 17-85mm IS just does a really poor job at grabbing available light.

While I don’t hate my Canon EF-S 17-85MM f4-5.6 IS USM, there are things I’d like to change about it. It could be sharper, and it definitely could be faster, and yes, I’m jealous of the Nikon DX VR 18-200. I’m not exactly sure what the remedy is. The EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM is supposed to be an amazing lens, but at $1039.95, I’ll be saving my pennies for a while. It is also bigger, heavier, and I end up loosing range on the tele end. Perhaps the new Sigma 18-200 mm F3.5-6.3 DC OS lens will be a decent fit? Ultimately I don’t want to have a bag of lenses, I just wish Canon would make a decent competitor to the Nikon 18-200. A good 15-120? I’d jump on that.