I was in Peterborough Cathedral yesterday, seeking sanctuary from the January sales. It’s the first time I’ve ever been and it is a fabulous building. If I can wring a little more from the pun, I have a confesssion to make. What I did know pre-visit: that it was one of the early inspirations for Ken Follett before writing Pillars of the earth, one of my reading highlights from last year. What I didn’t know: that it is the resting place of Katherine of Aragon, and formerly that of Mary Queen of Scots. Doh!

I’ve tried to take pictures of stained glass before with universally poor results – though to be fair, in unplanned visits sans tripod. I went armed yesterday, and after trying a variety of exposures, decided on a whim that it would be worth trying some bracketing. Despite the fact that the composition is awful [the picture below is a portrait crop, with enough surrounding detail to show that the stone is exposed, but the tops of the windows annoyingly absent], I’m impressed with the balance of light that the HDR managed to produce.

The three exposures are: F14 for 0.3 seconds, F6.3 for 0.6 seconds and F9 for 0.6 seconds. This is at 22mm on my ultra-wide, and ISO 100:

And here is a close-to-100% crop:

In Photmatix, I’ve set: Strength:70, Colour Saturation: 46 [i.e., defaults], Luminosity of -3.1, micro-contrast: 2.0, and finally, micro-smoothing 0.

There is a slight green cast to the stone, but this is a reflection of reality [the amount of green glass], and is present in the central exposure I bracketed around. I’ve intentionally left it in, for what it’s worth.

I’m going to have to go back now: as so often happens for me, what I consider to be the result of the day was – not quite a fluke, more of an afterthought.