Recent content by mattia

Nice! Lake Argyle?

How light I travel depends on my destination - I'm still mostly an ILC shooter. If it's urban / cities, I'll occasionally just take my iPhone, and nothing else. If I'm feeling a little more inspired to shoot, it's generally the A7r and one or two lenses (16-35/4.0, and 55/1.8). Sometimes I just...

I've never really liked the manufacturer's own RAW engines. There are third party solutions that are simply better in terms of detail extraction, distortion correction, noise reduction, etc. For me, for pure IQ, it's DxO Optics, or now Photo Lab. It's a lot of fun re-editing old RAW images from...

I think you need to compare the shots with the LX100 to similar shots - like for like. You're now comparing a number of shots with (mostly) shallow depth of field in good light, to an indoor shot of a flower in poor light. Apples to oranges. I can very easily make dull, uninteresting shots with...

I wouldn't call 43 sensors 'small'. 1" and under, sure. The RX100 is my small camera, and mostly gets used for scuba these days: Peacock Mantis Shrimp #2

I assume you're moving the camera in the direction of the arrow on the screen, right (just checkin)? Other question - what lighting conditions are you trying this in? The camera (at least the mark 1) will need enough light to shoot a 1/500 second exposure. Also try your first panos on distant...

There's one situation where it does make a big difference to me - in manual with auto ISO. I adjust shutter and aperture using the modal dials, and tweak exposure with the exposure comp dial with the ISO floating. Not all cameras do this 'right', but Sony's A7 series does. Combined with WYSIWYG...

Thanks for the kind words, guys! Raja Ampat really is a dream destination for divers, photographers and otherwise! And thanks for the front page feature - have edited the post slightly so there's a picture to start off with; can't have a dull and excessively wordy front page ;-)

My girlfriend and I got back from our 3 week vacation in Indonesia almost a month ago, and I'm slowly getting around to sorting through the photographs. Used the RX100 for all the underwater stuff, and the A7r for everything 'topside'. We spent one week in Raja Ampat, in Papua, eastern...

I prefer DxO's rendering, but it's not a DAM and has zero (or near zero) local adjustment options. So I use both - DxO for most processing, Lightroom for managing and simple retouching and PS for full-on NIK suite editing (or just NIK plugins form LR for smaller adjustments). DxO is not a fast...

A good housing is an expensive, high quality bit of kit, and will usually be more expensive (by some margin) that the camera inside. If you're just snorkeling, you can do fine with a cheaper plastic housing. If video without too much control of framing or zooming is what you want, the GoPro is...

A7r with the FE 16-35. Australia. The Moon and the Milky Way by Mattia Valente, on Flickr Ant Castle by Mattia Valente, on Flickr Sunset over The Victoria River by Mattia Valente, on Flickr

I really love my mk I - I mostly use it for underwater photography (hits a sweet spot for size/performance for me - you can shoot wide open and still get adequate depth of field, and the housing takes add-on lenses for ultra wide and macro purposes) but it's also frequently in the pocket when I...

Really depends on the kind of trip for me - when I headed 'down under' for two months, I took an E-M1, the )12-40, the 50-200 SWD for telephoto, and the A7r, FE 16-35 and FE 55 for all the land-based shooting. Plus an RX100 and scuba housing because, well, great barrier reef. If I had to do it...

RAW files are almost always softer than jpgs before processing. Might try DxO once they have support for the mkIV, always find their lens corrections and sharpening very effective. Contrast/micro contrast/curves will also affect perception of sharpness.