I've added new photos to the galleries: Ardeidae of Italy - Gallery I, Italy and Switzerland : Other Birds.

I'm now away from home for few days - I'm going to answer to all the e-mail when I'm back ;-)

I am a fan of long lens in macro photography and so far the Sigma 180mm f/3.5 Macro EX HSM has been my preferred macro lens: it is as good as the Canon, but it cost an half. But even with such lens, I've always dreamed a longer macro lens, until I realized that a 250mm macro is a reality: I just have to mount the Sigma 1.4x TC on the lens...

The new essay is online: Sigma 250mm Macro

I've added new photos to the galleries: Flora - Italy - other places and Macro - Italy - other places. The majority of these new photos had been taken with the Sigma 180mm Macro + Sigma 1.4x TC: in practice, a real 252mm f/5.0 Macro lens, with a reproduction ratio up to 1.4:1!

The image quality is excellent even with the TC, and the increased focal lenght gives a better background and a longer working distance.

I've completed the restyling of the fauna galleries: now every photo is processed and optimized for web presentation according to my current standards.

New galleries: FAUNA

I'm glad to announce that my friend Daniela (www.fotografainerba.com) has been published on Fotografia Digitale Facile, an Italian magazine about digital photography. You can view a small preview of the article here: Daniela on FDF (the discussion is in italian language, but you can see the scans of the article in the first post).  

Other than that, I've just tested my new Sigma 1.4x TC, comparing it with the Canon 1.4x TC. The result are pretty interesting: give a look to Miscellaneous lens reviews and other tests.

If you are seriously interested about photography, you will soon end up with hundreds or thousands of photos, and ordering and cataloguing them become a necessity. There are various good systems to organize your images, and you have to choose the one that fits better your way of work...the new article is online: Selecting, storing and cataloguing.

Other than that, I've renewed the layout of the articles page: Articles - Nature Photography

I've completed the restyling of the landscape galleries: now every photo is processed and optimized for web presentation according to my current standards.

New galleries: LANDSCAPES

I use exclusively Adobe Photoshop to post processes my photos; even though there are many image editors, none come close to the wide range of features and the advanced controls of Photoshop CS3. The price is pretty high, but if you are seriously interested to post processing, it is a good investment: with the right techniques, Photoshop can really improve your photos...

The new article, updated and re-written, is online: Introduction to Adobe Photoshop

I've completed the restyling of the macro galleries: now every photo is processed and optimized for web presentation according to my current standards.

New galleries: MACRO

I've completed the restyling of the flora galleries: now every photo is processed and optimized for web presentation according to my current standards.

New galleries: FLORA

One of the keys to obtain good images is to understand the basis of color management: the color balance, saturation, selective adjustments and the use of black and white...

The new article, completely re-written, is now online: The color

I've added new photos to the gallery: Cettia cetti (Cetti's Warbler).

These shots have been taken in a very dark day, so I used ISO 800 and 1600 to avoid motion blur. To learn how I reduce the noise at high ISO, give a look to the article: Noise reduction