Micro Four Thirds(GX7 GX8) and Travel Photography

Adgadg, thank you for the kind words!

Sure, here's my workflow:

I usually shoot RAW on all of my images. For most of the time I use Aperture Priority with auto ISO, unless I'm photographing something specific that requires full manual like long-shutter or astrophotography.

My camera is usually set to have spot metering, so I can just aim it to the part of the image that I want to expose properly at, which is usually the sky if it's a landscape image, or anything that balances the whole exposure in the ballpark area. After I aimed the camera at where I want it to expose, I press the AE lock button so that I can now have the exposure locked. I double check the histogram on the camera, if everything looks good I then proceed to focusing, if not I usually adjust the exposure compensation to match the histogram so that nothing important clips the histogram.

I then proceed to focus on whichever part of the image that needs to be in perfect focus, or I approximate focus on the hyperfocal distance. Then I will hold the half pressed shutter while re-composing the image to how I want it to look. Then I full press the shutter and got the landscape image that I want.

My post process is mostly done in Lightroom. I made noise reduction+sharpening presets for all ISO values of my cameras, so the first thing I do after importing my images, I will apply the specific ISO preset for the specific image according to its ISO.

Next, I proceed by adding basic adjustments to my taste. Usually that involves raising the shadow, reducing the highlight, boosting white and lowering black. For normal scene, shadow is usually increased about +20 to +30, highlight is reduced about -20 to -30, black -10, and white +10. For more challenging scene or backlit situation, I can go really crazy with the highlight, but I try to keep shadow below +40. Black and white will usually be at about -10 and +10, but if the histogram still has room for them, I will adjust accordingly as long as nothing important clips the histogram.

Then, if needed, I will mess around with further boosting the shadow and highlight area using gradient filter on Lightroom. I sometimes added about +20 temperature as well as about +0.20 exposure on the shadow if needed to make the shadow area look warmer(usually I apply this on golden hour scenes to boost the golden light from the Sun). I also sometimes added -10 temperature and -0.20 exposure on blue sky if needed, to enhance the blue color of the sky even more. I don't always do this step because sometimes doing this can make your image look way too over-the-top.

Then I usually added a bit of clarity(up to about +20) to "pop" the whole scenery, add some mild vignetting, and then export the whole thing and call it done.

For some more difficult picture, like Milky Way and such, I employ Photoshop to mask layers, and I usually also employ other softwares like Nix Collection to address some difficult issues like long shutter noise etc. But that's very rare. I prefer to do everything in Lightroom.

I hope this helps Happy shooting in Peru!