Okay, now it’s time for the dim light Lumix LX3 test. This is basically your average dim restaurant lighting, not that super dim fancy restaurant lighting. I the LX3 can perform well under this type of lighting then I’m pretty happy with it.
All in all, again not to bad I have to say. The f/2.0 lens proves itself invaluable allowing me to still shoot at ISO 200 under such dim conditions (the fact that I have reasonably steady hands also helps). But when shooting in such dim conditions, shooting in RAW instead of JPG also becomes absolutely invaluable to me. It allows me to get away with using a faster shutter speed and then correcting the brightness and exposure in post. Can’t really do the same with a JPG to any huge extent.
One thing is that I’m actually a bit of a brightness whore… I tend to over brighten my pics too much as I prefer them too bright to too dark. Or the longer I try to adjust a pic the more likely I’m going to (and do) fudge it into oblivion 😛 RAW takes a lot more work than JPG, since JPG is automatically colour balanced, saturated, and compressed by the camera, but I think the results are worth it 
About the restaurant, I’ve been meaning to go to Aglio Olio for ages as that’s my favourite style of pasta. I’m trying to find a good one to replace my favourite Spaghetti Sicula from Bar Italia back in Sydney. This place is meant to specialise in the same style of preparation, but unfortunately, it was pretty damn average. It’s like pasta fast food which wasn’t that fast. Wasn’t too bad, but nothing compared. Guess I’ll just have to get Erica to keep cooking it for me instead until I find a suitable replacement!
And for dessert we popped directly next door to some joint called Riciotti… not bad… Here’s a couple of side by side comparisons of the same same exact shot in both RAW and JPG. Post processing is so worth the effort Man, I’m so happy to finally have a RAW shooting compact…
