I am using a mirrorless Sony nex 3N camera. It has a APS-C sensor and other bells and whistles of an entry level dslr (except the mirror of course) . I upgraded from a point and shoot and expected better image quality.
Here is what I did. I fixed the ISO to 400 and made Raw only shoot mode. Next I went near a river in afternoon, the sky was overcast and it was about two - three hours before sunset. I took photos of some plants with fine leaves and also photos of water Buffalo. I came home quite happy with what I saw in the camera.
However, after boosting some contrast and saturation in Light room ( the photos were very dull), I became disheartened when at 100% zooming, the photos showed a lot if grain. A lot, like a mobile phone photo. Also, the fine leaves were nowhere close to fine when zoomed in. Quite a huge gap from any kind of photos in digital magazines.
Please if you can share some tips. Also, is there a good auto develop settings in light room?
100% crop from center (and link for non-web-resized version):
Entire image (and link for non-web-resized version):
Exif Info:
Camera: Sony NEX-3N
fstop: f/4.0
focal: 16.0mm
shutter: 1/160
ISO: 320