Biography

Let’s start  from the past, from when I started photographing rally cars in the 1970s.

I took my first shots of rally cars in 1977 at the Campagnolo Rally that ran on the inland roads in the province of Vicenza (Italy) and in that case I used an old twin-lens reflex camera that a friend had lent me.

It was a feat for me to be able to get with this type of camera some good shots of the racing cars.

Campagnolo Rally 1977- Zordan Antonillo – Dalla Benetta Danilo, Porsche 911 Carrera 2.7

Around the 1980s I bought a 35 mm film SLR camera, a Canon AE-1, time-priority, and some lenses, including a telephoto, also Canon, fixed-lens, 200 mm. From then on, the “photographic” situation improved.

Elba Island Rally 1981 – Airikkala Pentti – Virtanen Risto, Ford Escort RS 1800 MK.II

In the early 2000s came the event of digital cameras.  At that time the cost of upgrading photographic equipment from analog to digital was high for me and so I abandon this kind of photography.  I purchase an Olympus uTough-6000 that will accompany me on my travels for a few years.

Moret sur Loing (https://www.romio.family/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Moret-sur-Loing-photo-Maurizio-Romio--scaled.jpg)

Summer sunset at the mouth of the Pila Po. (https://www.romiocostabissara.it/wordpress/tramonto-dell%e2%80%99estate-alle-foci-del-po-della-pila.html)

An important moment

In the continuation of the years, I get reacquainted with action photography at the time when I start following my children in the world of sports.

In 2010 my trusted shopkeeper suggests me to buy an Olympus kit consisting of an Olympus E-PL3 camera body, an M. Zuiko ED 40-150mm F4.0-5.6 R telephoto lens and a 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 IIR lens.

This is an important moment for me. I get back a technologically up-to-date tool that allows me to be able to start taking action photos again without having to invest large sums of money.

2016 Campagnolo Rally. Zordan Antonillo-Scalco Roberto

For many years, I happily took thousands of photos with my PEN E-PL3 in the world of karting, rallying, football and basketball.

In Septermber 2019, after 62,204 shots, I place my Olympus PEN E-PL3 into retirement and add two Olympus OM-D E-M10 mark III cameras to the photographic outfit and turn more and more toward bird fotografy and free-roaming animals in the wild, a photographic genre that requires as much, if not more, alertness in the photographic shot than does sports photography.

Again from a technological and photographic point of view, a new horizon opens in front of me with the possibility of continuing my experience in the field of photography with new tools.

At any case photographing birds in flight with the Olympus OM-D E-M10 mark III was difficult for me. I often photographed them with manual focus modes.

Cormorant in flight in wedding livery photographed in manual focus mode with Olympus OM-D E-M10 mark III and Olympus 100-400 f5.0-6.3 IS micro four-thirds telephoto lens. (https://www.romio.family/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Cormorano-dai-colori-nuziali-in-volo-foto-Maurizio-Romio.jpg)

At the end of the year 2024 with the entry into the photographic market of the OM-1 mark II model I felt that it was finally time to upgrade the camera body compartment and therefore I add the OM System’s flagship OM-1 mark II to my photographic kit.