*OFFICIAL* general photography conversation thread

[Chewy734]

Originally Posted by M_Six

I thought you were selling that to panicos??

I was... but he just bought a Fuji, so he backed out

[dcstep]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Yes, it beeped. Mine is set to not take the shot if it doesn't. If the whole shot was OOF, I'd chalk it up to a missed focus. It happens. But four shots came out exactly the same. Cat OOF and chair sharp. I've read reviews where a lens can be sharper on the left than the right (and vice-versa). I'm wondering if this is a problem with the 50mm I have. My shots with the 24-105 are critically sharp at dead center even at 100%. Even the 35mm does well at 100%. I bought the 50mm used, so it could have some issues. I'll have to do some ruler testing with a tripod and see if it needs to be sent in for calibration.

Ah hah! Looks like your 50mm isn't comunicating well with the camera, or it's seriously wacked in permanent OOF. Does it work on your old body?

Dave

[MaximusJ]

Originally Posted by Chewy734

bastard.



Don't RAID SSDs, it'll be a waste of money, unless you have lots you want spend on it. Here are my recommendations:

1. If you want a laptop, buy a 512gb Crucial M4 SSD card to put in it. Then, you can buy a NAS (I can recommend a few depending on your budget) and have a RAID 5 or RAID 6 set that does all your backups.

2. If you want a desktop, a PC or a Mac will be fine. I've been using Macs for over 20 years, so I'm partial to them. However, I've sold many custom PC workstations to other photogs who have been satisfied. With a desktop you can do internal RAID 5 or RAID 6, depending on your budget, and it'll be pretty fast (definitely much faster than your current setup). You don't have to worry about the monitors on a PC, because Apple's monitors, while good, are overpriced.

If you want a quote from me (rather my company) on the best system I can get you (either Mac/PC/laptop), let me know what you want to run (Windows 7 or Mac OS), how much space you think you'll need, what size monitor(s) you want, and what your budget is... feel free to PM me.

Dave: Good to hear back from your wife. Good news.


I dont want to go raid; that was just an expression

I have an approx budget of 2k in mind. In fact, I was looking at the 27in 2,7ghz I5 Imac; 1tb hd and 4gb ram that fits right in my budget. If I could find the equivalent in PC, but with a screen as nice as the Thunderbolt, I will most likely stick with Windows.

If you want to send me a ballpark quote, feel free, but dont work too hard on it since I dont know exactly WHEN this purchase is gonna happen. I'm also afraid that shipping will kill the deal, but I'll gladly consider the option.

Dave: I like your backup workflow. In fact, this is what I would like to use, but I want a better system for now and spend on backups after.

Question for the old school photographs: Is the CD/DVD backup option reliable in very long term or is it just a myth that you get read errors over disks burned like 10 years ago?

Somebody told me about it and it makes sense. Some of my old backup files on cd from 98-99 were corrupt, but MOST of them were ok. A little bit slow to read, but still ok! So i've then decided to opt for TWO copies of each. I also have to add that I never use those disks, I always use the copy that is on my external HD.

So am I safe enough? I think so; but would like to know what you guys think.

If so, I might opt for SSD only for speed up my PP; not for backup.

[The1]

I would avoid the I3 or I5 chips, they are just old news. that being said, the I7 chips are expensive.

do you use your computer for any other media like movies and such?

4gigs of ram isn't very much at all these days. My laptop has 16gigs and is expandable to 32gigs. *and I wouldn't really recommend one less then 8gigs for photo editing*

It sounds mostly like you're looking at the Mac for only one reason, and that's the monitor.

People have been editing just fine for years on normal LCD monitors, so I wouldn't necessarily put out the extra coin for that specific Mac just for the monitor.

If you have an LCD TV, and you hook a PC up to it, you'd be doing pretty well for photo editing. Even a 21-27 inch gaming monitor for your PC will be very sufficient. Many of them now have HDMI inputs. Just make sure the PC has a good video card.

[MaximusJ]

I know that the I7 is more recent, but Apple only got them in their Macbook Pros.

For movies and other tasks, I always use my laptop which has a S-Video out; no HDMI.

You are right about the monitor being the only reason for me to switch over. I didnt hide it lol. This is why i'm saying that if I could find a resolution as sweet as the Mac in a PC environment, I will stick to PCs. I already got all my softwares and external stuff; just not the desktop itself.

You think I could get good results with a laptop connected in HDMI on my 52in TV? Wouldnt I lose any definition in quality? The setups i've seen so far do. But these were with low-end laptops and werent intended for photography. So I might be wrong.

[The1]

Originally Posted by MaximusJ

I know that the I7 is more recent, but Apple only got them in their Macbook Pros.

For movies and other tasks, I always use my laptop which has a S-Video out; no HDMI.

You are right about the monitor being the only reason for me to switch over. I didnt hide it lol. This is why i'm saying that if I could find a resolution as sweet as the Mac in a PC environment, I will stick to PCs. I already got all my softwares and external stuff; just not the desktop itself.

You think I could get good results with a laptop connected in HDMI on my 52in TV? Wouldnt I lose any definition in quality? The setups i've seen so far do. But these were with low-end laptops and werent intended for photography. So I might be wrong.

In many cases, the laptop to TV can put out better definition then the laptop monitor itself.

depending on size of laptop, many won't go past 720p.

and of course the better the video output on the laptop, the better it will look on the TV.

A lot of laptops these days are designed knowing that people will watch movies on their televisions, so they are putting more technology into them that support that. Like special audio control, and even remote controls.

the S-video cable you are using will make the quality worse from a laptop to a television, They are only rated to do 480p at best.

very soon, we will get betting a whole host of new televisions that will be able to exceed 1080p, and as a result, there should be some monitors out there capable of that already.

the only problem with that, the only way to really get the most out of that resolution is to be over 60" on the tv. at 50 inches, we are barely using the capabilities of a 1080p This is why a lot of companies never bothered to put 1080p on smaller then 40" televisions untill the last few years. Just no point.

and on that point, I'm not entirely certain what apple was thinking putting the resolution it did, into the new Ipad. It's excess for the sake of increasing sales and not necessarily improving the products abilities.

[dcstep]

Can't you take your monitor down to 24" and save some $$ and then spend it on 8GB of RAM? As long as you've got a multi-core processor, like the i5, and plenty of RAM, combined with a high quality video card, you'll get good speed with memory hogs like PS and DxO. Going down to 4GB will noticeably slow you.

I've got 24", calibrated monitors at home and work (NEC and Dell) and don't really see the point of a larger monitor for photo images. If you're going to routinely print larger than a 24" screen, then I might understand, but you can zoom in to actual size. Brightness, contrast and color accuracy are much more important factors than absolute size. NEC, Dell, Eizo all make alternatives to the Apple. All are a pretty expensive chunk out of your $2000 budget, but I think you need to figure out how to afford 8GB of RAM.

Dave

[dcstep]

Oh, don't forget, you'll want a 64-bit OS in the PC world.

[The1]

Ironically, my output on my tv is set to 720p because it fits movies and things better.

but on my laptop with 17" monitor, it's set to 1080p

I don't mind editing pictures on my laptop at all (not that I have a powerful one) My old I5 with 8 gigs made me want to stab myself in the eye (exaggeration) I assume part of that was down to it likely being a 5200RPM drive, but still. But the monitor on it was still excellent for photo editing, when the pictures finally loaded

I dislike laptops because there is so much extra software being run that you don't see, just to maintain the 2 power sources. I find a lot of the ram is used up by this and makes the rest of the computer crawl as a result. And they are 2x the price for the same gear.

It's your money, but the rest of the world runs just fine on normal monitors. And much of the world is running on monitors that are 5 years old, or even older.

[Chewy734]

I personally wouldn't use a 50" TV to edit photographs.

Remember 1920x1080 pixels is 1080p. If you view that on a 52" tv versus a 27" monitor, you'll have much higher resolution on the monitor. Also, I wouldn't connect it to the tv using S-Video (although that's better than VGA). I would use HDMI for better throughput and resolution.

[Chewy734]

Originally Posted by The1

I would avoid the I3 or I5 chips, they are just old news. that being said, the I7 chips are expensive.
...
4gigs of ram isn't very much at all these days. My laptop has 16gigs and is expandable to 32gigs. *and I wouldn't really recommend one less then 8gigs for photo editing*

Nothing wrong with the i5 chip. I have it on my MacBook Pro and it works great. Is the i7 better? Yes, much better. But, the bottleneck will most likely be the hard-drive and memory anyways. If you don't go SSD, make sure you get a 7200 rpm SATA 6gbps hard-drive. I wouldn't recommend under 8gb of memory for editing photos/video. I have 16gb on my MacBook Pro with the dual-core i5, SSD and it flies... literally night and day difference with everything.

[The1]

Originally Posted by Chewy734

Nothing wrong with the i5 chip. I have it on my MacBook Pro and it works great. Is the i7 better? Yes, much better. But, the bottleneck will most likely be the hard-drive and memory anyways. If you don't go SSD, make sure you get a 7200 rpm SATA 6gbps hard-drive. I wouldn't recommend under 8gb of memory for editing photos/video. I have 16gb on my MacBook Pro with the dual-core i5, SSD and it flies... literally night and day difference with everything.

yeah, I agree, the regular hard drives are a real bottleneck.

And that's a huge issue with a lot of laptops, is the 5200RPM is the generic go to hard drive in almost all laptops.

If it's not labeled on a description, always assume it's a 5200.

I wouldn't buy a computer anymore that doesn't have at least a 7200RPM unit inside. It does make a massive difference. And as you said, it could make or break the use of what chip you have installed.

[Chewy734]

yeah, you're right Reed. In general, laptops use 5200 or 5400 rpm green drives by default. That's what makes it slow... well, that and the 2-4gb of memory.

[The1]

Originally Posted by Chewy734

yeah, you're right Reed. In general, laptops use 5200 or 5400 rpm green drives by default. That's what makes it slow... well, that and the 2-4gb of memory.

lol, yeah, the memory is a killer on the new stuff.

if you have 4 gigs, I expect the laptop to be running at 40-50% of it's memory at all times, and that alone slows a computer down drastically.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by dcstep

Ah hah! Looks like your 50mm isn't comunicating well with the camera, or it's seriously wacked in permanent OOF. Does it work on your old body?

Dave

I thought so, but I can't say that I have any shots with it where the subject was that far away. I usually use it for closer shots of the cats. I'll try it on the T1i.

[M_Six]

Get the RAM for an iMac from Crucial. I always buy the base model RAM and then upgrade with Crucial DIMMs. Much cheaper.

[FrankiE90]

inner self portrait

[dcstep]

I can't stand using my laptop for image processing, mainly because the screen's color accuracy sucks. I suppose that I good buy a calibrator, but I just use my desktop because it stays calibrated. I tried calibrating my laptop by eye, but it doesn't work near as well.

Dave

[MaximusJ]

Thanks for the advices guys.

I think I will get a laptop and then eventually get a nice 27inch monitor to hook it up to the laptop. The Samsung LS27A850DS is nice, but almost a grand.

The new Dell XPS laptop got a decent list of specs for the price. But only comes with 8gb memory. I have to verify if it can put 16 in it.

[The1]

Originally Posted by MaximusJ

Thanks for the advices guys.

I think I will get a laptop and then eventually get a nice 27inch monitor to hook it up to the laptop. The Samsung LS27A850DS is nice, but almost a grand.

The new Dell XPS laptop got a decent list of specs for the price. But only comes with 8gb memory. I have to verify if it can put 16 in it.

it is more then likely expandable a new computer.

[dcstep]

Originally Posted by MaximusJ

Thanks for the advices guys.

I think I will get a laptop and then eventually get a nice 27inch monitor to hook it up to the laptop. The Samsung LS27A850DS is nice, but almost a grand.

The new Dell XPS laptop got a decent list of specs for the price. But only comes with 8gb memory. I have to verify if it can put 16 in it.

8GB will likely be enough, if you have a 64-bit OS and strong graphics card. The 64-bit part is very important when dealing with large RAW files.

Samsung has a wide range of monitors, so be sure to get one with at least 1920x1080 resolution and 16.7 million colors and 1000 to 1 contrast ratio. NEC, Dell and Eizo are other options and you might consider 24" vs. 27".

Dave

[Chewy734]

Plus, a 32-bit OS is pointless with 8gb, since you can use just under 4gb. I hope Dell doesn't even allow you to configure it with a 32-bit OS.