The *Official Photography Thread*

I'm reluctantly looking at new laptops right now. The Pro 15 is a beast, but it's so heavy.

My old MBA13 can hardly run LR and PS and I need to upgrade asap, but I don't want to. Ha

 

Mine is a late 2011 MBP and it's like a different computer with the new ram. HDR's are not a horrible to sit and wait on anymore.

 

I was looking at laptops recently for photo and video editing. I literally knew (still dont) know much about laptops and all their fancy acronyms and numbers.

But I found these videos to be pretty helpful, they were a good primer at least and gave me an idea of what to look for without having to spend Macbook type money.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXIJMDqu_UU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQkE6dQ4wGg&index=3&list=PLFN8Z49HFshf5s7yoZP9vOLwlWDSnFLSj

 

are you trying to stick with a mac?

if not I would look at the HP spectre x360 (13" 1080p screen, 8gb ram, 256gb ssd, i7 processor). I just got one back in september and it is pretty great considering the spec and the price. I narrowed it down to the Dell XPS 13 and the Spectre and chose the spectre because of the spec was better than the XPS at the same price. It also has a full HDMI port and 3 USB-3 and not to mention that it is a good looking computer.

I have not used PS on it and only done 1 picture at a time on LR but I have used it to do data analysis on large data sets and where my partner for the project using his macbook pro 15 (not sure how old it was) had to run each line at a time, I could run pretty much the whole code without worry. Also, when my professor would run one line of code on his dell latitude it would take like 1 minute where mine would take a few seconds. I'm not sure how exactly that would translate to the performance of it doing some tough editing in PS but I am pretty confident it would handle it just fine

 

I'm looking for the equivalent in processing power to a maxed out MB Pro Retina 15, which is slim.

 

Hey, thanks! I'll check it out. I can watch the first one, but that second guy makes my blood curdle. After a few of his videos I had to quit the internet for a week just to calm down haha maybe it's just me, but it seems others feel the same way.

 

not gonna lie I quit watching it halfway through. I had saved it to my 'watch later' playlist on YouTube and I was only about 15 minutes through it when I came back to it to post it for you

 

damn I just looked that up...thats definitely the only option I can think of with those specs haha. maybe a gaming computer

 

Well, I finally installed my new graphics card in my PC so as to allow me to use the LR 6 I bought a couple weeks ago. Well, the damn thing still is not responding. WTF? Unbelievable.

 

What card did you get? Did you install the latest drivers for your card? Many times the CD included in the box has out of date drivers. Check the manufacturers website for the newest ones.

 

Got the AMD R9 390X and updated all Drivers from AMD website. The Latest upgrade was dated 2/16/2016. I'd say that's pretty up to date.

 

You should be good to go. That's a nice card too. Sorry you're still having trouble man.

 

Yeah, sucks. I'll try again tomorrow.

 

As far as laptops are concerned I think the Macbook Pro is the only way to go, I bought mine about 3 years ago as a referb and just made sure the ram and graphics card were maxed out. It is still going strong with CC 2015 (started with CS4) and capture one, I regularly work on 5+ gig PSBs and shoot tethered to a medium format camera without issues. I am a little out of the loop but last I read Thunderbolt transfer rates are still better than USB 3 for when using a external hardrive. I recently started editing video as well and have yet to really choke up the machine.

A few pitfalls though, one being no Ethernet port (Thunderbolt adapter needed) and soldered in RAM might be faster but you cant upgrade later on. Over all I love it, completely replaced the need for a tower for me and this is coming from a person that..
-Never Liked Macs at all, thought they were overpriced (still do) and the closed architecture was bullshit.
-Never ever thought a laptop would replace my personally built PC.

In short unless you HAVE to have a PC just get the Macbook, its better in the long run to spend a little extra now and have it be what you want vs having to buy something new in 2 years.

 

Good insight, man. My dilemma is deciding between specs and size.

The only upsides to the 15" over the 13" (when both are completely maxed out) are the QUAD CORE and dedicated Graphics Card (and screen real estate).

Now, I know those are huge advantages, but I keep going back and forth on if they're worth it to me in size and particularly weight.

The 13"has the same 16GB, 1TB, etc and at only $430 less the price doesn't matter to me at all as a business investment over the lifespan of the laptop.

But I'm a gram counter, travel ultralight in a small carry on only 99% of the time and the 4.5 lbs of the 15" is almost as much as my big four backpacking set up weighs Total... SO I have a hard time deciding if those 3 pros are worth the one big glaring con (for me).

So, I have absolutely no problem whatsoever getting the 13" IF and only IF losing out on the Quad Core and Graphics Cards won't be that big of a difference for me. The most intensive thing I've done or plan to do is a little video editing and sometimes running LR and PS at the same time while stitching a pano or Brenizer photo with anywhere from 20-50 photos.

With that load out, would you say the 13" will have no problem whatsoever, or it will be bogged down enough (especially as it gets a lot older) to where I should just get the Quad Core and GC in the 15" package? This is the exact, specific question that I can't seem to get definitive feedback on.

 

I think I've answered my own question in reading that over. I just would like some confirmation. The way I'm reading it, the Quad Core and GC are overkill for 90% of what I do and having a laptop that is one whole pound lighter will better suit my needs, as well as me more than fast enough to do everything I need it to. IF I have to wait a little here and there for a large Brenizer, Pano, Video, etc. to load then so be it. Beats carrying around that 10% improvement for the 10% of the time I'll need it, but having to carry it 100% of the time . . . But, there's still a small part of me that wonders if I'd want the extra power, etc somewhere down the road.

 

Actually photo/video editing are two tasks where a quad core processor and dedicated graphics card will pay big dividends especially as the computer ages. When I build a PC I dedicate 25% MINIMUM of the total budget to the graphics card alone. I'd roll with the 15" if it was me and price was not a factor as you mentioned previously.

 

A few from last week I just got finished with:



_DSC5859 by Murphy Lege, on Flickr





_DSC5862 by Murphy Lege, on Flickr




_DSC5874 by Murphy Lege, on Flickr




_DSC5889 by Murphy Lege, on Flickr

 

Couple from this week. Took them just a hair before the weekly challenge started so I'll share a couple here instead.


DSCF5076.jpg by ChazLylePhoto, on Flickr


DSCF5103.jpg by ChazLylePhoto, on Flickr

 

My hike in Sedona, AZ