Moving to Apple?

[plusnq]

Hi
I am considering an Apple MacBook pro 15 i7 as my next laptop. I will use it for my photoediting and tethered shooting only, mainly with Photoshop CS5 and lightroom 3. Is anyone using one with these programs and how are you finding it? Also I want to drive my Dell 30 inch monitor from it. I wondered if anyone was using theirs in a similar fashion? Any problems/issues?

Any advice?

Many thanks

Shane

[thenaturephotographer]

I have a 15in core 2 duo with LR3 and CS4 and it runs fine. I tried the CS5 photoshop trial, and it seemed to be a little slow - save times, etc - but it was fine other than that. Just get as much RAM as you can afford

[EdWood]

Be sure to get a 7200 rpm drive and as much memory as you can afford.

You will never go back to windoz.

[yourdoinitwrong]

I have a 13-inch MacBook Pro 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo with CS5 and LR3 and it handles RAW files from my 7D just fine. With the Core i7 you will have one of the faster laptops available. I see no reason not to go with that setup......if you don't like it let me know and I'll take it off your hands! It's a good suggestion to go with the 7200rpm drive and as much RAM as possible. If I understand it right, the standard config is 4GB (2x2GB) which takes up both slots. To get the Apple upgrade to 8GB (2x4GB) is $400 but I have seen 8GB upgrades for the MacBook for $289.99 so you can save about $100 if you do it yourself.

[jase1125]

Originally Posted by EdWood

Be sure to get a 7200 rpm drive and as much memory as you can afford.

You will never go back to windoz.

I did

[fensterbme]

I'm a recent Mac convert... I'm using a 15" MacBook Pro with the Core i5 CPU at 2.4Ghz. (the additional cash for the i7 CPU just isn't worth it IMO). I did switch out the stock 320GB 5400KRPM hard drive with a Seagate MomentusXT 500GB 7200GB drive (the Segate also has a 4GB SSD that really speeds up performance with commonly used files) and upgraded to 8GB of RAM (purchased aftermarket through OWC, cheaper than buying through Apple). The MBP isn't going to be my main editing machine, I'm about to order one of the brand new Mac Pro desktops, the hex core 3.3Ghz model but I still wanted something that could handle a good bit of CPU/memory intensive work on the go.

I use Lightroom 3 and Adobe Creative Studio 5 and both run quite well chewing up my Canon 5DMkII RAW files (I can shoot over 40-50GB of images in a single day, and it eats them up without issue) and can even do so while running VMWare Fusion with Windows 7 Ultimate running in the background. I shoot tethered into my laptop sometimes and I've had no issues.

A few things I'd tell you:

1.) Don't order the 'upgrades' from Apple unless you don't have a choice... If you want to upgrade your memory or hard drive do it aftermarket.

2.) The Apple provided 7200K RPM drive sucks compared to the other available options, and in fact I've seen some folks point to the 5400K RPM drive from Apple performing almost as well. So if you want a 7200K RPM drive definitely buy it aftermarket.

3.) If you want to drive a 30" display I think you need the video card with the 512MB of video memory.

4.) Consider reading through the Mac Performance Guide, the guy brings up a lot of great things to think about. He explains things in a 'max performance no matter what' manner, which is good one just needs to understand that not everyone needs max performance and in some cases you might be spending hundreds or even thousands more to eek out just another 10-20% more performance (which most folks don't really need).

5.) Take peoples advice with a large grain of salt... There is so much mis-information online, specifically in web forums like this where lots of folks aren't professional photographers and in most cases aren't IT professionals. I guess all I'm saying is try to read from a variety of sources and try to understand for yourself as much as you can and know that some information might sound solid but just isn't. Even take my advice with a large grain of salt and weigh it against what else you read/hear from others.

... that said I'm a pretty big geek who has spent almost two decades designing server systems architecture for large and mid-size companies (including one where I had to integrated 50 Mac clients into Windows Active Directory), and has spent the last four years shooting on a professional basis on the side from my day job.

[Todd Lambert]

Go for it.

[Blackwood]

I too am looking at one. Their desktops are still (in my mind) overpriced. I can build a much better system than Apple offers for the same price point, and now that they're on Intel chipsets, that basically means I'm paying over $1,000 more for MacOS.

I love the build quality of the MBP, however, and it justifies (in my mind) the added expense over an equivalent laptop. About to pull the trigger on the 17" i5. Playing with it at the apple store, it seems to handle large quantities of big photos (1dsII) pretty smoothly.

[fensterbme]

Originally Posted by Blackwood

Their desktops are still (in my mind) overpriced. I can build a much better system than Apple offers for the same price point, and now that they're on Intel chipsets, that basically means I'm paying over $1,000 more for MacOS.

I love the build quality of the MBP, however, and it justifies (in my mind) the added expense over an equivalent laptop. About to pull the trigger on the 17" i5. Playing with it at the apple store, it seems to handle large quantities of big photos (1dsII) pretty smoothly.

I think if you add up matching components you will find that there is only a small/moderate price increase (especially when you consider the Apple comes with most of the software you need). Especially if your buying right when a product is released (if you buy late in the release cycle the Apple product will in fact be quite over priced).

In the case of the Mac Pro (I think the iMac has only limited appeal to serious photographers where they need to store lots of data, want a better display, and want more juice than the iMac serves up) you most certainly can't build a system like it for the same amount of money, in fact it costs more... a lot more (two Xeon CPU's and a dual socket mobo will run more than the price of a Mac Pro).

As for the price of the core i5 MacBook Pro it's a great deal... One of Dell's business class laptops, or an Lenovo, etc. laptop with similar specs will cost the same and in some cases more.

[Blackwood]

Originally Posted by fensterbme

Especially if your buying right when a product is released (if you buy late in the release cycle the Apple product will in fact be quite over priced).

Yah, likely true of any system, but more apparent in the case of Apple since they don't refresh them nearly as often.

Originally Posted by fensterbme

In the case of the Mac Pro (I think the iMac has only limited appeal to serious photographers where they need to store lots of data, want a better display, and want more juice than the iMac serves up) you most certainly can't build a system like it for the same amount of money, in fact it costs more... a lot more (two Xeon CPU's and a dual socket mobo will run more than the price of a Mac Pro).

On newegg, I can buy two X5550 processors, a supermicro dual xeon board, and 12 gigs of ECC DDR3 for under $2,800.

The rest of it is in the noise (apple doesn't charge too much extra for video cards and hard drives.

[fensterbme]

Originally Posted by Blackwood

Yah, likely true of any system, but more apparent in the case of Apple since they don't refresh them nearly as often.

Indeed, it's kinda silly of Apple... as with the Mac Pro where it's been well over a year since a product release, they should have dropped the price a couple of times. I used to think the Mac faithful were crazy all buying the new whatever when it was released, but once you jump on the Mac bandwagon you realize it's when you get the best bang for your buck...

... there are some fantastic things about Apple, however this isn't one of them.

Originally Posted by Blackwood

On newegg, I can buy two X5550 processors, a supermicro dual xeon board, and 12 gigs of ECC DDR3 for under $2,800.

The rest of it is in the noise (apple doesn't charge too much extra for video cards and hard drives.

Your right, the prices have dropped a bit... It used to be when the Xeon's had a higher price tag on them that the price of CPU's/mobo would almost equal or exceed the price of the Mac Pro. But even with the more current prices the Mac Pro isn't at that much of a premium when you add up all the parts...

I used to enjoy all the geekery involved in building out my own systems, but after almost 20 years engineering server/storage systems for companies I have zero desire to build anything anymore unless I really have too (and I might, looking at rebuilding my old Coolermaster CM Stacker cases into big storage servers running FreeNAS, and doing iSCSI so that the drives appear local, thus making Lightroom happy). These days I have too much editing/photog stuff to do when I get home from my day job..

[Blackwood]

Originally Posted by fensterbme

I used to enjoy all the geekery involved in building out my own systems

Me too. Only been doing that since the Pentium 2 (not 20 years :P) and I am pretty much over it (unless it makes financial sense, or cents, as the case may be).

It's sad. After building about 10 of my own systems, I can now go to Anandtech's chipset reviews and have no idea what is being discussed.

I'd be keeping my full tower case and cooling solution, probably upgrading to at least a 1000W power supply, keeping the same optical drives and hard drives, and potentially upgrading my video cards (in addition obviously to CPU, MOBO and memory). Really to me seems that I'm paying a price premium for Apple software, much of which I'm not sure I'd use.

Originally Posted by fensterbme

and doing iSCSI so that the drives appear local, thus making Lightroom happy)

Interesting. I wonder if I can trick Carbonite into thinking an external array is actually internal. I used to run Lightroom off a dlink NAS 323 which I'd mounted as a drive in Windows. It didn't have any problems (though it lagged even over direct gigabit), but Carbonite seems smarter.

[Hen3Ry]

Originally Posted by fensterbme

(two Xeon CPU's and a dual socket mobo will run more than the price of a Mac Pro).

Ummm...no. A Mac Pro with dual Xeon CPUs (8 cores) is $3300. I can buy the CPUs and MB for much less than that.

[Tony-S]

Originally Posted by fensterbme

3.) If you want to drive a 30" display I think you need the video card with the 512MB of video memory.

Any of them will drive a 30" display at native resolution provided you have the dual-link adapter.

Originally Posted by Blackwood

I too am looking at one. Their desktops are still (in my mind) overpriced. I can build a much better system than Apple offers for the same price point, and now that they're on Intel chipsets, that basically means I'm paying over $1,000 more for MacOS.

Actually, Macs and PCs cost just about the same if they have the same features. I have priced such a system compared to the i7 iMac from last week. Apple's standard features are often things photographers don't or won't need, but nonetheless they add to the cost of any computer.

Originally Posted by fensterbme

I think the iMac has only limited appeal to serious photographers where they need to store lots of data, want a better display, and want more juice than the iMac serves up)

The iMacs all have LED H-IPS panels, among the best you can buy. With Firewire 800, you can add drives all day (well, up to 63 of them, anyway).

[fensterbme]

Originally Posted by Tony-S

The iMacs all have LED H-IPS panels, among the best you can buy. With Firewire 800, you can add drives all day (well, up to 63 of them, anyway).

The iMacs do have nice displays... and I shouldn't have sounded like I was discounting them as crappy. But there are folks who want EIZO, NEC and LaCie which are a bit better (if only by a small margin that most folks couldn't even visually see). I myself looking at getting the NEC 30" WQXi most likely (although I could get a pair of 27" ACD's for that which is really tempting). There are also folks who might prefer a display that wasn't so super glossy...

As for Firewire, its' fine for some stuff... but the speed is a whole lot less than some folks would prefer and frankly that's where most folks systems are bottlenecked, not with CPU but with all the wait times in the storage subsystem. I don't see myself being able to run striped SSDs and also be able to stripe across four 2TB hard disks in an iMac, and there is no way to get even close to that type of IOPS with external drives talking Firewire.

Storage options and expandablity is the main reason I'd direct someone to even a bottom of the line Mac Pro over an iMac to someone who was doing a lot of heavy photo editing. If the iMac shipped with the ablity to have a bit more expandable storage (and there is no reason in a 27" iMac they can't squeeze in at least two 3.5" bays or simply put an eSATA connector) I'd think it would make a much more viable workstation.