Tether Tools Now In Stock
Idaho in January
EJJI 10K Rechargeable Battery
Phase One 120mm AF vs. 120mm MF
Aptus-II 12 for AFi/Hy6
October 18, 2010 | News
Leaf has announced today the Aptus-II 12 will be made available in the AFi/Hy6 mount. Initially this option was not made available but due to demand will be available to ship in Q1 of 2011 to provide an easy upgrade path for those with existing AFi/Hy6 cameras. Please let us know if you have any questions.
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Mac Pro Special – NEW Last Gen
October 14, 2010 | Promotion
Warranty and Condition
These are new units, not refurbished, not used, and not open-box. When Apple introduces a new model their third-party distributors are left with the just-discontinued model. These are the last of those units and are a great value for those wanting an Intel tower with lots of power and expandability.
How this Mac Pro Compares
When judging the value of buying the previous generation you should take note of what has and has not improved in the next generation. The differences between the previous and next generation Mac Pros is summarized below.
Quad Cores Compared
| Specification | THIS Quad Core | New Quad Core |
|---|---|---|
| Processor Speed: | 2.66 GHz | 2.8 GHz |
| Processor Type: | W3520 | W3530 |
| QPI Speed: | 4.8 GT/s | 4.8 GT/s |
| L2/L3 Cache: | 256k, 8 MB | 256k, 8 MB* |
| Memory Type: | PC3-8500 | PC3-8500 |
| Std. RAM: | 3 GB | 3 GB |
| Max. RAM: | 32 GB | 32 GB |
| Video Card: | GeForce GT 120 | Radeon HD 5770 |
| Video RAM: | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| Standard HD: | 640 GB | 1 TB |
| HD Interface: | Serial ATA (3Gb/s) | Serial ATA (3Gb/s) |
| SuperDrive: | 18X DL | 18X DL |
| Display Ports: | Mini DisplayPort Dual-Link DVI | 2 Mini DisplayPorts Dual-Link DVI |
| Firewire: | 4 (800) | 4 (800) |
| Bluetooth: | 2.1+EDR | 2.1+EDR |
| AP Extreme: | Optional | Standard |
| Expansion: | 4 PCIe 2.0 | 4 PCIe 2.0 |
| Price: | $1999 (from us) | $2499 (apple.com) |
Eight Cores Compared
| Specification | THIS Eight Core | New Eight Core |
|---|---|---|
| Processor Speed: | 2.26 GHz x2 | 2.4 GHz x2 |
| Processor Type: | E5520 | E5620 |
| QPI Speed: | 6.4 GT/s | 5.86 GT/s |
| L2/L3 Cache: | 256k, 8 MB (x2)* | 256k, 12 MB (x2)* |
| Memory Type: | PC3-8500 | PC3-8500 |
| Std. RAM: | 6 GB | 6 GB |
| Max. RAM: | 64 GB | 64 GB |
| Video Card: | GeForce GT 120 | Radeon HD 5770 |
| Video RAM: | 512 MB | 1 GB |
| Standard HD: | 640 GB | 1 TB |
| HD Interface: | Serial ATA (3Gb/s) | Serial ATA (3Gb/s) |
| SuperDrive: | 18X DL | 18X DL |
| Display Ports: | Mini DisplayPort Dual-Link DVI | 2 Mini DisplayPorts Dual-Link DVI |
| Firewire: | 4 (800) | 4 (800) |
| Bluetooth: | 2.1+EDR | 2.1+EDR |
| AP Extreme: | Optional | Standard |
| Expansion: | 4 PCIe 2.0 | 4 PCIe 2.0 |
| Price: | $2790 (from us) | $3499 (apple.com) |
Capture One Pro and Multi-Core Machines
Phase One has always placed an emphasis on ensuring Capture One takes advantage of the most powerful computers available. With either of these Mac Pros all available cores will be used during processing. See the screen grab to the right for an example of Capture One using 24 different cores the same time.
Buy a Mac Pro from Capture Integration
As a certified reseller Capture Integration can provide you the same great pricing available at apple.com. As experts in high-end photography we can help you customize a machine to make the most out of your money. Contact Us today to order a Mac through us and we can help you with hard questions like these:
- Should I select SSD or non-SSD storage
- Should I use RAID? (internal, external, or not at all)
- Are there wear or maintenance issues with SSD?
- How will the RAM capacity affect scratch disk hits, etc?
- Which programs will benefit from more ram?
- Which programs will benefit from faster CPUs?
- Which programs will benefit from more cores?
- Should I buy Apple Care?
- Which upgrades should I buy through Apple vs. 3rd parties?
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40+ / 65+ backs with FW800
October 11, 2010 | Tech, Tech Features, Top Articles
UPDATE: This article is no longer relevant. An improved firmware has been released that works around the change Apple made to the firewire protocol. With firmware 5.2.2 or later Phase One P40+ and Phase One P65+ backs do not need to be off when plugging in. See our blog entry on this Phase One firmware release.
In order to connect a Phase One digital back to tether you must, naturally:
- Turn the back on
- Launch Capture One
- Plug the FW cable into the computer
- Plug the FW cable into the back
For most of Phase One’s history of digital backs it did not matter what order you did this in. However, when using the Phase One P40+ and P65+ with a MacBookPro or Mac Pro using a FW800 port (note that the most recent models only have FW800 ports) the order is very important. To connect the back to the computer quickly/easily/consistently you should:
- Start with the back turned off
- THEN Plug in the FW cable to the computer and mac
- THEN Turn the back on
It doesn’t matter which end of the firewire cable (mac or back) is plugged in first, nor does it matter if Capture One is launched before or after you turn the back on. All that matters it he back is off when you plug in the firewire cable, and turned on only once the cable is connected.
FW800 disconnect/reconnect
As discussed in our Ideal Tethered Setup article the physical design of the FW800 port makes it very easy for the port to “walk out” (aka jiggle loose) as you walk around with the digital back. When the cable “walks out” the back will lose it’s connection and this can be frustrating. What can be worse however is if the cable “walks out” and then walks back in (i.e. wiggles loose, but then wiggles it’s way back to being connected) very quickly. When this happens the computer won’t know the back has been disconnected (the computer needs around 3 seconds to notice the back is gone) but the back will notice it’s been disconnected – when the back goes to reconnect the computer won’t know it was ever gone and the software/back can get very confused. The solution to this annoyance is to simply adhere or secure the FW800 cable to the port to ensure it does not have room to “walk out”.
FW Voltage
See our Ideal Tethered Setup article for information about running the back off of it’s own battery power rather than the power of the firewire channel when using one of the newer generations of Apple Laptops in which the voltage through the FireWire channel is too irregular for a digital back.
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Old Firmware + New Software
October 8, 2010 | Tech, Tech Features
If you’re using a Phase One P+ digital back and Capture One 5.2 for tethered shooting please take this opportunity to check the firmware of your digital back. If you are using a P+ digital back and are still using the very old 2.9.8 firmware then you should upgrade your firmware. We have noticed a few customers using this latest software with this oldest firmware version will experience occasional lines through the image while shooting tethered.
Like most firmware updates it’s a good idea to step up one firmware version at a time, so upgrading from 2.9.8 to 3.2.6 to 4.8.8 to 5.1.2. The older (3.2.6 and 4.8.8) firmware installers are not available on phaseone.com, but customers of Capture Integration can contact me (doug@captureintegration.com) and I’ll be glad to assist in the update.
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