The Importance of Computers

What’s the difference between a Good Computer and a Great Computer

Computer power is all about time saving. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that a computer from 1998 could be used to edit a 100 megapixel photo, but it would take several days just for the computer to open the image. That is to say, most any computer will technically work, but if you want to reduce the time you spend sitting in front of the computer, and increase the time you spend shooting, you’ll need a fast computer with lots of RAM, and plenty of hard drive storage. This is especially true if you’re working with images from high-megapixel digital backs or stitching together multiple images.

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Desktop Options

High-End Solution: Built-to-Order Apple Eight-Core Mac Pro

• Our Price: Approx. $7,800, call for current price
• Apple.com Price*: Approx. $9,300, call for current price
• Two Quad-Core processors [8 cores]
• 9GB of RAM (with two slots open for future expansion)
• Apple internal RAID Card
• Three 1TB (1000GB) Hard Drives for photos
• One 500GB Hard Drive for programs and operating system
• Bluetooth + Airport
• 3-Year Warranty
• Configuration: This Mac Pro will come with the RAID preconfigured to combine the three 1TB Hard Drives into one pool of protected storage.

*Apple.com closest equivalent is with 8GB of RAM (instead of 9GB) and three 750gb hard drives for data (instead of three 1TB hard drives). Price quoted from Apple.com.

Entry-Level Solution: Built-to-Order Apple Four-Core Mac Pro

• Our Price: Approx. $3,300, call for current price
• Apple.com Price**: Approx. $3,700, call for current price
• Two Dual-Core 2.0 GHz processors [4 cores]
• 5GB of RAM (with four slots open for future expansion)
• Two 500gig Hard Drives for photos
• One 250gig Hard Drive for programs and operating system
• Bluetooth + Airport

**Apple.com closest equivalent is with 4GB of RAM (instead of 5GB). Price quoted from Apple.com.

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Laptop Options

High-End Solution: Built-to-Order 2.4 Ghz 17″ MacBookPro

• Retail Price: Approx. $4,100, call for current price
• 2.4GHz Dual-Core Processor
• 17″ 1920×1200 ‘High-Resolution’ Display
• 4GB of RAM
• 160GB 7200rpm hard drive
• AppleCare Protection Plan (3 year warranty)

Entry-Level Solution: Standard 2.2Ghz 15″ MacBookPro

• Retail Price: Approx. $2,400, call for current price
• 2.2GHz Dual-Core Processor
• 15″ 1440×900 Display
• 2GB of RAM
• 120GB 5400rpm hard drive
• AppleCare Protection Plan (3 year warranty)

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Making the Choice

Laptop or Desktop

The answer to this question is simpler than many people make it. A desktop offers greater performance and expandability, but lacks portability. If you want to be able to shoot on location, then you need a laptop. If you don’t, then a desktop is probably your best option. Of course, many photographers end up buying both.

Laptop monitors - To Gloss or Not to Gloss

Apple’s new line of glossy laptop monitors are gorgeous, but entirely inappropriate for outdoor use. These glossy monitors will reflect absolutely everything. Therefore, outside the glare can be overwhelming. Unless you are planning on using the laptop mostly in controlled indoor environments, stick with the traditional laptop monitor. Also, check out the Laptop Screen Shade (LINK HERE).

Processors - Speed and Quantity

Processor speed is well named because it will determine how fast your computer can Process RAW files into TIFFs/JPGs. It will also have an impact on any math-intensive operation (i.e. perspective correction or multiple-image stitching). Depending on your workflow, processing speed may or may not be very important. Many photographers process hundreds of RAW files at one time, leaving the operation to run overnight. If you often wait at the computer for tasks such as processing or image-stitching to complete, then a faster processor will reduce your wait time.

Laptop Hard Drive Speed

The standard hard drive for laptops rotates at 5400rpm. Upgrading to a 7200rpm hard drive will generally provide a boost in performance when reading or writing to the hard drive. This is especially important when shooting tethered. If possible, upgrade to a faster hard drive. If you need more storage, then use an external hard drive for any data you don’t need immediate access to.

RAM

The RAM of the computer is the short-term memory, and is absolutely essential when working with high-megapixel images. It is the easiest way to increase the perceived speed of the computer. When opening an image in Capture One, Photoshop, or other editing program, the image will be loaded into RAM. When the RAM is full, part of the image and the data associated with it must go back to the hard drive. Even a very fast hard drive cannot read and write data nearly as fast as RAM. The bottom line: if you don’t have enough RAM, working with large-images will slow your computer to a crawl. This will be especially true if you add in tasks such as multiple-image stitching or perspective correction.

RAID Card

RAID takes two or more physical hard drives and combines them into one virtual hard drive, either providing increased speed or an automatic protection against hard-drive failure. The different configurations of RAIDs are designated by number (e.g. RAID0, RAID1 etc). RAID5 is the form of RAID most appropriate for photographers. Using RAID5 will protect against the loss (i.e. failure) of one drive at a time. As an added benefit, RAID5 also increases read speed, meaning faster load time for large images.

In the suggested high-end Mac Pro, the RAID card would be used to combine three hard drives into one massive drive where you could store all of your images or image library. If one of these three hard drives fails, all the images would remain safe, and the system would warn you that you need to replace the failed hard drive. The fourth hard drive would be used by itself for the operating system and programs such as Photoshop. RAID will not protect against the accidental deletion of files, or against system or file corruption, so it is NOT a backup solution. However, having RAID adds one more level of protection to your backup routine.

Warranty

The standard Apple warranty is 1 year. The AppleCare Protection Plan is a 2 year warranty extension (yielding a total warranty of 3 years). The price for AppleCare is $349 for a MacBookPro, and $249 for a MacPro. Given the low cost of AppleCare compared to the computer, it seems very prudent to purchase this additional protection. The price of AppleCare does not increase when you add options (such as more RAM or hard Drives), so if you are building the High-End Desktop , the cost of AppleCare becomes a no-brainer.

You may elect to use third party RAM and hard drives in your Mac Pro. In this case Apple will honor the AppleCare warranty for the Mac Pro, but not for the third party components. In practice this means that before sending your Mac in for service you will need to remove any third party hardware.