photolandscape Posted January 5, 2010 Share #1 Posted January 5, 2010 Advertisement (gone after registration) I currently have a relatively ancient but capable PowerMac G5, with the most basic, original 1.6gHz single processor together with an NEC 2690 LCD monitor. My G5 has 2.5GB of RAM. It's all good with one exception--the processing speed of the G5 on files from the M9. Yesterday, I brought 101-18MB files into Adobe Lightroom v1.4 (I haven't downloaded 2.6 yet). My G5 uses Motorola processors, not the current Intel processors. Bottom line--to upload and do simple processing of the 101 M9 shots took at least 45 minutes. With my M8, it would have been half as long, of course. I was downloading files from the Sandisk Extreme III 8GB disk via a card reader plugged into a USB 2.0 port. Having just expended a boat load of money on the M9, what would be a good Mac-based solution to explore--new, refurbished, or used are all options in my mind? I'd consider a laptop as long as I can plug my 26" NEC monitor and external hard drives into it. Any thoughts on this? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 5, 2010 Posted January 5, 2010 Hi photolandscape, Take a look here Which Mac for Processing M9 files?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
Jager Posted January 5, 2010 Share #2 Posted January 5, 2010 Well, if you don't mind being tied to a desktop machine a la your current PowerMac, any of the newer Mac Pros would be the ticket. Me, I've gotten spoiled by the MacBook Pro's the last couple of years. Sufficient power for photo processing. And I can sit on my living room couch and do quick initial edits in Lightroom. Works well with a larger desktop monitor. The only deal if you go that route is working out your backup regimen. I have a wireless 'N' network for backing up to Time Capsule and to external drives, but frankly that's kind of slow for a many-gigabyte job. I direct-connect to the drives for that. The big danger with a laptop is the "I'm busy, I'll back it up later," mentality. But any of the modern Intel Macs would be a huge improvement for you. 45 minutes is tough! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James R Posted January 5, 2010 Share #3 Posted January 5, 2010 I'm using a Mac Pro with 8g, using Capture One Pro 5 and a lot of storage. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWW Posted January 5, 2010 Share #4 Posted January 5, 2010 The new IMAC 27 inch with the dual core processor seems to handle M9 files fine even while handling C1, Lightroom, CS4, Flexcolor, and Nik SW. Speed limiting factor seems to be disk access when accessing the external USB drives. The big screen is a plus. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bo_Lorentzen Posted January 5, 2010 Share #5 Posted January 5, 2010 Macbook Pro 15 inch, loaded. works great. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
michali Posted January 5, 2010 Share #6 Posted January 5, 2010 Macbook Pro 15 inch, loaded. works great. +1 same here. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samir Jahjah Posted January 5, 2010 Share #7 Posted January 5, 2010 Advertisement (gone after registration) +1 same here. Macbook Pro 17 Inch, LR...works perfectly well! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacSpikes Posted January 5, 2010 Share #8 Posted January 5, 2010 I use a Mac Pro with 4 drives. One small Boot drive for the OS and the software, and three as a very fast RAID array called "DATA HD". I bought these drives not from Apple, but from another source. I use the Seagate Barracuda 1TB Enterprise quality. I have added two external Lacie Big 1TB RAID drives. One as a Time Machine Backup and one as a regular Backup (using Apple's Backup app). Time Machine saved my ass several times. It is simply magnificent. But since I do not want to rely on just one technique I have added the regular Backup. Every week I clone the DATA HD (Carbon Copy Cloner) to an extra HD with a Newertech FW Voyager and store the clone outside the house. This is a cheap and easy way to do it. If the house burns down I have lost no more then a week. When the OS was updated to version 10.6 I cloned the Boot drive too. This way you can easily boot in the previous OS over FW if you run into trouble. I was lucky I did this, because all the Nikon software didn't work properly after upgrading to 10.6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwelland Posted January 5, 2010 Share #9 Posted January 5, 2010 I use a 2x Quad proc Mac Pro with a scary amount of memory and storage for my main machine. However, from a practical perspective as an upgrade from your current G5 Power Mac, you would do well to look at picking up a UniBody MacBookPro 15in. This is probably the most flexible laptop you can get for handling Aperture/Lightroom/Capture One and can be hooked up with it's decent graphics capabilities to an external monitor & external storage. I use a 17in MBP for my day job which I upgraded to 2x 500GB internal drives which is great as a mobile desktop but truthfully the larger screen can be bothersome for travel as it has a tendency to close or be too big for literal use on a lap etc. The 15in is a better size if you want portability. Another option not to overlook is the 13in MBP which in it's current UniBody configuration has awesome battery power, a nice screen for portable LR/Capture One use on the road, plus you can leverage a decent external screen when at home for better resolution and dual screen work. I have this as my carry around laptop and I love it. You can stack it out with up to 8GB ram (I get along fine with 4GB) plus it'll take a decent SATA drive, or my preference which was a 256GB SSD. Awesome laptop if you can live with a 13.3in screen on the road. Of course, if you want a home machine that'll last as long as your current G5 Power Mac has done then I'd recommend pretty much any of the current spec Intel MacPro's. Mine is getting old now as it's a Dual Quad 3GHz that I've had since 2007 and other than putting more RAM and a RAID card/storage in it I've found no desire to replace it any time soon - literally a case of a machine being good enough for purpose and it's going to take a significant speed upgrade to make me want to change (Nehalem current spec machines almost do it but don't affect my photo work enough to justify it). If you are using Aperture then I'd recommend looking carefully at a top spec graphics card (I have 2x X1600's for 3 screen supoort - 2x screen + Cintiq - but that's now getting old and there are newer alternatives). Btw, any of the Intel MacPro's will be a significant upgrade from the G5 so consider used/refurb too. The 21/27in iMac is very sexy and desirable but you'll be constrained long term with expandability of the base unit. I think of them as being akin to static laptops and highly recommend AppleCare if you buy one. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pascal_meheut Posted January 5, 2010 Share #10 Posted January 5, 2010 I use both a MacPro with a lot of memory and very fast disks (SSD+RAID0...) with local and remote backup and a MacBookPro Unibody 17"... The MacBookPro is a fine machine but the disk makes all the difference. Ok, I took the slow 5400 rpm one because the 7200 rpm was supposed to have vibration problem. However, to convert a M9 16 bits DNG file with Capture One, it takes around 15 sec vs 4 sec on the MacPro. So it depends a lot on your use. If your are only post-processing a small number of well-choosen pictures and do not want to load/save huge files, any machine will do. If you are doing more massive processing and especially I/O, I recommend a MacPro because it will allow you to tune you disk configuration unlike the other models. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob_w Posted January 5, 2010 Share #11 Posted January 5, 2010 I use a Macbook Pro 15" when travelling and an iMac 21" at home. Both are very good but the bigger screen is definitely to be preferred. If I were doing it again I might consider the MBP 13" as just being that bit more portable and because the iMac is my 'master' machine. As a tiny bonus, the built-in SD card readers are nice. Both are pretty fast. There are also tuning tips provided on various web forums which help. For example, heavy use of Airport can slow things down quite a lot. Like others I use Time Machine and find it very reliable. My approach is to alternate backup disks and store the resting disk in a fireproof safe. Running LR in native 64-bit mode is also great -- except for the current SNAFU with LR 2.6 which should be remedied soon. As for the cost, to me it is a necessary investment to complement the Leica with decent editing/viewing equipment and the current Macs are probably the cheapest way of doing it. I have not invested in specialist monitors, RAID arrays etc. although I probably should. Cheers Robert Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lct Posted January 5, 2010 Share #12 Posted January 5, 2010 ...the processing speed of the G5 on files from the M9. Yesterday, I brought 101-18MB files into Adobe Lightroom v1.4 (I haven't downloaded 2.6 yet). My G5 uses Motorola processors, not the current Intel processors. Bottom line--to upload and do simple processing of the 101 M9 shots took at least 45 minutes... Curious. 18MB are small files compared to MFs. I' working currently with 100+MB pics on a G5, OS 10.4.11 with PS CS3. Comes from Lightroom perhaps. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanyasi Posted January 5, 2010 Share #13 Posted January 5, 2010 I would give serious consideration to a macMini. In all likelihood, it will be my next computer. Here is why: A. It doesn't come with a monitor. The Mac monitors are pretty much useless for editing photos when you focus on color calibration and getting what you see on screen to come out of your print--that bold statement should start a debate. Mac monitors have the brightness pushed way up to an unnatural level and have their own more difficult calibration system. Photos look great on them, but are unrealistic. Its like trying to print a lightbox. B. Even if you use a second monitor, you still have the impact of the birght Mac monitor on your viewing of the photos on the other monitor and your perceptions. C. I don't have the space to keep shipping cartons forever. If you ever have to send your computer in for repair, sending the macMini in will be much easier because it doesn't come with a monitor. D. I have never seen anyone suggest that you can do serious photo editing on a laptop with its screen so why pay for the screen? E. The macMini--to best of my knowledge--supports dual monitors, which is what I use. I believe I asked this question at the NYC mac store. F. I have not looked at the new macMins in terms of RAM, but my understanding is that they are getting pretty powerful in terms of the amount of RAM they can hold. G. Granted you have some limits on storage and peripherals, but you can USB pretty much to add all the hard drive space you need and you can always add other peripherals through USB. H. By the way, I would look at the Eizo Color Edge monitors, which come with their own color calibration software. For me, ColorEdge solved the hassle of calibration. The price of these monitors has come down, but they are still expensive, but worth every penny. When I buy a macMini, I plan to add a second ColorEdge monitor, but that is probably a year or so off. This year I am paying for an M9. At least stop by an Apple store if you can, or go online and read the specs. It is an interesting device. There was a lot of speculation that Apple was going to drop the macMini about a year ago, but they actually devoted resources to improving it. I also noticed Dell now has something that looks like a macMini, but I haven't checked it out other than to note it was in a catalogue I received. Good luck Jack Siegel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericperlberg Posted January 5, 2010 Share #14 Posted January 5, 2010 First, if you only have 2.5 gig of memory you could upgrade your memory to get a speed increase. Secondly, you're in luck, you're using such an old (relatively speaking) computer that almost any new mac whether laptop or desktop will be noticeably faster and the more powerful desktops will really impress. Although geekbench is a measure of only processing speed and ram and leaves out other factors like hard drive speed and whether or not software is optimised to take advantage of modern chip technology, a 64 bit operating system (Snow Leopard but your computer can't run Snow Leopard in 64 bit) and graphic card speed, a quick look at geekbench scores should reveal the differences. * Your Mac's geekbench score is just under 1400 (arbitrary number). * A recent Macbook Pro 17" has a geekbench score of 3872 * A top end iMac (i7 2.8ghz) has a score of 9500 * A top of the line 2.93ghz 16 (virtual) core MacPro has a score of 15,000+. So all things being equal (which they never are), using a top end new mac would see a 10x increase in speed over what you have now, a recent MacBook Pro would see close to tripling your speed. Personally I couldn't live with using my 2006 MacBook Pro to work on M9 files. I tried it for awhile with Canon 1ds Mkii files of about the same size and felt it was too slow even with e-sata drives connected through an e-sata card. of course, like one's sense of hot and cold, different people have different tolerances and different need for speed. A good guide to MacPerformance by Lloyd Chambers who puts in a silly amount of time in researching and measuring these issues so we don't have to. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericperlberg Posted January 5, 2010 Share #15 Posted January 5, 2010 Just to add that a MacMini with 4 gig of ram gets a max geekbench score of 3800. I think MacMini is limited to 4gig of ram which is a constraint. Remember that the OS needs ram for its own use and apps running in the background also use memory. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lct Posted January 5, 2010 Share #16 Posted January 5, 2010 I currently have a relatively ancient but capable PowerMac G5, with the most basic, original 1.6gHz single processor... Ah yes i read you too fast sorry. Mine has two 2 gHz processors which explains the difference i guess. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericperlberg Posted January 5, 2010 Share #17 Posted January 5, 2010 I would give serious consideration to a macMini. In all likelihood, it will be my next computer. Here is why: A. It doesn't come with a monitor. The Mac monitors are pretty much useless for editing photos when you focus on color calibration and getting what you see on screen to come out of your print--that bold statement should start a debate. Mac monitors have the brightness pushed way up to an unnatural level and have their own more difficult calibration system. Photos look great on them, but are unrealistic. Its like trying to print a lightbox. B. Even if you use a second monitor, you still have the impact of the birght Mac monitor on your viewing of the photos on the other monitor and your perceptions. C. I don't have the space to keep shipping cartons forever. If you ever have to send your computer in for repair, sending the macMini in will be much easier because it doesn't come with a monitor. D. I have never seen anyone suggest that you can do serious photo editing on a laptop with its screen so why pay for the screen? E. The macMini--to best of my knowledge--supports dual monitors, which is what I use. I believe I asked this question at the NYC mac store. F. I have not looked at the new macMins in terms of RAM, but my understanding is that they are getting pretty powerful in terms of the amount of RAM they can hold. G. Granted you have some limits on storage and peripherals, but you can USB pretty much to add all the hard drive space you need and you can always add other peripherals through USB. H. By the way, I would look at the Eizo Color Edge monitors, which come with their own color calibration software. For me, ColorEdge solved the hassle of calibration. The price of these monitors has come down, but they are still expensive, but worth every penny. When I buy a macMini, I plan to add a second ColorEdge monitor, but that is probably a year or so off. This year I am paying for an M9. At least stop by an Apple store if you can, or go online and read the specs. It is an interesting device. There was a lot of speculation that Apple was going to drop the macMini about a year ago, but they actually devoted resources to improving it. I also noticed Dell now has something that looks like a macMini, but I haven't checked it out other than to note it was in a catalogue I received. Good luck Jack Siegel Jack, 2 quick points though I'm not arguing that you might want a MacMini for size reasons (its great for that reason, not to mention that its almost totally silent). 1) I agree that box storage is an expensive add on that most people don't consider. Apple have always shipped me a box via FedEx to return my MacPro, I'm not certain if this is reserved for AppleCare policy buyers or just their general policy but I too refuse to store large cartons in my space limited flat. 2) Using USB 2 to attach storage is really prehistoric. The mac mini has one Firewire 800 port and firewire devices are daisy chainable. Firewire 800, though really slow compared to e-sata and USB 3 and other newer technologies is orders of magnitude faster than USB 2. I've looked at that little Dell because it has a built in HDMI port and I was thinking of using a computer to replace my cable tv. It's cute but even more underpowered than a Mini and adding the bits and bobs that make it more useful quickly upped the price into the unacceptable (for me) range. Wish they'd put an HDMI on the MacMini, my tellie won't work with a separate HDMI for tellie and RCA for sound... sigh... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwelland Posted January 5, 2010 Share #18 Posted January 5, 2010 I agree with Eric's comments both on the upgrade options/performance improvements plus also the Mac Mini concerns. Moving from the G5, especially single proc, to ANY of the Intel Macs, particularly the new Core i7 processors, will be a significant performance boost from the Power Mac. As regards the Mac Mini suggestion - well, I can understand some of the points raised by Jack but it's a pretty closed solution with minimal upgrade options going forward, other than via USB or Firewire. Also, this box isn't designed with maximum throughput in mind and is built to a price. There are some significant considerations regarding the on-board video support as well because it shares the memory between the CPU and the graphics controller which essentially means you lose it. I use these boxes for test servers (I have a stack of four of them here next to me - very convenient and external PSU makes them small, quiet and run cool too) and they are perfectly adequate machines but nothing stellar. To upgrade them is a real pain too unless you're adept with a putty knife. Just saying ... Btw, Steve Plattner: if you're looking for an excellent Mac dealer in the PDX area I can recommend PowerMacPac out by the airport. They're a Mac only outfit who are a step way beyond the hype of the Apple stores. (I'm just a happy repeat customer since 1996). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
telewatt Posted January 5, 2010 Share #19 Posted January 5, 2010 Macbook Pro 15 inch, loaded. works great. ... and a 24" Monitor is running as second Monitor for the pictures working in Photoshop....... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
eleskin Posted January 5, 2010 Share #20 Posted January 5, 2010 I have a late model Powerbook G4 and the last 24" Imac they made last year and both are fine with M9 files. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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