Leica Q2 / Imac /Lightroom

[nicci78]

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Apple Silicon with 8GB is okay for 24MP DNG. But it will slow down dramatically with 47MP DNG. 

16GB is just ok for Q2 DNG batch processing. Meaning : you cannot really do anything else during the batch. You can browse with Safari at the same time, but not with Chrome (which is a memory hog) 

My advice ? Upgrade to Mac Studio base model : M1 Max - 24GPU - 32GB RAM - And buy as many internal storage your money can buy. You won’t be able to match the internal speed with Thunderbolt 4 external SSD drive. 
 

With M1 Max 32GB it is like having two computer in one : one with 16GB for batch processing and another one with 16GB for anything else at the same time  

Skip stupidly high price Studio display. Except if you really want Steve Jobs’ pixel perfect 218dpi with 109dpi retina rendering ! 

[Guest]

12 hours ago, jaapv said:

I have never seen a beachball - and I run  AI programs. Both LR and PS is lightning fast, as is a notoriously slow program like Topaz AI. There must have been something wrong with your configuration - or an antiquated version of Lightroom.

I agree, I have the 16" M1 Pro with 16GB of RAM and it is a joy to use. No lagging whatsoever with Q2 Raws in Lightroom.

[Skyerocket]

Many many thanks to every one who has replied or is still intending to reply and the general consensus of opinion is that i need to upgrade my computer. I am now looking for  volunteers to break this news to my wife as I don't think she has fully recovered from the time  she discovered how much I paid for my filter kit never mind the Q2 !

Once agin everyone ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, thanks.

 

[nicci78]

No need to change the iMac ! Just buy 32GB of RAM at crucial website for exemple. 
It is cheap and very very easy to change !! 
Or better just go to your local Apple representatives (not Apple Store) and ask for an upgrade : big internal SSD (2To or 4To) instead of whatever you got + cleaning of the fan + 32GB RAM !! 
It is not expensive and your iMac will rock for several more years. 
It will be faster and more silent. 
 

 

NB : please do not attend to change SSD yourself. You have to dismantle the whole iMac. Unfortunately Apple makes it very dangerous due to power supply exposed traces. (You can literally die by electric shock) 
Apple technicians have the training to do it safely. 
 

NB2 : Apple did it again with Max Studio : same power supply with exposed traces. 
Mac mini has enclosed power supply. It is possible. Apple just want to kill you if you intend to repair or upgrade their computers. 

Edited March 23, 2022 by nicci78

[PhotoCruiser]

vor 4 Stunden schrieb Skyerocket:

the general consensus of opinion is that i need to upgrade my computer.

Well, not really, there are several aproaches to fix your problem and they have different price tags.

1° Get a card reader and you fix the problem with the cards, the cheapest solution as a fast card reader is between 50-150$

2° Get a M1 Mac Mini (I would suggest 32GB) and that's a cheaper fix and you could reuse your iMac as Monitor and the Keyboard should be reusable too.
     Never had one, but the benchmarks I was reading showed a very similar power as the MacBook Pro wit same processor and price is very attractive.

3° Only if you need to transport and use your your computer out of your home/office then get a MacBook Pro M1
     I live on 3 places on two continents and need to drive or fly my computer around the world, so a notebook is the only solution for me.
     Theoretically I could use instead the MacBook a Mac mini and as I have in all my locations Keyboard, mouse and a external monitor to make the Mac mini work.
     But then I could not work outside oof my houses, so I opted for a laptop and the small MacBook Pro 13" is very handy to travel with.

For the M1 you can save a substantial amount of $$$ if you keep the internal SSD small and work with external Thunderbolt (SSD) Disks.
I made the mistake to order mine wit 2Tb SSD and that was a expensive mistake as I still need external Hard Disks to store my stuff.
The only advantage is that for video editing I copy the files on the much faster internal SSD, edit them there and when im done then I copy them back to the external disk.

I switched 2021 from my life with DOS and Windows Lenovo Workstations to a 2021 13" MacBook Pro with M1, 32GB and 2TB SSD with a external Monitor
Even on this configuration with the latest iOS I get randomly "Out of Memory" Messages and need to reboot,
it seems Apple is working on this problem, but still no solution found.

Chris

[charlesphoto99]

13 hours ago, jaapv said:

May I inquire what you need 1 GB files for? 

I'm working with my archival film scans, often with extra layers and sometimes printing to 20X24 or 24X36. And sometimes I'll have many files open in PS. 

[nicci78]

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4 hours ago, PhotoCruiser said:

Get a M1 Mac Mini (I would suggest 32GB) and that's a cheaper fix and you could reuse your iMac as Monitor and the Keyboard should be reusable too.

Not that easy, if you have updated you imac to high Sierra and later (as you should) you won't be able to use the iMac 27'' as a monitor. If it is a 5K iMac it is not possible to use it as a monitor at all

[Alan Friedman]

4 hours ago, PhotoCruiser said:

... For the M1 you can save a substantial amount of $$$ if you keep the internal SSD small and work with external Thunderbolt (SSD) Disks.

Excellent advice. I only keep working files on the internal hard drive and use small size 2TB external drives for storage. The best transfer data quickly and can be carried easily if you work on different machines or different locations. 

[nicci78]

with M1, better to get as much internal storage. Way faster than external one. 

If you wish to buy external SSD as fast as internal, it will cost you the same and it won't even be as fast

[Stuart Richardson]

I went with Nicci's route, and it has been a bit of a revelation. I now work partially at home and partially at my studio, which is about 100km away from my home. So I was struggling with a Mac Mini at home and a 2013 Mac Pro at work, along with a laptop that I used for everything else. I was using two separate RAID arrays, one for archival work and a PCIe SSD raid for the other for my working images and the lightroom catalog. I would carry the SSD raid from computer to computer to run everything. I needed the Mac Pro at work to run my lab's X5 scanner, which is why I kept it.

In the end, I ordered a maxed out Macbook Pro 16" with an 8TB drive and 64GB of ram. To say it is an upgrade is a massive understatement. All the work is on the computer, no cables to mess with, other than a single one to power and another to the monitor at work. At home the monitor supplies power, so it is just a single cable. No need to eject anything, just pull it out. I can edit exactly what I was working on wherever I am, and the speed is multiples of what I was getting with an external raid, even a PCIe SSD one. I realize this is massive overkill for most people, but for my studio it makes total sense. I have spent as much on drives in the last few years as I did to upgrade the Mac to 8TB, and I have gone from 3 computers to 1.5 (the 0.5 is the Mac pro at work, which I still need for the scanner. But I set up a thunderbolt docking station at work so I just need to switch the cable between the two computers if I need to scan.

I agree with Alan regarding the computer too. It is a bit heavier than before, but it has a much better keyboard than the touchbar Macbook Pro I had before, and no more sharp edges. Also great to have a super fast card reader built in. All in all, it is amazing!

The disk test was done with about 50 tabs of firefox open, lightroom, photoshop and indesign all running, music, mail, messages and a number of other programs. As well as the drive being over half full. On my RAID 0 PCIeSSD, I was getting about 1800 Mb/s write and similar read.

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Edited March 23, 2022 by Stuart Richardson

[PhotoCruiser]

vor 7 Stunden schrieb nicci78:

with M1, better to get as much internal storage. Way faster than external one.

If you wish to buy external SSD as fast as internal, it will cost you the same and it won't even be as fast

1° every same technology mass memory storage is faster as a external solution, that is true
2° this can be solved with copy the files to edit on the internal ssd, edit and copy them back to the external SSD
3° I use for my travels the LaCie Rugged 5TB USB-3 Disk and it works well at a cost 170$ and a LaCie Rugged Shuttle 8TB and it costs 499$
    At home I have a non transportable G Tech  Drive Thunderbolt3 for 455$
4° I had several Samsung EVO SSD disks in my Lenovo Laptop, 4TB cost around 450$ and they are considerable faster than a hard disk.
     a Thunderbolt-3 case for ATA or NVMe M2 SSD cost about 100-150$ 

Memory upgrade from 1TB to 2 TB on a MacMini cost 600$
Memory Upgrade on a MacBook Pro M1 cost
1-->2TB = 400$
1-->4TB = 1000$
1-->8TB = 2200$

2TB internal memory will never be enough for all my Photos and Videos, they are actually around 5TB...
So in any case I need a external disk, or fork out 2'200$ for the upgrade from 1TB to 8TB internal SSD

So i prefer to work as I have written above, either "slow" from the external USB-C or TB HardDisk or use my Samsung EVO SSD Disks in a USB-C or Thunderbolt housing.
That cost me about 1500$ less than the 2200$ upgrade to 8TB internal SSD.

However, having 8TB internal SSD storage in a M1 MaCBOOK would be a very elegant and handy solution for me as traveller, but the price tag is too steep for my budget.

Chris 

Edited March 24, 2022 by PhotoCruiser

[vedivv]

It is very interesting to reach all the different comments.  While we may come to different conclusions, different view points and considerations are interesting and helpful.

The RAM size, given that Macs are not upgradeable these days, should be at least 32GB.  I bought a 32GB MAX 14", and the RAM still runs low sometimes because it is shared.

I have mixed feeling with relying solely Macs for storage though.  It never hurts to have larger storage, as SSD needs free space to run fast. 

However, I had problems with multiple Macs in their first year.  One had problem charging (M1 MBA).  The other had video problem (Intel MBP).  Apple repaired both for free, but I lost all the data in the repair.  According to the guys at the Genius bar, the only way to repair was to replace the whole board that included CPU, RAM, SSD etc.  Luckily, I had both local and cloud backup.  Using a Mac for storage purpose is simply too scary to me.