2011 Airs and Photography

[Leo Fischel]

Hi,
I would like to know how the new airs run lightroom and extensions like Silver efex. I am shooting RAW only and I am wondering whether a smooth processing of RAW files is possible with the new airs. I have read about the old ones that they are much to slow for rendering and processing !RAWs!. I would appreciate, if some people could share their experiences with the new ones since I do not know whether I should go for a 15' Pro or 13' Air. I do not want to do extensive post processing, however, my new laptop should be able to do basic stuff like exposure, sharpness, saturation, contrast etc. smoothly.
Thanks, Fischel

 

[MattZani]

I'm migrating my Aperture 3 and RAW library over to my MBA tonight. I bought this machine as it was more powerful than my MBP. Main function is to edit RAWs etc. for a Photography Degree. I'll report back tomorrow, expecting it to be pretty good though, the processor is amazing.

 

[Apple Expert]

It should be fine.

 

[Leo Fischel]

I'm migrating my Aperture 3 and RAW library over to my MBA tonight. I bought this machine as it was more powerful than my MBP. Main function is to edit RAWs etc. for a Photography Degree. I'll report back tomorrow, expecting it to be pretty good though, the processor is amazing.

Wow, that is super cool! I'm looking forward to your report!
Articles like this: http://macperformanceguide.com/Reviews-MacBookAir.html
made me not buying the 2010 model ...

 

[HiRez]

I'm not using Silver Efex, but Lightroom runs great on mine so far (13" i7). It's actually way faster than my early-2010 15" MacBook Pro, thanks mostly to the SSD. That machine was always chewing on the hard drive in Lightroom, the Air simply blazes through photos. It generates a whole screen of perhaps 50 thumbnail preview images from 12 MP RAW almost instantly, whereas the disk-based MBP would probably take 5-10 seconds to do the same, and the interface would become very sluggish. Moving back and forth between full-screen images (using the arrow keys) is also faster, the "Loading..." overlay still shows up, but not for as long. Zooming in and out is fast. As for the CPU, continuous real-time adjustments like exposure and lens distortion corrections are at least as fast on the Air as on the MBP. Zooming and panning are very fast.

So very happy with it so far as a Lightroom machine, the SSD is just fantastic for it. I only wish my camera (Nikon D700) had an SD slot in addition to the CF slot so I could bring the photos in that way instead of using the USB cable.