Anyone here uses a MacBook Air with Aperture 3?

[HarryPot]

I'm not a professional photographer, and don't need to have a super fast system to process enormous amounts of photos. But I would like to have a laptop capable enough to handle RAW photos from a D7000 and edit them.

I know nobody has used the new MBA to give me real life usage, but how do you think they will work with Aperture 3?

 

[mofunk]

You could go to an Apple store and try it out.

I've seen the benchmarks for MBAir... and it would be better if you go with a MBP 13in. because you need more processing speed for all that rendering. If you are shooting RAW you will need more hard drive space.

Sorry but You will need a fast system to process all those photos lol I don't shoot a lot but I've managed to shoot atleast 5000 photos a year.

 

[rusty2192]

Every time I go to the Apple store i get on one of the 11" MacBook Airs and launch Aperture. Using their sample gallery I try to bog it down and so far haven't been very successful. And this is on the base model with just 2GB RAM. I have been very impressed with the Air's performance. However, I haven't tried exporting or batch processing a bunch of photos to see how it handles that. Maybe I'll try that next time I go in to check out the new hardware.

 

[AlanShutko]

I use a mid-2009 MBA with Aperture 3 for sorting and minor tweaking. Since the SSD has limited space, I don't use my full library on it.

It works. It is not as fast as my 27" iMac but it does work fine. The newer ones will be even better.

 

[blevins321]

Ive found that editing works pretty well, but initial raw imports are sluggish because of preview generation being a processor intensive task. Im not in a hurry when I import photos though, so this doesn't bother me.

 

[HarryPot]

Right now I have a 2006 2.0GHz Core Duo MacBook. So I guess anything would be an improvement.

The 15" MBP is out of my budget.

The 13" MBA with 256GB looks tempting, right now I have all my masters in an external drive, so disk space isn't that important. And the higher resolution in the MBA seems nice.

But... it is more expensive than the 13" MBP, and I'm not sure if I'm going to regret getting the MBA while using Aperture 3 when I could have saved money and get the MBP.

Money-wise and performance-wise, the MBP looks better, but damn, the MBA is nice and very tempting. I think I'll wait for someone to chime in and give some real life situations.

As for going to an Apple Store, not an option. No Apple Stores here.

 

[iTiki]

I have the previous model 13 inch ultimate Air and have had no issues working with raw files in Aperture 3. The latest model should even be better.

 

[mackmgg]

Based on the benchmarks that are circulating, the new MacBook Airs outperform the 2010 15" MacBook Pros. So you shouldn't have any problems with Aperture on a MacBook Air if that's the case

 

[mofunk]

You can get a refurbish MBP. I'm using one now. Its a 2008 Unibody with 4GB Ram Running Aperture, Lightroom3 and several other power hog Apps. It runs great. I use the D90 camera. Files aren't as big as the D7k but overall everything runs pretty fast.

if you go with a 2010 MBP or 2011 if you can find one refurb. Then you will save some money.


http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macbook_pro/13?mco=MjEwNzQ0OTk