New MBP for Photographers?

[Howard2k]

How could Apple possibly get this wrong?

From this thread we can see that Pro Photographers:
* need an SD slot and
* don't need an SD slot because Pros don't use SD they all use CF and
* not all Pros use CF.
* Want a trimmed form factor for ease of travel and
* don't care about size reduction and just want horsepower.

 

[Kulfon]

See mid 2015 rMBP. Besides, you have a super light MacBook and MacBook air. Those can be made portless, small and light. MacBook Pro used to be for professionals and it make sense to at least allow for 32GB and some ports that are being heavily used today, such as USB and HDMI.

How could Apple possibly get this wrong?

From this thread we can see that Pro Photographers:
* need an SD slot and
* don't need an SD slot because Pros don't use SD they all use CF and
* not all Pros use CF.
* Want a trimmed form factor for ease of travel and
* don't care about size reduction and just want horsepower.

 

[maratus]

I am seriously shocked by the announcement myself. I am a photographer myself (www.dylikowski.com) and I am currently using a mid 2015 rMBP 15" that is maxed out. I remember that when I was waiting for it to come out, the community was certain it is going to be a Skylake, but it was not the case. Fine, I decided to get it as I really needed it and I am very happy with the performance. I like Apple because it works and for it's aesthetics and simplicity. But! I am totally shocked by what they have announced:
1. Same 16 GB maximum? Well, we are talking a machine that should work for another 3-5 years

Because Apple.... wait for the update with 32GB, another reason to sell more machines.

2. No USB

Yep, it's a bummer.

and HDMI? I am using HDMI to connect to TV

Well, I use full-size DisplayPort and DVI and VGA, what about those?

3. 500$ more expensive? But why?

The new base 15" (Pro 450) is 100$ more expensive than the base 2015 model with dGPU (M370X)

 

[Hyloba]

Question for the photographers here. Would you get the 256gb of storage or bump it up to 512 or higher? If you store everything on external drives, is it worth paying 250€ for the upgrade?

 

[jjlannoo]

Question for the photographers here. Would you get the 256gb of storage or bump it up to 512 or higher? If you store everything on external drives, is it worth paying 250€ for the upgrade?

At this point I would do 512 at least.

 

[maratus]

Question for the photographers here. Would you get the 256gb of storage or bump it up to 512 or higher? If you store everything on external drives, is it worth paying 250€ for the upgrade?

Yes, the sweetspot for photographers is 1TB... 512GB is an absolute minimum, and 2TB is a luxury. You don't want to have you main library on an external drive. Take advantage of ridiculous speeds of built-in SSD. And since they're soldered on logic board, it'll be impossible to upgrade or replace.

And if you have an external SSD drive, then what's the point in terms of money?

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Dave Lee measures/posts the specs on the screen. If the spec is correct, it's 74% of Adobe RGB. So that is too low for professional photography or colour accuracy.

 

[maflynn]

Another photographer here, and while the internals are impressive, i.e., faster CPU, I think overall the MBP is less then the sum of its parts. Unlike prior times it more then the sum of its parts.

For me, the SD card slot is a huge omission. The last thing I want to do, is carry mess of cables, to connect my peripherals and a SD card reader. While not hugely expensive, its a hidden cost to an already expensive product. Just my $.02
[doublepost=1478345484][/doublepost]In the past Apple removed something to give us something better (as a general rule that is), but in 2016, I don't see the removal of mag safe, SD, HDMI with nothing in return as a positive.

I've been at too many shows, conferences, hotel rooms to know that magsafe as saved my computer on more then one occasion. Heck, just at home with using the laptop on the couch, and having a kid trip over the wire saved is a potential problem.

 

[Hyloba]

Dave Lee measures/posts the specs on the screen. If the spec is correct, it's 74% of Adobe RGB. So that is too low for professional photography or colour accuracy.

Is there any current laptop that has higher adobe RGB? I've looked at the surfacebook and dell xps, and they have lower percentages.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Is there any current laptop that has higher adobe RGB? I've looked at the sufacebook and dell xps, and they have lower percentages.

The 15" has had a wider gamut for 3 years - around 85%.

Apple is going in the direction of DCI P3. That is a wide gamut profile but it is shifted away from Adobe RGB and isn't quite suitable for accurate prints unless your whole workflow is calibrated for it, but that is very tricky to maintain and not supported in photography workflows.

 

[Mike84]

Dave Lee measures/posts the specs on the screen. If the spec is correct, it's 74% of Adobe RGB. So that is too low for professional photography or colour accuracy.

Would the 15inch be any difference?

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Would the 15inch be any difference?

See my previous response. Basically Apple is supporting wide gamut profile for video and movies, not for print. You will need to buy an Eizo ColorEdge or NEC Spectraview monitor for good photography and print workflows.

 

[maflynn]

Dave Lee measures/posts the specs on the screen. If the spec is correct, it's 74% of Adobe RGB. So that is too low for professional photography or colour accuracy.

Interesting review, and it seems the common thread with the review and other reviews.

You'll get used to the shortcomings, its good enough, its ok for what most people need.

Since when has apple aimed for only good enough, or or gave the excuse that you'll get used to it. I think that's the harbinger of mediocrity

 

[Hyloba]

The 15" has had a wider gamut for 3 years - around 85%.

Apple is going in the direction of DCI P3. That is a wide gamut profile but it is shifted away from Adobe RGB and isn't quite suitable for accurate prints unless your whole workflow is calibrated for it, but that is very tricky to maintain and not supported in photography workflows.

That's too bad. While 15 inch might have a better screen than the 13 inch, I would still hook up a better monitor to it at home or work. And for the work in between a more portable laptop suits me better.

I guess there aren't any great screens on 13 inch laptops?

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

That's too bad. While 15 inch might have a better screen than the 13 inch, I would still hook up a better monitor to it at home or work. And for the work in between a more portable laptop suits me better.

I guess there aren't any great screens on 13 inch laptops?

Only for media consumption.

 

[Hyloba]

Only for media consumption.

Then the 13" MBP is still the best laptop for my needs. Thanks for your insight!

 

[jackoatmon]

- 16GB max RAM? That's laughable.

Can you explain what's so laughable about it? Like, have you ever capped out on 16gb of RAM editing photos? I have a really hard time believing that.

Or, I guess just so you can run a bunch of other programs at the same time?

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Can you explain what's so laughable about it? Like, have you ever capped out on 16gb of RAM editing photos? I have a really hard time believing that.

Or, I guess just so you can run a bunch of other programs at the same time?

Correct, it is not laughable. I edit 100 mega pixel images with that much with no trouble. People tend to not know how much memory their work is really using. We installed 24GB on several computers in a studio last year. All the employees said their computers felt faster. When I asked them to leave Activity Monitor open while working we saw that their workflow never surpassed 6GB of memory usage. They were simply fooling themselves that their computers were faster. It's the tech equivalent of the placebo effect and some false memories for added self-deception.

 

[jackoatmon]

Yeah, I think people don't pay a lot of attention to actual resource use.

I put together a little dynamic background widget that sits in the corner of my desktop screens on my computers, so I can always see what's going on with the resources and like... 16GB? Geez. I gotta be running FCXP, Illustrator, Photoshop, Lightroom, Indesign with 10 presentations open and also like 35 browser tabs to get there – maybe.

People are paying attention to all the wrong specs these days. Photographers complaining about RAM, and not even mentioning the absolutely incredible screen, which will have a bigger impact on your work than literally any speed bump out there on the market !

 

[villicodelirant]

Apple doesn't sell function anymore, they sell marketing.

I'm sorry, but that has been the case since late 2011 (I'd say since the decidedly non-chic entry level plastic Macbook has been discontinued).

That's not to say that the latest Macbooks are - or aren't - workable machines, but I'd say that was the point when Apple decided it isn't gonna release a non-pretty, spartan, bulky machine anymore - especially not one with plenty of ports.

 

[Hyloba]

Yeah, I think people don't pay a lot of attention to actual resource use.

I put together a little dynamic background widget that sits in the corner of my desktop screens on my computers, so I can always see what's going on with the resources and like... 16GB? Geez. I gotta be running FCXP, Illustrator, Photoshop, Lightroom, Indesign with 10 presentations open and also like 35 browser tabs to get there – maybe.

People are paying attention to all the wrong specs these days. Photographers complaining about RAM, and not even mentioning the absolutely incredible screen, which will have a bigger impact on your work than literally any speed bump out there on the market !

Would you think 8gb would be sufficient for the following 4-5 years?

 

[JPizzzle]

Umm..real photographers use the iPhone 7 plus, which now has "portrait" mode aka built in bokeh, and that my friend can sync via iCloud. Boom! Life changed! Your welcome

 

[jackoatmon]

Would you think 8gb would be sufficient for the following 4-5 years?

Well, the answer to that depends on your use. For me? no.

I run up over 8GB often enough. But the 12GB threshold I rarely crack.

If they had a 32GB version my inner nerd would have forced me to get it just in case, but the 16 will be totally fine for me.

The thing about RAM is, (very loose numbers follow) the 1st 2 gigs of RAM are eaten up by the OS and whatever random stuff you have tacked on to that. The next 1 gig is usually the 5 tabs everyone has open in Chrome all the time + iTunes + Mail + whatever random garbage you just have going all the time.

So 8 gigs is really more like 5 in every day use. I can max that out no prob with video editing and a few comps in PS or whatever.

But 16 gigs? That's like 13 of RAM that you can use for actually creating content, versus consuming content and communicating via email/video chat.

It's that question that really matters for a lot of specs: are you making something heavy with the laptop? A writer can create the world's greatest novel with 1 gig of RAM. Or 16mb of RAM. Photography, video, 3D animation – those things make big files out of other big files.

 

[Capt T]

Is it something that comes togetger with iPhone 7? I have a 6s, it was not included.

You can purchase the cable and it will work with your iPhone. I have it and use it with my iPad 12" and iPhone 6.

 

[arbitrage]

Question for the photographers here. Would you get the 256gb of storage or bump it up to 512 or higher? If you store everything on external drives, is it worth paying 250€ for the upgrade?

I've used 512GB for a while now and all my RAWs are stored externally. However, just with normal stuff on the laptop and then the rather large Preview file I keep on the HD from LR, I've bumped up against a full HD a few times. Right now I have it back to 100GB free but I don't have my Preview file on it right now and that file is about 90GB as I choose to keep them as long as possible and they are all 1:1 with a mix of 5DSR, 1DX2 and D500 files. Last time I travelled I decided that for the trip I would have liked to only take the laptop and one extra external drive for backup of the RAWs. That would mean leaving the first import of RAWs on the laptop and the preview file. Therefore this time I went to 1TB to allow that possible workflow.

That all said I think 512GB is totally workable but I hit the threshold enough over the past few years that I went bigger. 256GB could work also but you'd have to be very diligent in keeping things off the laptop like larger video files and not travelling with a large LR preview file.

My MacBook Pro is not my main editing machine anymore. It was up until last year when I bought a 5KiMac and now use that instead while at home.
[doublepost=1478352744][/doublepost]

What you do not get is that it is not just money, it is the fact that I hate having dongles. Why do I have to? I did not say a word about the SD slot....but HDMI and USB is a very-very critical thing to have. Besides...can you connect your iPhone to this new MBP without a dongle?


[doublepost=1478321934][/doublepost]Phil was saying that they know that photographers are transfering files witelesly. Who does it today? If you have a 50 MPX 5Ds and you want to transfer 4000 files, do you really do it wirelessly?

I understand not wanting a bunch of extra dongles. But my point is the only dongle I think you and most others would need is an HDMI one. For all USB-A devices you can just buy a new cable and nothing changes. Sure it is another expense but anyone who can afford these laptops can buy a few $10 cables.

For those that like the SD slot, that would add an extra external memory card reader. I would say though that anyone using newer cameras with SD will now be using the faster UHS-II cards and the internal one doesn't support them. the internal one is so slow that I always used an external for my SD cards anyways.

I'm not saying I don't understand people's points about the USB-C ports but I think it is blown out of proportion. If Apple gave me the option of choosing 4 USB-C or the previous ports I would no question choose the new 4 USB-C as this is the way everyone is going now and in another year any new portable HD will be shipping at least with the extra cable if not a direct USB-C connector on the HD.

As to the iPhone, yes I can connect it either with the small tiny adapter I linked to or with a new cable or not at all as I've never connected my iPhone to my laptop in 4.5 years anyways.