Retina MacBook Pro for photography?

[joshuaginter]

I am strongly considering it, as the Mac Pro update didn't happen, and this machine will outpace the 4-core Mac Pro.

Points I will look at:

1. Color quality of the screen, and how well it will calibrate. As it is an IPS display, I expect it to be great. I hope for natural colors, not for oversaturated colors. I will also check the coating of the screen, which is rumored to be 75% less reflective than the glossy displays (how much more reflective than the matte display will it be?)

2. What displays are available to connect, and do I need dongles? (I would neer use a laptop screen as a main editing screen.

3. Will I be comfortable to use the screen as a second screen, e.g. for tools?

In short, first I have to see one, and then I'd like to read reviews of photographers on this machine.

I have no empirical statistics to help you, but I went down to my local Apple Store today to check it out. Colors looked great and the screen seemed to have great contrast. No idea on calibration though.

I think the two Thunderbolt ports plus HDMI port would have you covered for most displays (of course, you would need an adapter for the Thunderbolt ports more often than not).

And of course your last question is a personal question and impossible to answer. What I can say is that the 1920 x 1200 display "resolution" (as in, the "most screen space" option under Display settings) made text quite small but there seemed to be a lot of room on the screen in Aperture for a photo.

I don't know if this helps at all, but figured I'd try.

 

[plumosa]

I have absolutely no problem with the setup of the new rmbp. What I do have a problem with is the cost and knowing that in as little as one more update (2-3 max) we'll be seeing the rmbp as the standard and the old screens won't be produced any more.

We can look to apple's history with the MBA which came out at a extremely high price point, then lowered to affordable range MB range and then replaced the entire MB line.

So no, i'll hold off a little longer til the new screen is the standard!

 

[maflynn]

Also, if you use Photoshop, and use the internal SSD as a scratch disk, you can expect it to die in less than 6 years, whereas many of my hard drives are 10 years old and going strong.

Most people here seem to upgrade their computers less then 10 years so that risk is more or less moot

 

[sapporobaby]

Most people here seem to upgrade their computers less then 10 years so that risk is more or less moot

I didn't want to say anything at first but it was a pretty useless statement to make.

 

[avro707]

I'm just not a fan of laptop computers.

I'll stay with my desktop Mac Pro at home or the iMac at work.

So far I can avoid the need to use them and travel lighter because of it. My photography that is time critical is usually close to my desk at work.

Other than that - unless I buy it myself, I get whatever is available at work. I like the high-res display, but there isn't anything else that would make me want to buy it. And if someone at work decides that it isn't needed, we don't get it. And that's annoying, because the people doing procurement don't generally have much idea of what we really need...

 

[sapporobaby]

I'm just not a fan of laptop computers.

I'll stay with my desktop Mac Pro at home or the iMac at work.

So far I can avoid the need to use them and travel lighter because of it. My photography that is time critical is usually close to my desk at work.

Other than that - unless I buy it myself, I get whatever is available at work. I like the high-res display, but there isn't anything else that would make me want to buy it. And if someone at work decides that it isn't needed, we don't get it.

Ok... Thanks for sharing...

 

[joemod]

Ok... Thanks for sharing...

I don't get why you are offensive towards others who don't agree with you, specially the poster you quoted who simply answered on the question of the original poster.

 

[sapporobaby]

I don't get why you are offensive towards others who don't agree with you, specially the poster you quoted who simply answered on the question of the original poster.

Ughhh.... I have no truck with Arv707 and in fact have "liked" many of his posts. While I may have forgotten to add a smiley face I was in no way disagreeing with anything he said. In fact if you care to go deeper I can. You and everyone else here in this forum are anon with very little bearing on what anyone here thinks. So agreements or disagreements matter not one iota. Hope that explains things better now...

 

[davidbickley]

Just posted a review

I looked through here before I bought mine and thought I'd let you know that I posted a review on my site

Macbook Pro with Retina - A Photographer's Review/

 

[avro707]

I looked through here before I bought mine and thought I'd let you know that I posted a review on my site

Macbook Pro with Retina - A Photographer's Review/

How do you find loading lots of images in Camera Raw? I'll sometimes have to go through about 500 or more RAW images in a go. I don't have many throw-away images in that lot, maybe 10 or so, but ones that are great, or ones that are merely good, if you know what I mean. I do common edits, white-balance, crop, etc.

I'm interested to see how the laptop will handle that. Your comments took away some of the apprehension I had with the laptops and shiny screens.

Thanks for the review.

 

[davidbickley]

How do you find loading lots of images in Camera Raw? I'll sometimes have to go through about 500 or more RAW images in a go. I don't have many throw-away images in that lot, maybe 10 or so, but ones that are great, or ones that are merely good, if you know what I mean. I do common edits, white-balance, crop, etc.

I'm interested to see how the laptop will handle that. Your comments took away some of the apprehension I had with the laptops and shiny screens.

Thanks for the review.

If you're using lightroom 3.6...no problem, hardly a hangup...4.1 still has speed issues though and I attribute that to Adobe not the laptop.

 

[LumbermanSVO]

I currently have a 2.7 Quad core 13" MBP and love it. I replaced the optical drive with a 1TB drive and the stock drive with an OWC 60Gb SATA II SSD. I plan to replace the SSD with a SATA III with an OWC Mercury Extreme SSD and move my current system drive to my old(2006) MacMini.

The thing I REALLY love about my MBP is having the second drive built in. I am on the road 6-days a week and live in a pretty confined space. Things like cables and external devices really get in the way and clutter up my "home."

The ability to have the second drive built in really simplifies my life and make it possible for me to edit photo's and times lapse work wherever I am without having to drag along the second drive. On top of that my seconds drive contains my Time Machine backups.

The RMPB makes all of that impossible, so I will not be purchasing it. It's a bummer because it looks like a great machine.

 

[paolo-]

It seems to me like the retina MacBook Pro is in a similar situation as the MacBook Air was when it first came out. It's a computer that doesn't make sense now to most but eventually will. There will be early adaptors who will fall in love with the display and form factor and don't care about the negative sides of the computer. Power to them. For lots of us, it won't make all to much sense.

But Apple is gambling on future technology. The original macbook air, up to the redesign (when it came out with the 11" and a lower price) was a niche product, Jet-Seters, businessmen and writers wanted it, not much from everyone else. In 2 to 3 years, SSD will be much more wide spread and the idea of a 1TB SSD at a reasonable price won't be ridiculous. If I could have a decent sized SSD without breaking the bank, I wouldn't have bothered with optibay. Apple is hoping retina-type displays will catch one. If the PC manufacturers start using it, the price will drop down and there will be a point where it won't be that much more expensive to get it.

If only the RAM could be changed and blade SSD start to become a standard (the glued battery kind of bugs me too) , I don't see what in the evolution of this laptop in 2 years there will be to hate.

 

[Nostromo]

No moving parts should make the rMBP make very reliable.

I'm only wondering about heat, and will hold off until I can read reviews by high end users.

I don't care about the optical drive (only about the $80 to get the external), and I can live without the ethernet port. My current laser printer connects through a print server to the ethernet port of my current Mac, but I always hated that cable heavy set-up and will either try USB or get a new laser printer.

Hard drive space: keep current projects on it, and when they are done, move them off to external drives. Keep just maximum quality full res jpegs for showing.

For being on the road, a rugged external with phantom power should work out (of course, it will have a toll on the battery).

Have there been any reviews on how long those non-removable batteries last?

 

[rays09]

No moving parts should make the rMBP make very reliable.

I'm only wondering about heat, and will hold off until I can read reviews by high end users.

I don't care about the optical drive (only about the $80 to get the external), and I can live without the ethernet port. My current laser printer connects through a print server to the ethernet port of my current Mac, but I always hated that cable heavy set-up and will either try USB or get a new laser printer.

Hard drive space: keep current projects on it, and when they are done, move them off to external drives. Keep just maximum quality full res jpegs for showing.

For being on the road, a rugged external with phantom power should work out (of course, it will have a toll on the battery).

Have there been any reviews on how long those non-removable batteries last?

It seems to me like the retina MacBook Pro is in a similar situation as the MacBook Air was when it first came out. It's a computer that doesn't make sense now to most but eventually will. There will be early adaptors who will fall in love with the display and form factor and don't care about the negative sides of the computer. Power to them. For lots of us, it won't make all to much sense.

But Apple is gambling on future technology. The original macbook air, up to the redesign (when it came out with the 11" and a lower price) was a niche product, Jet-Seters, businessmen and writers wanted it, not much from everyone else. In 2 to 3 years, SSD will be much more wide spread and the idea of a 1TB SSD at a reasonable price won't be ridiculous. If I could have a decent sized SSD without breaking the bank, I wouldn't have bothered with optibay. Apple is hoping retina-type displays will catch one. If the PC manufacturers start using it, the price will drop down and there will be a point where it won't be that much more expensive to get it.

If only the RAM could be changed and blade SSD start to become a standard (the glued battery kind of bugs me too) , I don't see what in the evolution of this laptop in 2 years there will be to hate.

Can anyone here give me an advice.. I have three option here..

Get the 2012 mbp high end 13" + zoomable fish eye lens around $500

Or take the highend 15" with 1440*900 reso with + fixed 8mm fish eye lens around $250 -350

Or the high end 15" with hi-res.

Or the retina mbp base model with upgrade ram 16gb .

Iam not a proff phtogrphr i do it as a hobby.. I like to editing with adobe cs stuff, editing video,music sometimes just make a music footage, and wanna try the os x experience... I have a highend gaming desktop pc and 2412m eips.. I need a portabilty to repoace my core 2 duo 14" acer..

Considerng it's portability and price the 13" is the best value and i can get a fish eye lens. But The screen reso its crap and the pixel looks big there and i doubt with ith intel hd 4000.
15" size its not an issue for me.. But considering it's same price with the retina, my friend told me "what dont u get the new retina one? Its cool , the old one will be outdate!!"

How big is different the 13" reso , normal reso 15" , hi ress 15" , and the retina display..

The last question has anyone here comfort with your 13" mbp ?? A lot aditing with photoshop or aperture is run smoothly?? What about video editing in 13" u have any issue ? Laggy or something? Thanks . I really need your feed back.

 

[Prodo123]

No moving parts should make the rMBP make very reliable.

I'm only wondering about heat, and will hold off until I can read reviews by high end users.

I don't care about the optical drive (only about the $80 to get the external), and I can live without the ethernet port. My current laser printer connects through a print server to the ethernet port of my current Mac, but I always hated that cable heavy set-up and will either try USB or get a new laser printer.

Hard drive space: keep current projects on it, and when they are done, move them off to external drives. Keep just maximum quality full res jpegs for showing.

For being on the road, a rugged external with phantom power should work out (of course, it will have a toll on the battery).

Have there been any reviews on how long those non-removable batteries last?

Using external hard drives defeats the purpose of the SSD and a mobile workstation.

 

[sapporobaby]

Using external hard drives defeats the purpose of the SSD and a mobile workstation.

Hi Prodo123,

Can you please explain this. I am not understanding what you mean. I have an external 1TB drive that I travel with when I am shooting away from home. I shoot, transfer them to the external, process them, then export the new photos to be later imported into Aperture. Not sure how this defeats the purpose of an SSD. BTW, I have 2 SSD's in my current Mac...

 

[Prodo123]

Hi Prodo123,

Can you please explain this. I am not understanding what you mean. I have an external 1TB drive that I travel with when I am shooting away from home. I shoot, transfer them to the external, process them, then export the new photos to be later imported into Aperture. Not sure how this defeats the purpose of an SSD. BTW, I have 2 SSD's in my current Mac...

You have a 500MB/s SSD for fast access to files, but you'd rather dump them all into a USB/FW800 external hard drive?
Having 2 SSDs is great. Speedy internal storage. Bottlenecking file retrieval with an I/O interface is letting those precious chips go to waste.

 

[sapporobaby]

You have a 500MB/s SSD for fast access to files, but you'd rather dump them all into a USB/FW800 external hard drive?

It depends on my usage. I actually have a Thunderbolt drive at home that I normally work from, but if I am out and shooting, I can easily use my 500 gig HDD. I do not see this massive speed penalty that you may be inferring to.

 

[carlgo]

Am thinking that, paradoxically, the new MBP might be more attractive to amateurs than pros. Most amateurs want that all-in-one solution and clearly the MBP has the screen, the power and the reasonable size to do all that most of us would want.

Later, the more enthusiastic might get a big retina monitor and certainly the the MBP can run that and professional software for most photographic needs.

A pro who shows the images to clients on the road, without time to take the work home for tweaking, would also like the MBP as what client wouldn't like that display (although it would also show the imperfections of unfinished work).

Most pros, though, download mostly for backup on the road, often to a computer and a separate hard drive, and often use a number of memory cards and do not erase them either, thus giving triple redundancy. Then they download to more powerful unit at home and do the work on a corrected big monitor.

Pros really only need an entry level 13" laptop for this purpose. I think an iPad with a large amount of storage might work really well for many on the road.

 

[sapporobaby]

Pros really only need an entry level 13" laptop for this purpose. I think an iPad with a large amount of storage might work really well for many on the road.

How can you make this blanket assumption for ALL pros? That's pretty presumptuous of you. You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. I know many pros that feel a 13 inch is too small for them and prefer the larger 15 or 17 inchers.

 

[driftless]

I think an iPad with a large amount of storage might work really well for many on the road.

An iPad doesn't work well with the currently available apps, it would need a lite version of Aperture or Lightroom. iPhoto, Photo Express, etc., all are limited in their abilities to work with bigger pics and have limited editing options. I use an iPad but only to view and cull the pics but not to edit them. I do all of my editing on an iMac.

FWIW - I miss the point of some of the exchanges within this thread; well, actually I did not miss those point(s) but a couple of posts made me roll my eyes. I think that the rmbp is a wonderful option for photographers. If I need a mobile solution the rmbp and a couple of mobile drives would be a solution that I could be very happy with.

 

[sapporobaby]

An iPad doesn't work well with the currently available apps, it would need a lite version of Aperture or Lightroom. iPhoto, Photo Express, etc., all are limited in their abilities to work with bigger pics and have limited editing options. I use an iPad but only to view and cull the pics but not to edit them. I do all of my editing on an iMac.

FWIW - I miss the point of some of the exchanges within this thread; well, actually I did not miss those point(s) but a couple of posts made me roll my eyes. I think that the rmbp is a wonderful option for photographers. If I need a mobile solution the rmbp and a couple of mobile drives would be a solution that I could be very happy with.

Have you looked at Filterstorm? Not bad.

On my current MBP I have 2 x SSD's who's combined drive space adds up to 370 gigs. I take an external drive with me and I am at a loss to understand the complaints about disk space. I'm shooting a D4 which yields 20 plus gig files and when working from the external drive Aperture works fine. I guess some people will not be happy no matter what.

 

[driftless]

Thanks, I just downloaded Filterstorm to give it a try.

 

[Nostromo]

Am thinking that, paradoxically, the new MBP might be more attractive to amateurs than pros. Most amateurs want that all-in-one solution and clearly the MBP has the screen, the power and the reasonable size to do all that most of us would want.

Later, the more enthusiastic might get a big retina monitor and certainly the the MBP can run that and professional software for most photographic needs.

A pro who shows the images to clients on the road, without time to take the work home for tweaking, would also like the MBP as what client wouldn't like that display (although it would also show the imperfections of unfinished work).

Most pros, though, download mostly for backup on the road, often to a computer and a separate hard drive, and often use a number of memory cards and do not erase them either, thus giving triple redundancy. Then they download to more powerful unit at home and do the work on a corrected big monitor.

Pros really only need an entry level 13" laptop for this purpose. I think an iPad with a large amount of storage might work really well for many on the road.

I don't see a 13" MBP as a practical solution.

Due to the lack of a Mac Pro update, a laptop must in my case take all the work, and a 13" MBP with its only 2 cores and integrated graphics is not an option.

The new retina MBP has 4 cores and will leave the 4-core Mac Pro behind in speed. It has an HDMI input for connecting a large display like the 27" NEC PA 271W without any expensive and questionable adapters.

I heard from people who already own one that the cooling works even better than on the 2011 15" MBP even though they are so thin.

And the screen should be great.

For me this sounds like the best machine short of a Mac Pro. (iMac not interesting for me due to its glossy screen and the lack of expandability of a laptop without having the mobility of the laptop)

Also, I think a retina MBP can render an iPad obsolete as the 15" screen should be great for demos to clients (and the screen stands up on its own, no need for a holder, and the display has, so I heard, a good viewing angle to be looked at by more than one person).