Camera Labs

Hi,

I read somewhere that the majority of pro photographers use Apple computers running the Mac operating system. I've also noticed recently that in a lot of the online video tutorials I've been watching, they always seem to use Mac!

I'm planning on getting a new computer sometime soon and wondering if it's time I switched from Windows.

What do Mac users think? What do Windows users who have switched to Mac think?

I don't know very much at all about Linux, but I've included it here anyway because I see it appearing more and more.

Mark

_________________
Mark
Nikon D300 / Sigma 10-20mm / Nikkor 17-55 f2.8 / Nikkor 18-200mm VR / Nikkor 50mm f1.8 / SB600 Speedlight
Mark Amy Photography
My Squidoo lens - Images of China

Hi Mark, I use both Macs and PCs! Can you add a dual platform option?

Macs certainly were easier to use in the past, but I'd say there's not so much difference these days and I know I can run Photoshop very quickly on my souped-up PC. I know this is slightly off-topic, but I also have much better support for stuff like gaming, high definition video, TV recording etc on my PC than the Mac.

I'd say the real difference comes when you need to exchange files with clients, and then you really should be using the same platform. So since most professional printers use Macs, I'd also use Macs if I were delivering files to them. This particularly applies to layouts with fonts.

It applies less so for photographic images though which are just bitmaps.

But there's no denying Macs are physically more attractive than almost any PC, and if you don't want to tweak stuff, the entire platform is arguably superior. As readers of my Hands On Hardware column in PCW magazine know though, I'm a self-confessed overclocker, so the PC will always be a more flexible platform for my requirements.

Gordon

Hi Gordon,
I tried to edit the poll but only my original message appears for editing so I can't do it! I should have thought of that before because I think a lot of people run Windows and Linux on the same computers too.

I made such a huge mistake the last time I bought a pc. I should have educated myself better before buying, but I thought at that time, having loads of hard disk space was really important and I never gave a thought to RAM. I ended up with 80gb of ROM, which was great then, but only 256mb of RAM which is a total nightmare now!!

I'm trying to learn more about Photoshop and Lightroom and they both seem to come to a standstill after I've been using them for a while. Forget even opening them at the same time. I can't even open Bridge with Photoshop!

Suffice to say, next time I'll be shopping for RAM

If anyone's got any tips on freeing up RAM, it'd be greatly appreciated.

_________________
Mark
Nikon D300 / Sigma 10-20mm / Nikkor 17-55 f2.8 / Nikkor 18-200mm VR / Nikkor 50mm f1.8 / SB600 Speedlight
Mark Amy Photography
My Squidoo lens - Images of China

There are possibly loads of programs running in the background that are unnecessary for editing.You could disable them temporarily or...set up a new User Account specifically for editing. Uninstall you're editing programs through Control Panel\Add Remove and then switch accounts and reinstall. Kill all superflous programs and don't install anything else through this account.

Then go out and buy some RAM. There ain't no substitute for cubic inches!

_________________
http://zorrofox4.deviantart.com/



Various lenses, SB800 & Manfrotto 190 with 460MG head

Voted for Mac but I'm using a PC right now and actually can happily use both.

I voted for Windows.

_________________

Hi Zorro,
Thanks for the user account tip, I'll give that a try.

_________________
Mark
Nikon D300 / Sigma 10-20mm / Nikkor 17-55 f2.8 / Nikkor 18-200mm VR / Nikkor 50mm f1.8 / SB600 Speedlight
Mark Amy Photography
My Squidoo lens - Images of China

I use a Mac with Aperture and I probably won't change until something better comes along. Despite being a little buggy in places it's such an excellent program to use.

_________________
My Flickr

Hi


Im glad you opened this topic, For many years iv'e been a Windows user and even did my MCSE course. Infact i used to hate all those Mac geeks and its got to me loads when they talked about how good they are...

The one day i had a quick tour on the Apple web site and decided that il try one in a retail store. Well i fell in love with it right away.

I trashed my PC and am a loyal Mac fan and own a stylish 20" iMac!
I wouldn't go back to a Windows.

There stylish and have no knon viruses to date. they run media much more smoother than any other pc that would out spec it!

I preffer my mac because it simplifies my work flow and makes those hard tasks easy.

There almost maintenance free unlike Windows!

I Administrate over 70 Windows & 5 Mac machines as a my job and the Macs have had no issues to date and the Windows are needing constant attention!

If you thought about it you already comitted yourself because you will love it.

_________________
Toolkit: iMac 20" C2D

Hey Flux,

Thanks for posting. That's really giving me something to think about and the more I read, the more I'm swaying towards Apple for my next computer.

_________________
Mark
Nikon D300 / Sigma 10-20mm / Nikkor 17-55 f2.8 / Nikkor 18-200mm VR / Nikkor 50mm f1.8 / SB600 Speedlight
Mark Amy Photography
My Squidoo lens - Images of China

I voted for Windows because thats what I am running now as I have always had a PC going back to Windows 3x days and then Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, skipped ME, Windows XP SP1,SP2, to the present day running Windows Vista Home Premium all this on about 6 PC's and now the Laptop and have not had one crash, fall over and as for maintenance.... don't do any as they didn't seem to need it
Looked at a Mac years ago didn't like it and not looked at one since.

Roy.. a loyal Windows fan and Bill Gates right hand man

_________________
Roy
EOS 350D, 40D + BG-E2N, EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM, EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM, EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM, 430 EX Speedlite




My Fotopic

I know one pro photographer in person and he has also switch to Mac after he became pro. I think it's something to do with image though

Actually there is UNIX in different variations (BSD,Solaris...) and AmigaOS is still alive

_________________
Minolta primes: 2.8/20 2.8/24 1.7/50 2.8/135
Minolta zooms: 28-135 35-70 70-210(beercan) kit
Minolta cameras: Dynax 5D 7000
M42: Pentax Asahi S-M-C Takumar 1.4/50 and 2.8/105 Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 2.4/35 Industar-61L/Z Kiron 2.8/105 Macro

Mac = Unix = Darwin

Hence its so popular and also why its very very secure and smooth running because the source is contributed by third party's unlike Microsoft who hold full source code for Windows.

Apple just branded it like Redhat & Novel has however Apple made it a license to have the serial embeded into the Harddrive or hardware (somewhere) but this is a good thing, None of those horrible serial numbers from Microsoft that can get stolen!

The license also says that a fresh CD/DVD copy of Tiger or any other Mac OS cannot be installed on a none apple hardware machine, while this is good in all its respect it makes sure drivers are very compatible with all hardware across the range. Not to mention that almost all OS released by Mac work on nearly all older machines. Most Windows DONT!

_________________
Toolkit: iMac 20" C2D

You are right about Mac is running a UNIX kernel (a good old microkernel, that is), but the user interface (Quartz) is pure Apple and therefor you would not be able to compile all Mac applications on e.g. FreeBSD. For this reason I would differentiate between UNIX and Mac (and also UNIX and UNIX). But differentiating OS's can be pretty difficult since you then have to define exactly what an OS is and isn't.

Apple lost a law suite years back such that third party producers could produce Macs, and for a short period you could see Mac clones in the stores. So I believe that this leaves Mac OS X with the same problem in theory.

_________________
Minolta primes: 2.8/20 2.8/24 1.7/50 2.8/135
Minolta zooms: 28-135 35-70 70-210(beercan) kit
Minolta cameras: Dynax 5D 7000
M42: Pentax Asahi S-M-C Takumar 1.4/50 and 2.8/105 Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 2.4/35 Industar-61L/Z Kiron 2.8/105 Macro

Use Sisoft Sandra to make certian you get the right type of RAM. Also it may be worth paying a little extra by taking it in to a shop for them to do it for you; inexperience in putting in RAM can damage motherboards, and it's often not easy.

Feeeing up RAM : just before the comp starts loading windows you can go into the scary looking BIOS setup by pressing 'del', F2 or F10 continually. You then may get the chance of reducing the amount of RAM the video card steals (if it is a shared-memory card, as many are). Often you only need 8megs but the BIOS is set to somehting silly like 64. [This isn't the same as the AGP setting, so ignore that]. some games may suffer though, so it is a trade off, but I don;t play games myself.

Then uninstall "Real" audio and Quicktime and install their alternatives if you can, which don't burden the comp with background programs. Also if confident uninstall your wireless software, then download and install the driver only version. But make sure there is one before you begin. The same can be done for printer drivers (if you can sacrifice the extra, usually redundant, functionality). Uninstall 3rd party firewalls and use window's one instead, much more efficient and simpler: 3rd party firewalls are usualyl a gigantic pain and unnecessary. Find an anti-virus prog that doesn't hog memory. Avast! does a free-for-home-use that is small and doesn't cause me problems (currently using 24megs).

Launch "Task manager" by right-clicking the taskbar. Add cpu and memory columns to the manager's process list. Look for cpu and memory hogs. The free microsoft download "Process Explorer" is even better for this, and it is worth watching the authors video on how to use it.

Good luck.