Category Archives: Hardware

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Mac Mini M4 – Part I

Hardware, Mac Mini M4, Macintosh

Time to move on.


Tiny.

Upate six months later:. For an update after 6 months of daily use, click here.

Apple’s planned obsolesence strategy has seen to it that my 2010 Mac Pro, a machine as reliable as a hammer, is now no fewer than six generations of OS out of date. That means that those nasty Russkie hackers can have at it to their hearts’ content and next thing you know my credit card will have run up $10mm in charges for caviar and vodka and yours truly will be out on the street.

But a strange thing happened. Apple just released the minuscule Mac Mini M4 at what can only be called a bargain price by Apple’s gouging standards, starting at $600 for the 16GB/256GB model. I paid Amazon $745 for the 16GB/512GB slightly upgraded version as I need a larger SSD to store all my applications and the 80GB of Lightroom preview files which load quickly from the SSD. (The picture files, much larger, reside on a slow, spinning disk drive, where speed is not required).

My Mac Mini M4 arrives tonight and because I will need to move the disk drives from the innards of the Mac Pro I had to procure an external drive enclosure as well as an enclosure for the BluRay DVD reader/writer. Along with a handful of cables the bill came to $1,000, one quarter of the investment in the significantly upgraded Mac Pro.

After doing some reading I have determined that the safest and fastest way to migrate apps from the Mac Pro is to use the Time Machine (sequential) back-up (using Migration Utility) which I always have running in the MP.

While the wi-fi here is fast and reliable I am going for a wired connection of the TM HDD to the new Mini. Wired connections do not go down.

So first I removed the TM HDD from the gorgeous MP (boy am I going to miss that machine). Here it is, all 54 lbs of it, as perfect an industrial design as Apple conceived, and actually Jony Ive’s first major effort at Apple, before he became obsessed with smallness and thinness to the detriment of ergonomics. 5 large fans plus 2 in the GPU, two 3.46GHz 6 core Intel CPUs, Blu Ray DVD, USB3 upgrade, super Nvidia 980GTX GPU and all of 80GB of RAM:


Not tiny.

The new Terramaster disk drive box:


Terramaster drive enclosure.

The other three bays will hold a 512GB SSD to back-up the Mini’s OS and applications, the main Data drive (a 2TB HDD – don’t need speed there) and another 2TB back-up Data drive. The OS/apps and Data drives are automatically cloned daily using Carbon Copy Cloner. Time Machine runs on its own schedule. I copy the photos to an SSD in my car monthly for ‘belt and suspenders’ safety. Of course, should both the home and garage burn down ….

All my photos and documents reside on the Data drive. The Terramaster is nicely made, the drives (either 3.5” or 2.5”) are easily installed, and it has two large and silent cooling fans. It will eventually be moved into the footwell of my desk, out of sight. It’s USB 3.1, so fairly speedy. Even though SSDs are now affordable I really do not need the speed and the old HDDs continue working well at no added cost. I will simply hard wire the Terramaster (USB-C) to the new Mini and have at it for migration.

Next I will remove the BluRay DVD reader/writer from the MP and install it in an OWC separate stand-alone enclosure. One of the nice things about the old MP is that all major peripherals are stored inside the enclosure. No more.

A major issue will be whether my (ancient) versions of Lightroom and Photoshop can have their perpetual licenses transferred from the MP to the Mini. The web is all over the place on this. Adobe is a very low integrity business so I may be finally forced into their subscription model – $38/mth for LR and PS. The advantage is that those latest versions are optimized for the Apple M series CPUs, meaning they run faster, and as we know LR is a real bear. Plus the apps have been significantly enhanced since my 9 year and 12 year old versions. The disadvantage is $456/year and the revolting thought of sending Adobe money, however modest the sum.

The Kensington keyboard (I cannot stand Apple’s designs), Logitech mouse (ditto – the Apple mouse is an ergonomic disaster – what idiot placed the charging port on the underside of this already horrible design?), and Logitech speakers (the Mini has a coaxial socket for those), along with the BenQ monitor, all hard wired, will carry over to the Mini. I had to procure a bunch of USB-A to USB-C adapters because USB-C is all the Mini offers. As the monitor will be connected to the Mini using HDMI, whereas the Mac Pro uses Display Port, I can have both computers connected to the monitor during the conversion period and simply switch inputs when needed. Nice.

More in the next article as I contemplate the horrors of migration.

Fixing the LG OLED 65″ TV

Hardware

Don’t recycle it!

I wrote about this splendid TV some 7 years ago here.

Recently the sound became intermittent after some 15 minutes of use. I use an external amplifier and speakers and some tests confirmed these are working fine so the fault lies with the TV. Some digging disclosed that loss of sound or vision on warm up is nothing new with LG TVs of a certain age, and it appears the problem is attributable to the use of solder with too low a melting point, causing loss of electrical continuity. That’s either sloppy design or planned obsolescence. Your call.

So I determined to try fixing the issue, which means installing a new motherboard – there are two circuit boards in the TV, the motherboard and the power supply, both passively cooled. There are no fans. In addition to swapping in a new motherboard I decided to enhance the ventilation in the area of both circuit boards. I had noticed that, while waiting for delivery of the new board and leaving the rear panel off, that the sound intermittency problem did not occur, likely due to better ventilation.

Because the TV screen is extremely slim – thinner than an iPhone – it is very fragile, so I moved a cocktail table up to the TV table, covered the former with soft padding and tipped the tv forward onto the cocktail table, allowing access to the rear panel and the stand. Both have to come off and the power supply feed has to be removed – one screw, a small panel and a click fit connector. The stand is retained with four large screws which come off and then the screws holding the back panel can be removed. They are clearly marked with arrow symbols. The top of the rear panel is retained with a bunch of clips – ugh! – so the panel has to be gently popped off, one clip at a time working from one end with fingers inserted between panel and screen. Not a lot of fun. Then all is revealed:



The rear cover removed. The motherboard is at the top, the power supply at the bottom.

Measurements were then made to establish the positions of the two circuit boards and penciled grids were drawn on the rear cover:



Penciled grid in the motherboard area.



The grid in the power supply area. The opening is for the mains cable.

A Forstner bit is used to drill the holes. A regular drill bit will wander and the result will look awful, whereas the pointed tip of the Forstner bit allows precise placement on the grid intersections. Be careful not to drill in locations where there are spigots on the inside of the cover – which is why some holes appear to be ‘missing’.



Holes drilled with protective plastic mesh installed.

The mesh is glued in place using Permatex 80050 Silicone adhesive which the maker’s excellent data sheet states is good to 400F. 24 hours are required for a full cure. The purpose of the mesh is to prevent fingers being poked into the electronics. Do not use metallic mesh. Should it come unglued you’ll risk a short circuit. A check with a tele-thermometer with the cover off and the TV warmed up disclosed a temperature range of 88-108F for the motherboard and the PSU had one component at 143F, so the adhesive will do the trick. Don’t even think of using cyanoacrylate ‘superglue’ – it’s useless. Once the holes are made the penciled grid can be removed with isopropyl alcohol.

The motherboard is retained with 6 screws and the white retaining plate at right is removed and placed in position on the replacement board. There are five connectors, all ‘click’ captive and it took me a while studying these with a magnifying glass to determine how to release the connectors without breaking anything. The two ribbon connectors at top left are real bears and quite fragile, so study carefully before removal.



Old and new motherboards.

After testing the result at high volume for 3 hours – failure formerly occurred after 15 minutes – all is well.

Why DIY? Well you can risk taking this to the repair shop and it is a bear to move and very fragile, whereupon you will be charged $800 for the repair by someone who very much struggles with the English tongue, and then you will have to go through hell again getting the monster screen home. And then if the TV is faulty when you get home, guess whose fault it’s going to be? Or you can do it the American way, recycle the set and buy a new one. The original ran me $2,800 7 years ago, and a similar replacement (with more invasive advertising) is $1,600 today. Still not cheap, reflecting how hard it is to manufacture fault free large OLED panels. And OLED beats anything else into a cocked hat.



Reassembled.

I used TVPartsToday for the motherboard which cost $129 shipped. Their excellent service insists that you provide a picture of the bar code(s) on your existing motherboard before you can place an order as that means an exact match will be shipped. Mine was right the first time. Their site states that they have almost 8,000 parts in stock! By the way, if the TV simply refuses to turn on it’s likely the power supply board that is blown, and these are under $100.

The Nikon D800 in the studio

Nikon bodies, Nikon lenses, Photographs

There is no better bargain.

I have been taking studio pictures with my Novatron strobe outfit for almost three decades now with the cameras ranging from rangefinder Leicas, through Rollieflexes, and Canon and Nikon DSLRs. Autofocus in the DSLRs instantly obsoleted the film equipment which was sold. Maybe the lenses were better, but nailing focus every time beats optical quality in my book.

My Nikon DSLR journey started with a D700, then the D3x, the APS-C D2x, and finally the D800. The latter was introduced by Nikon in 2012 for $3,000 and I paid just $525 a few months ago for mine with 16k clicks. Clicks are not that important for a body designed to deliver 200,000 of them, but a USA legal import is. Nikon USA will refuse to service grey market imports. Check the serial number and look for the ‘Nikon USA’ sticker inside the battery compartment.



The all important sticker.

Suffice it to say that, with the introduction of mirrorless bodies and new lenses to fit, Nikon has comprehensively trashed the used value of every DSLR they ever made and most of the lenses which fit it.

Yes, the D750 and D780 and D810 and D850 have better low light sensors but that is of no use in the studio environment. With powerful strobes I’m mostly using ISO 200 or less.

Two things stand out in my D800 experience in the studio. Even in the low ambient light that I use with weak modeling lamps in the strobes, focus is nailed every time and as for absence of sensor noise it is simply extraordinary. Definition is like nothing I’ve ever seen and while I am strictly an SOOC guy, knowing that I can crop when needed is comforting.

Maybe a Phase One or a digital Hasselblad with a large medium format sensor will render more detail for the mega buck cost of entry, but as I have no interest in making billboard-sized enlargements, call me a happy camper. And keeping the additional $12,000 in my pocketbook is a benefit not lost on me.

Do I have a complaint? Of course. Just take a look what this little outfit weighs with the 28-300mm AFS zoom and loaded battery grip:



A waistline comparable with that of most Americans.
Can you spell ‘obese’?

I extolled the D800’s many virtues, weight aside, here, but as ever pictures speak louder than words. Here is Dutch, a gorgeous Hungarian Vizsla, in a recent studio session, SOOC naturally:



A beautiful hunting dog, descended from Hungarian royalty.


Sharp enough for you?

One final advantage. Even my ancient, non-subscription Lightroom v 6.4 from 2015, bought and paid for just once, happily processes D800 RAW files. Try that with your latest and greatest Nikon body, or pay the nasty people at Adobe a monthly fee of $20 in perpetuity – and good luck getting off that treadmill. It’s not for nothing that the US DoJ just sued them for shady subscription practices.

The Nikon D800 outfit

Nikon bodies, Nikon lenses

At bargain basement prices.

Having returned to FF DSLRs with the Nikon D800 one year ago, I thought it might be of interest to show my outfit now.

When Nikon discontinued its DSLR range in favor of newer mirrorless bodies, with lenses to match, two things happened. The price of the latest gear shot up and that of the discontinued hardware crashed. As a result, if your psyche can tolerate a flapping mirror, just as most have these past 75 years, then look to keep your check book bruised but not battered as you acquire some of the finest photography hardware ever made.


The kit today.

  • D800 body, $475 with just 16,000 shutter actuations. Yes the later D850 comes with 45mp (you do not need that many) and costs three times as much. Your call. Need wi-fi and a fold out LCD screen? Try the D750 at the same price with a more than adequate 24mp.
  • 50mm f/1.4 AF-S G Nikkor, just overhauled by Nikon – $113. Front left. All prices include original Nikon hood and both caps.
  • 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-S G VR Nikkor, $415. Rear left.
  • 16-35mm f/4 AF-S G VR Nikkor, $315. Rear right.
  • 85mm f/1.8 AF-S G Nikkor, $238. Front right.
  • 60mm f/2.8 AF-S G Micro Nikkor, on the camera with film copying attachment – $267 + $60
  • MB-D12 vertical camera grip – $37. Front.
  • New Nikon battery, in the D800 – $60

There is nothing I can tell you about these lenses that is not already known – outstanding definition at any aperture, dead accurate and fast AF and robust but not heavy for what you get. Resale value? 100 cents on the dollar.

The Micro Nikkor will be sold when my film ‘scanning’ project is completed, making for a net kit cost of just $1,653. A Nikon Z8 mirrorless body runs some $3,800 and lenses are extra. Can you spell ‘Bargain’?

For all my Nikon lens articles click here.

50mm f/1.5 Summarit

Leica, Photographs

Fast flare.

For an index of all Leica-related articles click here.


The 50mm f/1.5 Leitz Summarit.

1972/3 saw me as a member of Leica Postal Portfolios which was a photo interchange/critique club where you circulated a large box of 12″ x 15″ prints by mail, adding yours and critiquing those of other members. It seems that it exists to this day. There were some 12 members in my group, a friendly bunch of Leica fanatics. You learned a lot and made some great friends. We all did our own processing and printing.

One of those friends loaned me his Leica 50mm f/1.5 Summarit lens which was as fast as they got back then. Two stops faster than my pedestrian f/2.8 Elmar, it was based on a 1930s Zeiss Xenon design (Leitz paid Zeiss royalties) and, while coated, still flared pretty mightily at full aperture. And full aperture it was when I headed out on the street to the nearest telephone booth:


Call girl. The Summarit at f/1.5. TriX.

I actually rather like the way the flare works here, enhancing the feeling of night. I just “rescanned” this with the D800 and it’s come up better than ever.