Category Archives: Photography

MacMini 2012

Macintosh

Barely acceptable.

A year ago I warned against the MacMini 2011 for photographic use. Modestly powered and horribly overpriced, you could build a far more robust and expandable Hackintosh for less. Much less.

The main changes in the 2012 model are that it’s $200 less for the i5 base model, the cooler Ivy Bridge CPU has replaced the Sandy Bridge and the competent HD4000 integrated GPU drives the graphics. You still need to add a keyboard, mouse and Display Port-to-DVI cable. Buying Apple’s Dual Link (30″ displays) at $99/Single Link $29 is insanity, when you can buy one from Amazon for $12/$10 – I use one with my MacBook Air and confirm it works perfectly. You also need to max out the RAM, the Mini coming with a paltry 4GB of 1600GHz, up from 1333GHz from last year. The removable base plate in the Mini makes RAM swapping easy and Crucial will charge you $85 for 16GB whereas Apple will get $300 from fools. Looks like RAM gouging, an old habit of Apple’s which had gone away for a while, is back.

But the best news about the Mini is that it comes without Apple’s ghastly glossy screen known to every iMac user since 2007. You can have your pick of displays from decent 1920×1280 21.5″ versions from the likes of Assus and Acer at $140 to megabuck 27″ displays where the Dell Ultrasharp U2711 2560×1440 remains the best value at $800. All cheaper than Apple’s glossy 27″ abomination at $1,000.

The other significant enhancement is to replace the chintzy 500GB internal HDD with a $100 128GB SSD to store the OS and applications, which will return a significant increase in operating speed. Forget cockamamie dual internal drive cradles. That will simply make your machine hotter. Use an USB3 external enclosure for the 500GB drive you just removed. Drive replacement in the Mini is a tad tougher than RAM replacement, but reference to the excellent iFixit guide will get you there. Geekbench64 for the 2012 MacMini comes in at 7,500. For comparison my HackPro HP100 comes in at 12,000 with the i5 and 16,000 with the i7, both scores with the older Sandy Bridge CPU modestly overclocked and a five year old Nvidia GTX9800+ discrete GPU. That machine runs cool as a cucumber compared to any Mac. The poor scores of the 2012 Mac Mini are accounted for by the fact that Apple is using the compromised mobile version of the i5 CPU rather than the full desktop version used in my Hack Pro. The same i5 CPU in my 2012 MacBook Air (4GB RAM) comes in at 6,300 or so, for comparison. Bottom line? the performance of the 2012 Mac Mini is on a par with that of a four year old using the three generations old Core2Quad CPU.

AppleCare? Sure, go ahead and pay $149 more to insure the Mini for two more years. Probably a wise move given the egregious out-of-warranty repair costs. The parts in the Hackintosh mostly come with 3-5 warranties, the exception being the Intel CPU which is covered for one year. Then again, I have yet to have anything in my three Hackintoshes fail. Oh! wait, the clips on the Antec Sonata III case’s dust filter fractured and Antec sent me a new one free after some 30 months of service. Toyota reliability.

So $600 + $85 for proper RAM gets you a 2.5GHz Ivy Bridge machine which will work fine with Photoshop and Lightroom but is likely marginal with video processing. For the latter, I would remove the base plate, mount the Mini vertically, and point an external fan at the innards. A 5″ $10 external fan should fit the space nicely and is easily powered off a 12 volt power adapter of which you likely have three dozen in the cardboard box under the stairs. The sub-optimal cooling of the enclosure will be greatly enhanced. For that matter there are even USB-powered fans available for some $12. Forget about trying to upgrade the i5 CPU for an i7. It’s soldered in, and Apple’s $200 premium for the i7 makes no sense.

Typical USB powered 5″ add-on fan.

However, last year’s advice remains sound – for this sort of money and a little effort (and it’s easier every year) a Hackintosh will make for a superior machine in every way except maybe looks. And when you decide to upgrade to an i7 CPU for heavy video processing, lots of internal drives, and so on, the Hack rules. Click on Sitemap->Photography->Hackintosh, above, to learn more.

Alternatives? Nothing could be worse than the new iMac for seriously hard photographic use, and Apple has abandoned the dated and overpriced MacPro. They have made noises about refreshing the MacPro in 2013 but I’ll believe that when I see it.

Nikkor 180mm f/2.8 AF ED-IF lens

Nikon lenses

Wonderfully sharp.

The 180mm Nikkor f/2.8 on the Nikon D700.

I confess I miss the superb 200mm f/2.8 Canon EF autofocus lens I used to use on my 5D body, so when an opportunity arose to buy a used 180mm f/2.8 ED Nikkor AF-D on the estimable Fred Miranda forum (unlike eBay, it’s home to sellers with integrity) for just $375, I snapped it up. The lens retails new for $900. Mine has some superficial wear on the crinkle finish but the mechanics and optics are fine, and that’s what matters to me. At 27 ounces (same as the Canon) it’s 6 ounces heavier than the gorgeous 200mm f/4 Nikkor I own but a stop faster and with auto focusing. Worth the difference so long as you need f/2.8!

The lens, as with all Nikon AF-D lenses, uses the ‘screwdriver’ focus mechanism. A slotted pinion in the lens drives the focus rack and is in turn driven by a screwdriver attached to a motor in the bayonet flange on the body. A bit Rube Goldberg, perhaps, but it does assure compatibility with a large number of older Nikon bodies back to the film era. For digital users, screwdriver focus is still included in pro/prosumer bodies (Like the D2/3/4, D800/700/600) and in the better amateur ones (D300/300S/7000 etc)


The screwdriver pinion in the flange of the lens.

The drawback of screwdriver focus is that it is slower than the linear in-lens motors found in Nikon’s latest AF-S lenses and, incidentally, in all Canon auto focus digital lenses in various guises. As Nikon does not offer this lens in an AF-S version, if you want a Nikon 180 f/2.8 you have two choices – this lens or the much costlier and heavier 70-200 f/2.8 for some $2,400, weighing in at a porky 54 ounces. However, the zoom adds Vibration Reduction, sadly missing from the 180mm optic.

Balance on the heavy D700 body is excellent and makes for an easily hand-held combination. It’s even better on the larger D2X with it superior ergonomics. With the APS-C frame in the D2X the lens becomes 270mm long. The lens is light enough that no tripod collar is required for tripod use. The black crinkle alloy barrel is functional enough (as in functional-ugly) and cannot hold a candle to the machined, mechanical beauty of the early 200mm f/4 MF lens. Then again, nothing can.

As with the 300mm ED IF MF Nikkor, there is no glass between the rear of the diaphragm and the lens mount, so keeping a lens cap on the rear when not in use is probably a wise precaution to prevent debris interfering with the aperture blades.

Minimum focus distance is 5 feet, which is like a 50mm focusing down to 17 inches. Frame filling portraits are not a problem. The focus barrel has an M-F switch but it’s a bit funky design wise. Switch it to A and it’s locked, operable solely by the motor in the camera. Switch it to M and you can focus manually but the focus confirmation light (D700 and D2X) remains fixed and unvarying. Only when you change the C/S/M control on the camera’s escutcheon to ‘M’ does the focus confirmation light come into play and the screwdriver connection is de-clutched, evidenced by the smooth turning of the focus collar on the lens. Still, that sounds worse than it is because, for all except photography of fast-moving objects coming at the camera, the AF in this Nikkor is fast enough and is absolutely dead on accurate on my two bodies. The latest AF-S lenses have none of this MF complexity – just grab and twist the focus ring to override AF.

ED in the designation denotes the use of high refractive index glass for selected elements and IF means Internal Focus, the length of the lens remaining unchanged as it is focused. No external part of the lens rotates during autofocus for those into polarizing filters and the like. The extensible lens hood is built-in and does not wobble once extended.

The real beauty of this lens is to be found at f/2.8. What little vignetting there is can be automatically corrected in Lightroom which ships with the lens profile for the 180mm. My lens was recognized correctly and the profile automatically corrected both vignetting and minor pincushion distortion.

This is very much a ‘glamor lens’ and one you want to use fully open all the time. Backgrounds are massively blurred making the subject simply pop – these are all at full aperture on the D700 snapped while taking the pup for his evening ramble around the ‘hood:

Tar truck. Molten tar is poured into the seams where new road work joins the old.
This prevents the entry of water and slows erosion at the seams.

Leaf blower. Needless to add I got something in my eye….

Even apartment buildings can be pretty. This one is done in southern plantation style.

Typical 180mm full aperture rendering.

Last growth.

Autumn.

Should you opt for the AF or earlier MF optic? Both have stellar reputations. The answer is that the decision depends on what your uses are. Certainly focusing a lens this long and bright manually is easy. Objects snap in and out of focus with authority. If your persuasion is more on the candid/people side, as is mine, then AF makes better sense. If a more contemplative approach suits you, such as with architecture and landscapes, then MF is fine, and the lens will likely be cheaper. Good used AI-S versions may be found for $200-300 and adding a CPU means another $29 or so. Be warned though that CPU installation will require similar machining to that I adopted for the 300mm – see the link above. It’s not a simple ‘glue on’ job as there’s insufficient clearance between the baffle and the camera’s CPU contacts. It’s not difficult but if you are not handy with a Dremel and a file then this is not for you. And a CPU greatly enhances the functionality of the MF lens. The AI-S version is a couple of ounces heavier and the even earlier AI variant is 4 ounces heavier than the AF-D version. All have built-in hoods. There are also a pair of ‘non-D’ AF versions (the earlier with a plastic barrel which scratches easily, the later with the current crinkle finish) which do not sync up as well with Nikon flash units, but if flash is not a big deal for you everything else about it is identical to the current AF-D lens. The plastic barrel AF ‘non-D’ version is probably the best bargain if you can live with worn cosmetics.

Want to make your photography instantly better? Get a fast 180mm lens.

For snaps from my first serious outing with this lens, click here.

The new iMac – 2012

Macintosh

Another dog in fancy dress.

Long time readers will know of my raft of iMac, MacBook and iBook failures which drove me to having a friend build for me not one, not two, but three Hackintoshes, machines which have proved themselves to be robust workhorses over a long time now. These use standard, inexpensive, PC parts but run OS X.

On Tuesday Apple announced its latest iMac with the usual attendant hype and my advice to all photographers, having studied the design and specs, is that you avoid it like the plague.

The fall 2012 iMac.

Why do I say this?

First, the slimness thing is a head fake. Apple has simply deleted the optical DVD drive – you can still use an external one – and gone to a 2.5″ hard disk drive from a 3.5″ one. Look at the rear panel and you will see it bulges out substantially in the center to accommodate the pieces. Only the edges have been slimmed down. But yes, there is an overall slimming nonetheless and this raises crucial questions about heat management, the iMac’s bugbear. Changing to a 2.5″ drive will reduce heat output but the design does not use the rear alloy plate as a heat sink for the CPU or, more importantly, the GPU. It’s the GPUs which literally melted in my many failed Macs. Mac laptops do use the base as a heatsink which is why they tend to get so warm on your lap, whereas the iMac uses one fan (one fan – think about that) to cool the whole interior. For comparison my Hackintoshes have seven fans each – box intake, box exhaust, power supply (two fans), disk drive fan, CPU and GPU. And we are talking fans, not toys. 5 inch diameter quiet fans.

Second, ergonomics. The iMac sticks with the hopeless stand which has no height adjustment, so if you do buy one, add the cost of a couple of reams of paper on which to support the machine, because it will almost certainly sit too low on your desk. There goes your 21st century-looking work desk.

Third, pricing remains way too high. While Apple has yet to disclose pricing on the 27″ Intel Core i7 model (the i5 is $1799 with 8GB of RAM which is user upgradable – RAM in the 21.5″ model is not user upgradable) I would guess that the i7 with 16GB will run $2,400 and you are still stuck with that ghastly, glossy screen. Apple claims that reflections have been cut “…70%…” whatever that means and you can count me skeptical on that.

Fourth, be prepared to upgrade to a proper keyboard. The stock Apple chiclet keys one is a perfect example of form over function.

Fifth, base spec 21.5″ buyers beware. The HDD has been downgraded from 7200 to 5400. What a gip!

And last, but not least, unless you really want carpal tunnel, add another $50-100 for a good mouse because the Magic Mouse which comes with the machine is magic for the medical profession only.

I simply cannot recommend the iMac for photographers. The stress to which you will subject the innards when doing thermally challenging tasks like advanced Photoshop processing (Content Aware Fill, selective blur, etc.) will crank up the heat in your new toy, with repeated cycling threatening its very survival. And if you propose to rip movies, you would be insane to use this machine. It’s simply not capable of handling the repeated load. Even my superbly cooled Hackintoshes will crank up the CPU to 158F (service limit is 190F) when using Handbrake to rip/compress a DVD. With an iMac with its cooling compromised by Apple’s obsession with slimness, you will hit the service limit every time. That’s like running your car flat out daily. As for the whole slimness thing, it strikes me as odd that the world’s most obese nation would seek slimness in its hardware rather than in itself.

What I have written in the past, for photographers with heavy duty processing requirements who have no time to worry about machine failure and who want to be able to replace any failed part at a moment’s notice, rather than losing their machine to Apple for days, there has never been a better time to build a Hackintosh. The newest tools for making OS X run on a home built PC are better than ever and the cost of the whole thing, with a couple of decent matte IPS displays will be very competitive with what Apple is asking for its latest piece of sub-functional jewelry. It bears adding that part failures in my three Hacks are exactly zero to date and these machines all run 7/24.

A note on Apple’s ‘new’ Fusion hard drive: Rarely have I heard such BS as Apple is spewing about its revolutionary Fusion hard drive. This is simply a hybrid HDD like Seagate has been selling for years. 128GB of RAM is added to the HDD’s circuitry to cache frequent events – opening a browser, checking email, etc. – the hope being that this will speed the machine’s performance. Rarer events – opening or saving a photo file – are dealt with in the traditional way (direct save to spinning disk) with the addition of a cached RAM version of the saved file. Of course, when you are saving 60mp files from your D800 that cached version will quickly be removed by the next file, as you only have a limited RAM cache. Operational speed gains for photographers? Zilch. The only difference between Apple’s Fusion drive and Seagate’s hybrid one is that Apple places the RAM on the mother board rather than inside the drive. The RAM module is the same one used for memory in the Mac Book Air. This is about as far from innovation as it gets. Your best bet for storage is an internal solid state drive (and Apple will hose you down for that) to store the OS and applications, with an external USB3 drive (Thunderbolt is ridiculously overpriced, still) for data storage, with a backup, of course. Don’t even think of upgrading the internal drive – these machines are not built to be dismantled.

Disclosure: Long AAPL bull option spreads 2013 and 2014.

Apple boneheads

iPad

Flunked Retail 101.

When Apple released iPhone 1 in July 2007 I plunked down $600 for one immediately. The price was ridiculous but as an investor I needed to know about a device which proved to be transformational and disruptive. A few months later nice Mr. Jobs refunded me $200 for his bonheaded pricing.

Well, Jobs may be gone, but the boneheaded gene remains in the corridors of Cupertino, making its latest appearance in the guise of the $329 iPad Mini.

Let’s be clear. There is only one reason Apple entered the mini-tablet segment. To make money. They perceive that they can make significant amounts while retaining the brand’s dominance of the tablet sector by entering the mini segment. Only there are perfectly capable tablets like the Nexus 7 at $199 and much less capable ones like the Kindle Fire for even less. Would you pay $130 more for the Apple product, assuming you do not dine our nightly and do your own laundry? Obviously not. Your school age child can still pull up Wikipedia just fine on his $199 Nexus.

So say goodbye to conquest sales at that price. Because conquest sales are everything for Apple, just as they are for luxury car makers. Once you have used it, you do not go back. You just buy more. And you become a repeat customer.

So pricing the iPad Mini off standard profit margins makes no sense. It needs to be priced as a loss leader/entry product to get the poor schmuck using Android into the Apple ecosystem. And $329 is not going to do it.

$249 is the right price for this device. $329 sells to zealots and the converted only. $249 sells to everyone. And given that connectivity is the lifeblood of mobile device, where on earth is Apple coming from charging a $130 premium – like on the regular iPad – for a Qualcomm cellular chip which retails for $29? Now your Mini is $459. That’s plain stupid, Apple.

Design consistency

Nikon bodies

Thank you, Nikon.

One of the welcome features of the D2X (2005) is how little its design varies from the much more recent D700 (2008):

Top view – each camera has a GPS data receiver installed top left, the D2X’s safety tethered with dental floss ….

The top plate controls are almost identical except for the aperture/shutter Lock button on the D2X, lower left, for which I have yet to divine a serious use, and the superior metering selector on the D2X’s prism, which has an invaluable lock button to prevent accidental movement. The one on the D700 is just visible here on the rear plate and is prone to accidental change. The ISO button on the D2X moved to the lower rear. The D700 adds a handy pop up flash. The D2X has none.

The rear views are also similar:

The 3″ screen on the D700 dwarfs the 2.5″ LCD on the D2X.

Of note is that one button has been added for minus magnification on the D700 (top) replacing the two button action needed on the D2X, An improvement for those into LCD chimping, a practice I avoid as much as I do politics. Note the Nikon DK-17M magnifying eyepieces I have fitted to both bodies – a massive improvement over stock and a must-have for anyone using manual focus lenses. With these fitted both finders show a huge, clear, uncluttered image, wonderful for composition and shooting.

The D2X adds the lower information panel common to all the D-Pro bodies and most definitely not an improvement as the text is small, for the most part, and hard to read. All of this information falls nicely to the top display in the D700. Finally, in addition to the large battery grip which permits easy vertical shooting, the D2X adds a microphone and speaker activated by the button to the lower right corner of the LCD display for recording voice memos of up to 60 seconds for each snap. Very handy. The D2X hides its CF card behind the door to the right of the LCD and adopts a truly complex access mechanism which will have you resorting to four letter words when it comes time to replace the card. The D700 adopts a far superior sliding latched door on the right of the camera. Finally the center button in the four way rocker dial for changing focus points is far superior on the D700 to the one on the D2X. It protrudes a millimeter or two further, making engagement on a center press much easier. With the D2X you find yourself toggling instead of pressing, as often as not. I suspect that a small piece of rubber glues to the D2X’s button will fix what ails the design. The AE-L/AF-L and AE-ON buttons at top right are identical on the two bodies.

The front plates are identical. What the above snaps cannot disclose is the extent to which the software is much the same between the two bodies and that is the icing on the cake. It adds to an easy ergonomic learning curve the absence of torture-by-software which every new DSLR imposes on a new user. So for D700 owners thinking of upgrading to a pro body – D2X, D3, D4 – they will likely find as I did that they will be up and running in no time.

The D2X is faster in most respects. It can sustain an 8 fps framing rate in cropped mode using the stock battery; to accomplish that with the D700 requires the battery grip and new batteries, as the stock will not fit. Mercifully, regular AA cells are an option to the costly Nikon LiOn battery. Shutter response of the D2X is marginally better, but in practice the difference makes no matter. What is noticeable is how much quieter the D2X’s shutter is. Maybe that’s because it’s smaller given the smaller frame and maybe it’s also because the D2X’s flapping mirror is smaller for the APS-C format. Whatever the reason, the result is clearly distinguishable. Batteries in the D2X are inserted from the side, those in the D700 from below, meaning that if used on a tripod, the change in the D700 is more fiddly. However, both bodies have such high battery lives (probably over 800 shots on a charge) that the practical inconvenience with the D700 is not significant.

For MF lens users the focus confirmation light in the D2X is better than the one in the D700, shuddering less at the point of optimum focus. Nikon has long spec’d its pro and prosumer AF modules as requiring an aperture of f/5.6 or faster, but I have found no difficulty in using the AF confirmation light in the D700 with the f/8 Mirror Reflex Nikkor. On the D2X that light fails, making confirmation focus with the D2X impossible. A shame.