New Hardware

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Mac Pro

1/50 sec at F4, ISO 400 at 100mm

I’ve been toying with the idea of upgrading my iMac ever since I started to use Aperture. The spec of the original machine was always going to struggle: I maxed out the memory at 4Gb earlier in the year [it was a 2008 vintage], but it went off a cliff performance-wise. Aperture crashed a few times on the original import of my image library, and although I’m pretty sure that I got all of the wrinkles out, it was an indication of some frustrating performance issues ahead.

I gave the iMac I7 a long hard look, but didn’t really fancy having a 27″ monitor sitting on the dining table. I’d some concerns [subsequently allayed by a friend who uses one for work] about them running hot, but the upgradeability was also a potential issue. I decided [after some extended domestic discussions, it has to be said!] to move on a Mac Pro. To have comparable memory speed to the iMac, you are in pretty heady CPU territory – the six core Westmere.

In order to have at least some control over runaway costs, I decided to go for the base level of storage [I’ll look at an SSD some time next year, when the dust – of the scorched credit card – has settled], and 6 Gb of RAM. But I thought I might as well go for the 5870 GPU, as the upgrading the 5750 after the fact would be pretty expensive.

The other hard choice to be made was with the monitor. Again I didn’t fancy Apple’s 27″ beast [or the cost of it], so started looking at 3rd party kit. After a fair amount of research I took the plunge for a Dell SP2309W as I saw some pretty decent reviews for it. It’s a little bit industrial in terms of design and – rather quaintly – has that squidgy LCD that you tend not to experience anywhere outside of work these days.

The integrated camera works well enough, but I’ve hit a brick wall with trying to get the microphone to work. No great loss: I’m a very occasional Skype user, and a USB mike would be no more than a few quid if I were sufficiently motivated. Bottom line, the screen is great, and that was what it was all about for me.

So am I pleased, overall? Absolutely. Aperture is now as fast as I’d hoped for. It’s not without the odd little stutter – like trying to scroll the Faces’ list as soon as the screen loads – but you have to seek out problems, rather than be faced with them everywhere. Backing up a DVD for Apple TV was an interesting experience: 20 minutes, rather than the guts of two hours, and that was with some Aperture messing in the background as well.

Back to HDR

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The purchase of my new tripod a couple of months ago has rekindled my interest in HDR. I’ve been trying to get some decent night shots of the Manhattan skyline [with pretty mixed results] for quite a while. Anyway, here is the best of the HDR results:

Manhattan HDR

This is comprised of three images bracketed around a starting point of F5.6 and 8 second exposure. going +/- 1.33 stops. I’ve created the HDR image in Photomatix, and then used the resulting image as a layer mask against the middle of the three bracketed images. Finally I’ve restored most of the skyline, which was very grainy, and also the water, as it lost the smoothing from the long exposure. It’s ok, I think.

I’ve also had a hack with the new HDR offering from Nik Software, HDR Efex Pro. Here is a shot from a trip to Bath a couple of weeks back, with the HDR dial turn up to 11:

HDR - Bath

The starting point for the bracketing here was a F13 3.2 second exposure, with +/- 2 stops. This is using a preset called Grandma’s attic [I think; it takes a while to spin up on this machine]. I’ve finished it off with a bit of dodging and burning on the sky.

I like the results of this shot, despite the pretty classic over-sharpening halo around the building, and I quite like the package. Maybe it’s just me doing something wrong, but I often find that the alignment [using the default import / alignment setting] in Photmatix is a bit hazy. By comparison the Nik Software offering is tack sharp. There are some strange artefacts in this preset, which I think are visible in this small version of the image: there are a load of parallel horizontal lines across the sky. And it’s not just a feature of this preset: I’ve used it on other HDR shots from this weekend and it’s not there. It’s also pretty expensive for an [admittedly very good] one trick pony. I don’t know if I’ll take the plunge once the trial runs out…

Fungal Affection

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Here are a few shots from a forest walk at the weekend. I got absolutely soaked, so I think we can allow the dreadful pun just this time. I’d never seen fly agaric growing [does fungus ‘grow’ or ‘form’?] before. I failed to identify either of the other two sprouts.