Is the new MacBook Air good for a photographer?

[ImageGabriel]

It's time for a computer upgrade.

I'm an amateur photographer. I do contracts from time to time and travel a lot. I manage and edit my photos in Lightroom 5 on a PC. I currently shoot with a T2i (around 20mb per photo).

I want a computer that runs Lightroom smoothly. I don't need large internal storage since I prefer to backup to external hard drive.

I think of switching the new 2013 MacBook Air simply because of the hardware (small, lightweight, powerful). I'm not sure about OS10 but I could try. It would have: Intel i7 processor, 8G of RAM and a SSD. It would cost around 1300$.

Will it run Lightroom smoothly? Is there an alternative you can suggest?

Any help will be appreciated! Thanks

(I shoot with a CanonT2i but could maybe upgrade to a full frame body. Would the MacBook Air still handle well the larger files?)

 

[Don Daugherty]

I just bought a 2013 Macbook Air with 1.7GHz i7, 8GB. It runs LR fine with many thousands of 5D MKIII files.

ImageGabriel wrote:

It's time for a computer upgrade.

I'm an amateur photographer. I do contracts from time to time and travel a lot. I manage and edit my photos in Lightroom 5 on a PC. I currently shoot with a T2i (around 20mb per photo).

I want a computer that runs Lightroom smoothly. I don't need large internal storage since I prefer to backup to external hard drive.

I think of switching the new 2013 MacBook Air simply because of the hardware (small, lightweight, powerful). I'm not sure about OS10 but I could try. It would have: Intel i7 processor, 8G of RAM and a SSD. It would cost around 1300$.

Will it run Lightroom smoothly? Is there an alternative you can suggest?

Any help will be appreciated! Thanks

(I shoot with a CanonT2i but could maybe upgrade to a full frame body. Would the MacBook Air still handle well the larger files?)

 

[BobVell]

Don Daugherty wrote:

I just bought a 2013 Macbook Air with 1.7GHz i7, 8GB. It runs LR fine with many thousands of 5D MKIII files.

ImageGabriel wrote:

It's time for a computer upgrade.

I'm an amateur photographer. I do contracts from time to time and travel a lot. I manage and edit my photos in Lightroom 5 on a PC. I currently shoot with a T2i (around 20mb per photo).

I want a computer that runs Lightroom smoothly. I don't need large internal storage since I prefer to backup to external hard drive.

I think of switching the new 2013 MacBook Air simply because of the hardware (small, lightweight, powerful). I'm not sure about OS10 but I could try. It would have: Intel i7 processor, 8G of RAM and a SSD. It would cost around 1300$.

Will it run Lightroom smoothly? Is there an alternative you can suggest?

Any help will be appreciated! Thanks

(I shoot with a CanonT2i but could maybe upgrade to a full frame body. Would the MacBook Air still handle well the larger files?)

I also have an Air as my main computer. I'd also add an external SSD. The two SSDs really speed up performance. That is, I use the external SSD as the working drive for LR, and then use a regular external drive for storage of finished images, backup of LR catalog, etc.

 

[noirdesir]

ImageGabriel wrote:

It's time for a computer upgrade.

I'm an amateur photographer. I do contracts from time to time and travel a lot. I manage and edit my photos in Lightroom 5 on a PC. I currently shoot with a T2i (around 20mb per photo).

I want a computer that runs Lightroom smoothly. I don't need large internal storage since I prefer to backup to external hard drive.

That usage of the term 'backup' gives it a meaning that is has little to do with the meaning that everybody recommending backups, all formal documents, almost all discussion about backup, use the word for.

 

[JHWJR]

Agree with the last poster. Just putting your photos on an external drive rather than an internal drive is not "backing it up." I have a 1T internal. I have the OS and my programs on that. I have all my photography on an external 3T drive. I back it up to another external 3T drive. I have all of my other documents on an external 2T drive. I back it up to another external 2T drive. I back up manually and regularly using SuperDrive. I did the same thing when I was on Windows using Microsoft's free program SyncToy. Every once in a while, I swap the back ups with a another set of drives in a "fire proof" safe. So I have ALL of my data at least twice, and all but the most recent data on three different drives.

Having said that, the MBAir with an SSD drive is screaming fast. It will do Lightroom without difficulty.

 

[dpscoot]

noirdesir wrote:

That usage of the term 'backup' gives it a meaning that is has little to do with the meaning that everybody recommending backups, all formal documents, almost all discussion about backup, use the word for.

I assumed it sounded like a photographer working on one or two projects at a time and when finished with them, backing up originals, new versions created, to an external source before deleting the project to make room for more recent works on the working disc/SSD.

Maybe stick to the issue that was asked by the OP?

I came here to look if the MBA would do the job........as I was interested in the question.
I am not interested in the misuse of the term backup.

 

[JHWJR]

Fair enough, but I was addressing why the MacBook Air, as I understand how the poster was using it to avoid needing a substantial internal drive, may be problematic.

 

[Derek C]

The new Air's absolutely are fast enough for Aperture. Buy with confidence.

Viewing the glossy screen in a car, or an office environment with lots of windows is a lot trickier, a laptop shade will be my next purchase.

 

[Brian Eaves]

As a Digital Tech I'd never use a Air, I'd opt for a MacBook pro with the best i7 processor/ a SSD and the best Graphic card. The extra Thunderbolt port doesn't hurt if the Lightom Library is on a Thunderbolt LaCie USB#/Thunderbolt combo drive.

I'd figure that that would be a sound investment for 3 years. That's what I rent to my clients for ad jobs.

Brian

 

[Brian Eaves]

Brian Eaves wrote:

As a Digital Tech I'd never use a Air, I'd opt for a MacBook pro with the best i7 processor/ a SSD and the best Graphic card. The extra Thunderbolt port doesn't hurt if the Lightom Library is on a Thunderbolt LaCie USB#/Thunderbolt combo drive.

I'd figure that that would be a sound investment for 3 years. That's what I rent to my clients for ad jobs.

Brian

All software will love 16 gig of RAM. Especially since the RAM is sodered to the motherboard. Whatever you get MAX out the RAM

 

[Tom_N]

Brian Eaves wrote:

As a Digital Tech I'd never use a Air, I'd opt for a MacBook pro with the best i7 processor/ a SSD and the best Graphic card. The extra Thunderbolt port doesn't hurt if the Lightom Library is on a Thunderbolt LaCie USB#/Thunderbolt combo drive.

"The best graphic card" implies a 15" MBP; "The extra Thunderbolt port" implies a Retina MBP. So what you seem to be saying is that you'd always choose a 15" Retina MBP over any Air.

 

[Brandon birder]

Hi I wondered the same thing before I bought my baselevel 11" Air with only 4GB in.

I have a souped up Macbook Pro for use as my main photo computer and use Aperture which is supposed to be slower than Lightroom. It works very well that.

Anyway I use the new Air for photos when travelling and it is absolutely fine speed wise and even though the screen is smaller it is sharper. As the 13" Air is the same spec I now think it probably would be fine for normal photo use with Aperture or lightroom.

 

[Don Daugherty]

"All software will love 16 gig of RAM."

What? That statement is patently false. Software resources are always limited; in some way, by various constraints (not the least of which is their architecture, which in many cases doesn't allow them to use 16GB of memory). I would love to see some empirical evidence to support that assertion. I've got a puny 8GB RAM on my Macbook Air and I am currently running the following...

Mail, Terminal, Safari (2 tabs), ITunes, Windows 8 via Parallels, LR5, PS6. LR5 currently is browsing a 35K photo library.

And memory usage is... wait for it... (drum roll)... less than 6GB... what what???

As an Enterprise Solution Architect, I'd always "use a Air". I even traded my "MacBook pro with the best i7 processor/ a SSD and the best Graphic card" for it. Well; to be honest, the Macbook Pro only had 8GB too...

Just my two cents (or maybe a little more, hehe)..

Brian Eaves wrote:

Brian Eaves wrote:

As a Digital Tech I'd never use a Air, I'd opt for a MacBook pro with the best i7 processor/ a SSD and the best Graphic card. The extra Thunderbolt port doesn't hurt if the Lightom Library is on a Thunderbolt LaCie USB#/Thunderbolt combo drive.

I'd figure that that would be a sound investment for 3 years. That's what I rent to my clients for ad jobs.

Brian

All software will love 16 gig of RAM. Especially since the RAM is sodered to the motherboard. Whatever you get MAX out the RAM

 

[uniball]

Brian Eaves wrote:

As a Digital Tech I'd never use a Air, I'd opt for a MacBook pro with the best i7 processor/ a SSD and the best Graphic card. The extra Thunderbolt port doesn't hurt if the Lightom Library is on a Thunderbolt LaCie USB#/Thunderbolt combo drive.

I'd figure that that would be a sound investment for 3 years. That's what I rent to my clients for ad jobs.

Brian

Lightroom needs CPU, a stronger graphics card (15" MBP) will do little to nothing other than empty ones bank account. An Air has more than enough CPU to deal with Lightroom.

"Ad jobs" are a different animal than photo editing.

 

[f8BeThereToo]

Derek C wrote:

Viewing the glossy screen in a car, or an office environment with lots of windows is a lot trickier, a laptop shade will be my next purchase.

In the past I was skeptical about using anti-glare film. But when Apple stopped offering a matte display 13" MacBook Pro I was forced to consider giving it a try. I read a lot of editorial and user reviews before selecting an anti-glare film.

Power Support (http://www.powersupportusa.com) has an excellent anti-glare film. It isn't the cheapest film but it is easy to apply, it is more durable than thinner/cheaper films and it doesn't introduce color-shifts and artifacts.

I've used the Power Support film on an iPad and my current 13" MacBook Pro. While I still owned it I compared a 15" MBP matte-display to the 13" MBP with the Power Support film. I think that the pre-unibody 15" MBP display was one of the nicest Apple matte displays. I honestly could not see a difference between it and the Power Support film.

The film holds up so well that I think that it could be transferred to a new display after several years of use. I like to apply the film as soon as I remove a brand new Mac from its box. I sometimes need to remove a few specks of dust with a dry microfiber cloth but it sure beats having to carefully clean a dirty display. Both the iPad and MBP installations had zero air bubbles. Folks would comment about how good the iPad display looked compared to others they had seen before they knew that it sported an anti-glare film.

 

[Cliff Beard]

My late 2010 macbook Air 13" with core duo processor runs Lightroom very well when I use it as a travel computer.

It even runs D800 files very well, with a slight delay to render the preview.

Its a cinch to export the image catalogue and then import it to the main iMac at home.

If i take a lot of images or images on the D800 the exported catalogue has to go straight onto a HDD as there is not enough room left to double the size of the data on the 128GB SSD! A more modern Air should be monstrously fast.

 

[Leo]

Brandon birder wrote:

Hi I wondered the same thing before I bought my baselevel 11" Air with only 4GB in.

I have a souped up Macbook Pro for use as my main photo computer and use Aperture which is supposed to be slower than Lightroom. It works very well that.

Anyway I use the new Air for photos when travelling and it is absolutely fine speed wise and even though the screen is smaller it is sharper. As the 13" Air is the same spec I now think it probably would be fine for normal photo use with Aperture or lightroom.

 

[Leo]

Don Daugherty wrote:

"All software will love 16 gig of RAM."

What? That statement is patently false. Software resources are always limited; in some way, by various constraints (not the least of which is their architecture, which in many cases doesn't allow them to use 16GB of memory). I would love to see some empirical evidence to support that assertion. I've got a puny 8GB RAM on my Macbook Air and I am currently running the following...

Mail, Terminal, Safari (2 tabs), ITunes, Windows 8 via Parallels, LR5, PS6. LR5 currently is browsing a 35K photo library.

And memory usage is... wait for it... (drum roll)... less than 6GB... what what???

As an Enterprise Solution Architect, I'd always "use a Air". I even traded my "MacBook pro with the best i7 processor/ a SSD and the best Graphic card" for it. Well; to be honest, the Macbook Pro only had 8GB too...

Just my two cents (or maybe a little more, hehe)..

Brian Eaves wrote:

Brian Eaves wrote:

As a Digital Tech I'd never use a Air, I'd opt for a MacBook pro with the best i7 processor/ a SSD and the best Graphic card. The extra Thunderbolt port doesn't hurt if the Lightom Library is on a Thunderbolt LaCie USB#/Thunderbolt combo drive.

I'd figure that that would be a sound investment for 3 years. That's what I rent to my clients for ad jobs.

Brian

All software will love 16 gig of RAM. Especially since the RAM is sodered to the motherboard. Whatever you get MAX out the RAM

Hi Don,

I am ready to place an order for an Air 13. Is my assumption, based on your post, that your Air is I5 Duo with 8G RAM? Is I7 necessary or I5 would be just fine with some reduces speed?

Leo

 

[Don Daugherty]

I went with the I7. Based on Geekbench performance numbers the I7 model is about an 18%-20% speed increase over the I5 base processor. I felt that was a good deal for the extra $150.

Leo wrote:

Don Daugherty wrote:

"All software will love 16 gig of RAM."

What? That statement is patently false. Software resources are always limited; in some way, by various constraints (not the least of which is their architecture, which in many cases doesn't allow them to use 16GB of memory). I would love to see some empirical evidence to support that assertion. I've got a puny 8GB RAM on my Macbook Air and I am currently running the following...

Mail, Terminal, Safari (2 tabs), ITunes, Windows 8 via Parallels, LR5, PS6. LR5 currently is browsing a 35K photo library.

And memory usage is... wait for it... (drum roll)... less than 6GB... what what???

As an Enterprise Solution Architect, I'd always "use a Air". I even traded my "MacBook pro with the best i7 processor/ a SSD and the best Graphic card" for it. Well; to be honest, the Macbook Pro only had 8GB too...

Just my two cents (or maybe a little more, hehe)..

Brian Eaves wrote:

Brian Eaves wrote:

As a Digital Tech I'd never use a Air, I'd opt for a MacBook pro with the best i7 processor/ a SSD and the best Graphic card. The extra Thunderbolt port doesn't hurt if the Lightom Library is on a Thunderbolt LaCie USB#/Thunderbolt combo drive.

I'd figure that that would be a sound investment for 3 years. That's what I rent to my clients for ad jobs.

Brian

All software will love 16 gig of RAM. Especially since the RAM is sodered to the motherboard. Whatever you get MAX out the RAM

Hi Don,

I am ready to place an order for an Air 13. Is my assumption, based on your post, that your Air is I5 Duo with 8G RAM? Is I7 necessary or I5 would be just fine with some reduces speed?

Leo

 

[Leo]

Don Daugherty wrote:

I went with the I7. Based on Geekbench performance numbers the I7 model is about an 18%-20% speed increase over the I5 base processor. I felt that was a good deal for the extra $150.

Leo wrote:

Don Daugherty wrote:

"All software will love 16 gig of RAM."

What? That statement is patently false. Software resources are always limited; in some way, by various constraints (not the least of which is their architecture, which in many cases doesn't allow them to use 16GB of memory). I would love to see some empirical evidence to support that assertion. I've got a puny 8GB RAM on my Macbook Air and I am currently running the following...

Mail, Terminal, Safari (2 tabs), ITunes, Windows 8 via Parallels, LR5, PS6. LR5 currently is browsing a 35K photo library.

And memory usage is... wait for it... (drum roll)... less than 6GB... what what???

As an Enterprise Solution Architect, I'd always "use a Air". I even traded my "MacBook pro with the best i7 processor/ a SSD and the best Graphic card" for it. Well; to be honest, the Macbook Pro only had 8GB too...

Just my two cents (or maybe a little more, hehe)..

Brian Eaves wrote:

Brian Eaves wrote:

As a Digital Tech I'd never use a Air, I'd opt for a MacBook pro with the best i7 processor/ a SSD and the best Graphic card. The extra Thunderbolt port doesn't hurt if the Lightom Library is on a Thunderbolt LaCie USB#/Thunderbolt combo drive.

I'd figure that that would be a sound investment for 3 years. That's what I rent to my clients for ad jobs.

Brian

All software will love 16 gig of RAM. Especially since the RAM is sodered to the motherboard. Whatever you get MAX out the RAM

Hi Don,

I am ready to place an order for an Air 13. Is my assumption, based on your post, that your Air is I5 Duo with 8G RAM? Is I7 necessary or I5 would be just fine with some reduces speed?

Leo

Hi Don,

Would I5 be able to open and running the same number of applications (WOW!) but be only slower?

Just posted my another question than found your reply. I understand the I7 advantage based on a faster clock and a larger cache (by 1MB). However, does lager SSD especially on PCI bus add any advantage?

As I have just posted my two questions remained before placing the order. It would be wrong to repeat them in another post. Here is the DPreview Forum link to my new post:

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/52243555

Thank you for reply,

Leo