DPS 4-14: Reasons not to buy a new computer. Trip Updates.

DigitalPro Shooter

DPS 4-14: Top reasons not to buy a new computer (yet)

As digital photographers we're all always looking forward to our next computer as a way to get our work done faster and more effectively. With the holidays coming up it's especially tempting to plunge in and purchase one. And of course if you really need a new computer, go for it. But in this issue of DigitalPro Shooter we'll give you some of the best reasons to consider waiting.

We also want to let you know that there are still openings for our January trip to Burma and Cambodia. Two destinations where the work we've done to scout the sites and prepare for the trip will make your experience much more productive than any other way we know of to explore two of the most colorful destinations on the planet--both of which are best explored sooner rather than later as they are changing quickly. The first safari to Alaska in July 07 for grizzly bears is sold out, but we still have openings for the second week. We've also just announced price and availability for our 2007 Africa safaris for wildlife photography in Botswana. The May trip is extra-special as we'll be including a stay at Mombo, perhaps the best wildlife destination in the world. More information and pricing for all these events is available on our Cardinal Photo Events website.

Female leopard, Okavango Delta, Botswana.

Why not to buy a new computer right now:

Reason #1) Vista: For Windows users Vista represents an impressive update to Windows XP. Featuring lots of glitz and a much more reliable underlying operating system it is a great offering if your computer has the horsepower to run it. But with all that change there are a couple other gotchas. First, it won't be available at retail until after the holiday season. Microsoft is providing coupons for upgrades, but if you buy a PC now you'd need to do the upgrade yourself. And that is tricky at best and downright error-prone. Vista is not compatible with all current applications and many vendors don't have Vista compatible replacements yet. The same is true for drivers. So attempting to upgrade an existing Windows install is quite an effort. I've done it three times and in two cases had to give up and do a clean install of Vista--then re-install all my applications. It isn't impossible, but you may have better things to do with your time. If you wait until January you can get Vista pre-installed and save yourself the hassle. eWeek concurs with the advice to do a clean install. Of course Microsoft disagrees with the advice to wait, so you can also read their side of the story.

Burmese woman in field of Sunflowers, 
Mandalay, Nikon D2H

Reason #2) Core 2 Duo: The much awaited Core 2 Duo chips are out in a variety of Mac and Windows laptops. As predicted they do increase performance--mostly on media-related tasks--but they also turn out to consume a noticeable amount more power; about 20% more than the Core Duo chips they are replacing. The result is decreased battery time. Through clever power management innovations the loss in battery life has been minimized but the Core 2 introduction reverses the overall trend to lower power and lower battery life. Personally that's got me thinking it's worth waiting until the designs shake out and either there is a lower power version of the Core 2 Duo or some other breakthrough that increases battery life. The bright side is that the rush to Core 2 Duo laptops is providing some good short-term deals on laptops based on the slightly older Core Duo chips.

Great Kiskadee
Nikon D2X, 200-400f/4 

Lioness & Cub 

Buddha Statues, 
Burma (Myanmar) 

Grizzly bear yearling cubs
Alaska bear safari, 2006 

Reason #3) "Kentsfield": Intel has accelerated its launch of a 4-way (4 processor core) CPU chip, codenamed Kentsfield, to the end of this year. That should mean both Mac and Windows desktop computers with 4-way processors in the first quarter of 2007. That's almost a full quarter earlier than they were anticipated. If you're not in a hurry to replace your current desktop, a 4-way machine running Vista or MacOS in early 07 will do a much better job of keeping up with your image heavy lifting. Image processing applications like Photoshop and image management applications like DigitalPro are becoming increasingly multi-thread aware so the more processor cores the faster your work will go. Dell has already announced (and previewed) the Dell XPS 710, based on the Kentsfield (Core 2 Extreme) chipset, but it isn't available. yet.

Reason #4) Photoshop Universal Binary: Adobe will not be producing a Universal Binary (native) version of Photoshop for Intel-based Macs until the next major upgrade--expected to be "CS3" in the Spring. Until that time Photoshop won't take full advantage of the new Macs, although in fairness even the current version is quite fast on the new machines.

Reason #5) New Larger & Faster Laptop Drives: Every digital photographers knows that the hard drive in their laptop can never be big enough or fast enough. Archiving images while on location to external drives is extra work and using Photoshop on a slow drive is just plain painful. But Hitachi expects to introduce laptop (2.5") hard drives in excess of 200GB capacity and running at 7200RPM (FAST for a laptop!). Read Hitachi's New Release

Reason #6) Hybrid Drives: New laptop drives are being designed as hybrids with a larger (256MB or similar) cache of flash memory to help save power and increase speed. Drive makers estimate that these drives--which will be marketed in conjunction with Windows Vista as "ReadyDrives" can improve battery life by as much as 20% by letting laptops leave their drives spun down much more often and read from the cache. This is similar to the user-installable "ReadyBoost" feature of Vista. The new power hungry laptop chips like the Core 2 Duo can use all the help they can get in power-saving technology.

Reason #7) Network Attached Storage (NAS): One of the hardest parts of upgrading your system is managing and moving all your images. But help is on the way. Companies like Infrant and Buffalo are delivering reasonably priced "network attached storage" products which offer high capacity (1-3 Terrabytes) disk storage in a small box without requring a PC. You access them from your PC just like another computer. What I like about a NAS based solution is then I can upgrade my computer without having to move my images or manage lots of hard drives on my desktop computers. Both the Buffalo and Infrant systems support flexible RAID configurations, although the Infrant is more powerful and much faster. I find myself using the Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ as a primary online storage device and my Buffalo Terrastation as a backup device. So before you bite the bullet on a new computer you might want to think about implementing a NAS based image storage solution and then decide what you want to do about your next desktop.

Obviously this column is a little bit facetious. Computers are faster and cheaper than ever before--a fact we've come to take for granted. So if you need one, buy it. But if you're not desparate and some of the technologies mentioned above would be of interest to you, then you may want to hang on until they are available.

Let's hear from you!

Let us know what is working for you in our Photo forums, where we've had a number of active discussions on digital workflow choices depending on the needs of the individual photographer.

DigitalPro 4.1 Released

DigitalPro for Windows 4.1 has been released. It features support for Adobe DNG format, JPEG 2000, plus 1-click image enhancement filters ColorMagic™ and PortraitMagic™. It is available for download at Pro Shooters website. The upgrade is free to all licensed users of DigitalPro4.

If you have a hot tip or news item for DigitalPro Shooter, write us at dps@proshooters.com. If your tip or news item is picked as the Shooters' Tip of the Week, we'll send you a really cool DigitalPro hat! Or just write us to let us know what you think of the newsletter.

To keep up with the latest articles and reviews, join me at http://www.nikondigital.org. For the latest versions of DigitalPro, visit http://www.proshooters.com/dp.

Good shooting!

--David Cardinal, editor DigitalPro Shooter
nikondigital.org / Pro Shooters LLC