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Rangefinder
Magazine
November 2002
First Exposure: Apple Powerbook G4
by John Rettie
Why the Mac is Popular with Photographers, A Hectic One-month Whirlwind
Review of the Apple PowerBook G4
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| Back in the office one can hook the PowerBook up to
Apple’s impressive Cinema Display and view stunningly accurate
images. |
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There I was sitting in the back of a Jeep Cherokee in
the middle of the Sahara Desert writing an article on a small laptop computer.
I was on photo assignment in Egypt, photographing the last three days
of the 2000 Paris-Dakar-Cairo race. An Egyptian was driving and we had
traveled some 300 miles from Cairo when we ran out of gas. It took four
hours for him to hitch a ride, collect some gas and return. I was able
to get some work done, which made me feel I had accomplished something.
At the time I was still mainly shooting film as that’s what my clients
wanted and I realized then how fabulous it would be if I could do all
my work on one laptop, so that I could have my office, lightbox, darkroom,
etc. with me at all times. I knew the time would come when the power and
versatility of a laptop computer and the quality of a digital camera would
be good enough to be totally self contained while on the move.
That time is now.
If you’re a photographer on the move, which many of us seem to be,
the latest cameras and computers are a godsend for improving workflow.
As I start to write this article on a sleek Apple PowerBook G4 (also known
as the Titanium PowerBook), I am sitting in the airport at Puerto Vallarta,
waiting for a flight that will take me to Europe for my next assignment—the
Le Mans 24-Hour auto race. Yes, really. Earlier in the day I had been
editing images I had taken of an actress I had been photographing on the
beach for her portfolio. Before I left the hotel, I was able to burn a
CD-R for her with original images captured on a Nikon D1X as well as some
I had retouched using Adobe Photoshop on the PowerBook. The quality of
the screen is good enough for image editing.
It’s now an hour later and I am on my flight. I
start talking with the guy next to me and he asks to see samples of my
work. Easy. Open up the computer switch it on and I show him full screen
images on the computer. Another advantage. You’ve got your portfolio
with you at all times and it takes up no space even though you might have
thousands of images. Flipping through images using a program such as Graphic
Converter is simple. And thanks to the light weight of the PowerBook it’s
easy to just turn the computer on its side and hold it up at an angle
for viewing a portrait-orientated image.
Although this review of a Mac system for photographers revolves around
my travels as a photojournalist it is just as applicable to any photographer,
whether you are in a studio or on location. What I found during my crazy
month of travel in June was the great versatility of the latest PowerBook.
It is really good enough to be considered as a perfectly acceptable substitute
for a desktop computer. It has sufficient power and a decent display so
it does not cramp the ability to get a job done wherever one might be.
For example a friend of mine, Brick Price who runs Wonderworks in Los
Angeles, uses his PowerBook with Apple’s sophisticated video editing
program Final Cut Pro to edit trailers for the movie industry while sitting
on the deck at his home. He finds it amazing that in a few hours he can
produce on a PowerBook laptop what used to take days to do on a million
dollar editing deck.
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| Within a few hours of capturing this photograph of
the Bentley GTP at the 24 hours of Le Mans on a Nikon D1X, I was able
to check the images on the PowerBook, using Graphic Converter. |
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Now I’m sitting on a bed in Bentley’s enormous
marquee tent in the middle of the Le Mans race track. The sound of racecars
reverberates all round. It’s just past midnight and I’ve shot
about 800 images using a Nikon D1X camera. I have just downloaded all
the images off a 1GB MicroDrive and a 640MB Lexar Compact Flash card onto
the 40 GB hard drive in the PowerBook. I am quickly flipping through the
images to see if I captured the scenes I wanted and to make sure I have
good photographs of certain cars.
It’s fabulous to be able to have the images processed and ready
for viewing in only minutes! It’s also comforting to know I’ve
got the images I want. It means I can relax a little, catch some sleep
and take different photographs the next day. There’s a certain peace
of mind that was never possible before when you would have to wait hours
or days to get film processed. Few photographers had the luxury of a lightbox,
storage and processing machine in a 5.4 pound unit, not much heavier or
larger than a magazine. Actually a PowerBook is thinner than the annual
Fall fashion edition of Vogue!
Ever since Apple introduced the original Macintosh in 1984, the computer
and more importantly its Mac operating system has been extremely popular
with photographers as well as graphic artists and publishers. The reasons
are multifold but essentially the Mac operating system is more elegant
for the heavy work required in the manipulation of graphic images. Right
from the start this was apparent to those writing software for graphic
artists, hence the reason the Mac has remained more popular with creative
professionals.
A few years ago when Apple was in the doldrums many people were convinced
that the Mac would not survive much longer. After all Microsoft had in-troduced
increasingly better versions of Windows that appeared to be just as good
as the Mac OS.
However, with the introduction of the latest Mac OS X operating system
the Mac seems to be gaining strength again among photographers and artists.
The PowerBook is also a tool that wows people who use it. Many reviewers
with a PC bent seem to regard the newest Macintosh computers such as the
iMac, iBook and Titanium PowerBook with envy.
Over the years Apple has maintained its position as purveyor of the sleekest
looking computers with the most elegant operating system. But a sleek
computer is useless as a work tool if it cannot do the work.
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| The look and feel of the desktop with Apple’s
latest OS X (Version 10.2, known as Jaguar) is stunning, which makes
it a joy to use a graphics program such as Graphic Converter. |
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From a technical point of view the PowerBook is very
pleasant to use. It’s only one inch thick and is about the size
(13.4 x 9.5 inches) of a legal pad. It is finished in two-tone silver,
giving it a high-tech classy look. The external ports are hidden behind
a cover in the rear, while PC cards are inserted in one side through a
slot with a stiff flap to keep dirt out. CDs or DVDs are inserted in a
slot at the front, which also has a dust trap. There are no sliding trays
to break or any protrusions on the machine. And when it is closed it hardly
looks like a computer.
The battery is rated to last five hours, but I never discovered how long
it would last as I never had it on more than four hours without recharging
the battery. I was not about to test how long it would last during any
critical portions of my trips.
The keyboard is full size and the slate used for moving the cursor becomes
quite efficient, once one gets used to it. Nonetheless I did plug in a
mouse, when I was using the laptop on a desk, for editing images as I
found it was still more intuitive.
Obviously not all photographers are traveling from one assignment to another.
Others are more likely spending their time in a studio and perhaps going
out on location for weddings and other event photography. Nevertheless
forward-looking photographers will appreciate that, whether we like it
or not, the ability to show clients images immediately has great appeal.
Much as many of us would like to relax after a wedding shoot and not worry
about showing photographs until a few days later, reality today is different.
Clients have come to expect immediacy. More and more people have their
own digital cameras so they naturally expect professionals to be using
them.
A few years ago it was easy to say that the quality was not on par with
film. Nowadays that’s no longer true.
After the weekend covering the Le Mans race I am on my way to Vail, Colorado
where Nikon is unveiling its new 6-megapixel D100 digital camera to editors
of photo magazines. After two days of using the camera we’re all
asked to choose some of our best shots for use in a farewell “slide”
show. Probably half of the 16 editors in attendance are using PowerBooks.
Most of us do a quick edit on our PowerBooks and then burn a CD-R using
the internal drive and hand it over to the guy who has to select the final
images for projection. The quality of the projected images is as good
as any slides produced by a 35mm film camera.
I’m nearing the end of my month’s travels and it’s time
for a family vacation/work trip. This time I’m driving with my wife
and two teenage sons from California to Colorado Springs to cover the
famous Pikes Peak auto hill climb. I find yet another use for the PowerBook—it’s
great for watching DVD movies. Okay I’m not, but my sons are in
the back of the Mazda MPV minivan viewing a movie on the PowerBook’s
wide screen. It has sufficient resolution that it’s virtually as
good as the big TV set back home.
As a convert to the positive aspects of shooting digital it bugs me that
one of my magazine clients demands film. There is only one chance to get
images of the cars as they race up the side of the 14,000-foot mountain.
In order to get as many shots as possible I give my two sons and my wife
a camera to shoot with. I’m fortunate as I had the Nikon D100, D1X
and my own D1 with me. Meanwhile, I shoot some slide film on my “old”
Canon EOS-1N. By the end of the race we’ve got about 500 digital
images and three rolls of film.
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| The PowerBook is small enough to be used on a lap
yet powerful enough to be used in place of a desktop computer. |
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My 12-year old son lucked out and got a fabulous sequence
of a car sliding out of control and almost falling 2000 feet over the
side of the mountain. I’m able to show several people the sequence.
A writer from AutoWeek magazine suggests I e-mail the pictures to his
editor for possible publication. Easy. Back in the hotel room I download
all the images to the PowerBook. In Photoshop I select the sequence, crop
and sharpen the images, and e-mail them to the editor. I also send them
to Autocar, one of the UK magazines I’m covering the event for.
A week later my son’s pictures are published in the UK and in the
US. Four days after the event I get my slide film processed. Thank goodness
my son’s shots were captured on a digital camera—there was
another photographer who captured the sequence but he shot it on film
and he told me there was no way he could deliver his images to the magazines
before me.
Autocar ended up also using seven of my film images and one digital image
in the main feature a week later. (Just as this article is going to press
I see the second of my Pikes Peak photo features in Cars and Car Conversions,
another UK magazine. They used 20 images of which only five were from
slides and I defy anyone to differentiate them from the digital images.)
Magazine art directors are becoming more and more comfortable with using
digital images but there are still some who insist on film. It’s
no longer a quality issue but one of familiarity and they will undoubtedly
change their views as they discover the advantages.
Finally, I’m back home. I plug the PowerBook into my office network
using the built-in Ethernet port, attach a USB mouse and hook it up to
an Apple Cinema 23 inch HD display. There’s now enough screen real
estate (1280 x 854 on the laptop and 1920 x 1200 on the LCD monitor) to
cover the equivalent of nearly three 17 inch displays. It makes editing
the thousands of images I’ve taken over the past four weeks much
more pleasant.
My big surprise is that the Cinema display produces better colors than
the 19-inch CRT monitor I have been using for the past year. Until now
I’ve not been able to recommend an LCD screen for critical color
work as the colors have been inconsistent and the viewing angle has always
been limited. Somehow, Apple has managed to overcome these shortcomings
with its Cinema Display.
If you do not already own a Macintosh desktop computer or if you need
to upgrade your current Mac system I would recommend getting a PowerBook
and using it as your primary computer—it’s what I plan to
do. A PowerBook will run all the software that works on the Mac OS system
including Microsoft Office for business functions, Filemaker Pro as a
user friendly database and of course all the imaging software needed to
meet one’s photographic needs. With a PowerBook one no longer has
to sacrifice functionality for portability.
John Rettie is a photojournalist who resides in Santa Barbara,
CA. Readers can contact him by e-mail at john@johnrettie.com or by snail-mail
c/o Rangefinder.
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