Category: Reviews

MacBook Air for the photographer?

Post author By David
Post date January 15, 2008

Apple’s announcement of the new tiny MacBook Air gives Mac users a new alternative if they’re looking for a subnotebook. But does it stack up for digital photography use?

Display – passable

The LED display is only 13″ but has a pretty good resolution: 1280 x 800 – slightly less than a 15″ MacBook Pro but the same as a regular MacBook. The video card is the same as the MacBook too, which means it shares some of the main memory.

Together, this means that on its own, it’s only OK for graphics intensive activities. The good news is that it can power an external monitor up to 1920 x 1200 pixels (an Apple 23-inch Cinema Display, for example).

Reviews Tips/Tutorials

Shutterfly for the win

Post author By David
Post date January 6, 2008

So my Shutterfly prints arrived today – the replacement for the very poor job Kodak did for me via the Aperture built-in printing service.

They’re really good. I switched off the VividPrints color-correction option when I ordered them, and they look very close to what I see while looking at the images on screen – which is kind of what you want, especially if you’ve been adjusting levels, exposure, white balance and stuff.

Here’s an example.

Reviews

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II – Prime Suspect

Post author By David
Post date December 24, 2007

It’s cheap, plastic and it wheezes. But it’s by far my favorite lens. My precious is the Canon 50mm f/1.8 II lens.

Eschewing such luxury developments as USM focusing or full-time manual (and don’t even think about image stabilization), this $70 lens – known variously as the ‘nifty fifty’. ‘thrifty fifty’ or ‘plastic fantastic’ – produces amazing results.

It’s in no way a pro-grade ‘L’ lens, but Canon have been working on this classic for decades – 50mm is seen as the standard focal length for 35mm film cameras – and it does one thing very well.