• Twice as fast, with no image-quality degradation.

• Ability to process images twice as big.

• Debanding Tab – Banding noise is eliminated with our new dual-directional Debanding Technology.

• Correct Black Level slider in the Noise Reduction Menu – This parameter helps reduce any haze or color cast left behind

after noise reduction, revealing the true richness in the darkest areas of an image.

Improvements in the DeNoise 5 release include:

Double the speed

Double the Image – process larger images

Debanding Tab – Banding noise is eliminated with new dual-directional Debanding feature

Correct Black Levels slider in the Noise Reduction Tab – Helps reduce haze (caused by noise) and reveal the true richness in the darkest parts of an image.

Here’s a few example images they sent us, but we’ve also got our own copy we’re giving a good once over right now check back soon for more details.

Change Log

Firmware Version 1.0.8 incorporates the following fixes.

1. Fixes a phenomenon in which the set aperture moves unexpectedly when shooting movies in manual exposure mode using some Canon lenses (such as macro lenses).
2. Corrects misspellings in the French and Spanish menus for applicable products.

Links to Canon’s Website with Firmware Updates.

Canon EOS-1D Mk IV Firmware 1.0.8 Update

Canon Rebel Ti2/550D Firmware 1.0.8 Update

This system features the new 6 core AMD processor which performance wise is just as powerful as it’s Intel friend with a lower pricetag.

Operating System

Windows 7 Prfessional is the simple pick. Professional editiion ensures that everything from programs to network options are all available to you should you need them.

Price: $134.99

System Parts

Motherboard (aka Mainboard)

ASUS M4A89GTD PRO – includes up to 12 USB ports, on board video card (not used in this build). Holds up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM all while providing support for AMD’s latest processors. To top it all off Asus includes a 3 year warranty.

Price: $139.99

Processor (aka CPU)

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8GhZ -

Yep that’s right this is a “6 core” processor so it’s like have 6 little computers all connected.

Now rather than getting into the geek nitty gritty details lets just say that performance wise this is equal to it’s sister from Intel but cheaper so we figure this is a good buy.

Price: $199.99

DDR3 RAM

Mushkin Enhanced Ridgeback 4GB – Performance RAM that will meet and exceed your needs is one of the key components to a professional image processing system. 4GB will give you a good base and leave you pleanty of room should you want to add even more.

Price: $159.99

Video Card

ATI 100-505559 FirePro V3750 256MB -

While the motherboard comes equipped with a built-in video card an upgraded video card will ensure that your system can fully handle everything within Photoshop as well as give you dual monitors if you wish.

Price: $134.99

Main Hard Drive

150 GB Western Digital VelociRaptor Hard Drive-

Speed, if you’re just opening your email or copying a file. These drives will save you time by increasing your computers productivity quickly and easily with it’s 10,000 revolutions per minute drive as well as it’s 16mb cache.

Price: $129.99

Secondary Hard Drive(s)

(4) 500GB SAMSUNG

Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ-

Samsung Spinpoint drives are faster than just about any standard7200RPM platter hard drive out there we have found. For this build we’ve selected to remove the separate scratch disk and replace it with a RAID 5 array of four 500GB Samsung Spinpoint F3 Drives.

Price: $54.99 (each)

Power Supply

550 Watt CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX

Corsair has created a great power supply that keeps garnering praise again and again.

550 watts gives your system enough power for all your devices as well as some head room for additional drives.

Price: $79.99

DVD/CD Burner

24x LG CD/DVD Burner GH24NS50

Most any DVD/CD burner around $25 – 30 will be fairly decent for you. We’ve selected the LG brand specifically from personal experience with the product and have found it to be one of the better models on the market.

Price: $24.99

Computer Case

COOLER MASTER RC-692-KKN3-

A case with great airflow, multiple external connectins, fully painted inside and outside and space inside for all the important stuff, all under $100 makes this case a great value.

Price: $79.99

Grand Total 1,164.88 (+tax & shipping)

Want to sacrafice a little speed to save a little cash? Trade the 4 secondary drives for a single Tera byte (or smaller) drive

]]> http://photographyconnect.com/2010/06/photography-computer-specs-2010-2nd-quarter/feed 1 http://photographyconnect.com/2010/06/were-back http://photographyconnect.com/2010/06/were-back#comments Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:05:43 +0000 Zack Davis http://photographyconnect.com/?p=699 After some server issues we’ve finally got the site back up and running. Look forward to more posts, more announcements and just plain more in the coming weeks!

Since we’ve been gone we’ve added another geek to our ranks, Nick Adamczak. Nick brings more computer experience to the fold and after working toward a degree in the IT world has now begun a degree in Journalism and Photography.

We’re working to create a synergy between Photography and Computing into that we call Computography, in the near future we hope to bring you more information that matters to you the photographers as well as products, tools, information and equipment that help you to do what you do.

I’m one of those people, I walk around in my daily life and I see, hear or say something for one reason or another I need to remember. I had this bad habit though of not making or keeping notes, while a few of my friends had the habit of making a note about everything only to lose it because there were just to many. Then I discovered that Evernote had created an app for Android and I’ve heard good things so I gave it a shot.

Evernote is a great app you run on your iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, or Android powered phone. While you’re out and about you can use the app to record a note in text, photo or even voice. Evernote then uses your wireless carriers data connection to upload the note to Evernotes secure website for you to access, read, and edit later. You can organize your notes into categories, use tags (much like you do with meta data) and search your notes. Even better is if you don’t organize it, Evernote will automatically!

Now you might be thinking that because it’s an app on a cellphone it can’t be as feature rich as it’s computer companion but the crazy thing is, that the app has all the abilities the computer does. Now it’s not a scaled back version but one thing the app does lack is the ability to screenshot your phone, a feature which some Smartphone Operating Systems haven’added this ability yet is probably part of the reason (Google, Android… we’re looking at you).

I have to say that after using it for a while now and I’m loving it. I can be out and about and if I run across something I really need to remember I can. One thing that I love is the cost, does free sound good? Evernote is completely free though you are limited to uploading 40MB of data per month, you also can only upload images, audio, text and PDF files. If you find it useful and want to add more features, space and have more of your files tracked by Evernote you can upgrade to a subscription for $45 a year. Included with your subscription is the ablility to upload 500Mb’s per month the ability to upload ANY file including Microsoft Office files as well as better tracking on your PDF files.

For me, I’m happy with the free account and I’ve been keeping more notes than ever. I can be in class and snap a shot of the board to remember homework as well as capture or record anything that inspires me while I’m going through my day. Friends I’ve recommended the app to have completely ditched notes on little scraps of paper and we’ve all kept more of our good idea’s we’ve had throughout the day.

To me this is just a perfect way to create and keep notes (especially as a computer geek) and while this app probably won’t make you a genius at organizing and your office will probably still have stacks of papers that only you know what’s in them, Evernote is an awesome tool that everyone can use.

We can only imagine what leap forward the next version of Photoshop will make for us, but based on the previous twenty years it’s easy to imagine another twenty years of groundbreaking innovation has already begun.

Waterproofing has been increased as well to 30 feet deep for 30 days. Meaning you could “accidentally” drop this thing in the fish tank forget you left it there for, leave on vacation for two weeks, come home and your data and images will still be safe.

ioSafe is taking pre-orders and shipping on March 13th! Prices start at $499 for a 64GB drive and up to $1249 for a 256GB drive, sure it sounds expensive but if you have some family treasures, business documents, or any other data you want to be absolutely sure is protected as possible this drive could serve your purpose. We only see you getting a bigger and bigger bang for your buck as the cost of SSD drives drop and ioSafe ramps up production.

We’ve been in contact with ioSafe about getting a hands on later this month, so stay tuned. For now visit ioSafe at their website for all the details and visit the BBC’s website to see the drive’s safety be burned, drowned, dropped and crushed at CES 2010.

More images:

[View with PicLens]

As far as expectations versus reality for many people, reading discussions and the few reviews of those who got a hands on there are definitely cheerleaders for the device out there. We ourselves definitely applaud Apple for being first to market with the latest push in the computing market to get consumers hooked on tablet computing. The price is about on par with what you would expect from an Apple product running between $499 for a crippled 16Gb WiFi only version all the way up to $829 for a 64GB WiFi + 3G version. Operating System wise, it’s running the iPhone 3.2 Operating system. Sprinkle in Apples stated battery life of 10 hours, proprietary processor running at 1Ghz and a mid-range 720p HD  touchscreen display and it all sounds kind of cool.

The question now is will this device actually live up to the hype that’s been building on it for the last year? Given some of the feed back on everything from Twitter to Facebook and even just fellow geeks and nerds we’re finding that for now the device has what we’d call a lukewarm welcome. Apple has designed this product around their iPhone OS, this makes the iPad able to run anything you’re going to find on iTunes including all the apps for iPhone. The problem is that means it’s also lacking where the iPhones themselves are lacking and even worse gives the tablet no more use than an iPhone except a bigger screen and lack of actually being able to put the thing to your ear and make a phone call. Now we’re not calling the iPad a failure in that it’s completely useless but since it’s lacking a laundry list of features that were expected and in many ways are becoming kind of standard on computing devices Apple took their next iPod and turned it into what can best be described as an Apple TV.

So why bash the iPad?

There’s a reason for this big let down too, and one we find valid. When you think Apple Computers, you think of a case design everyone loves and innovation. We expect both of these from Apple because their design and innovation is the reason why we buy their products. Without the iPod music would have remained difficult to purchase digitally (via iTunes) and the iPhone created a revolution in cell phones and even caused companies like Motorola to step back (for years) and look at the Apple design in an attempt to create phones that could rival it. Because of the iPhone the cost of touchscreen phones and data plans for cellphones dropped like a rock in a few short years. Sure there’s other market factors for this happening and there’s a chance if Apple didn’t someone else could have but it’s undeniable that when you purchase an Apple product it’s because it’s a hyped device and you expect it to do what it’s hyped to do.

Because it simply lacks innovation, it has a screen that only has 720p HD rather than a full 1080p HD. It has a proprietary processor that if properly “spec’ed” by Apple is for all intents and purposes under powered compared to even $249 PC netbook rivals. Toss in the issue that you cannot multi-task on this “netbook” and you have a real problem, because many people like to listen to music while they compute or check their email while writing a paper. To make matters more complicated Apple still has not partnered with Adobe Flash to bring a Flash player to the iPad, that’s all well and good unless your website is in Flash or you want to watch YouTube, Hulu, or just about 80% of any of the interactive content on the internet. Many people even found the lack of a simple camera for either quick snaps while reading an ebook in the park while the kids play or the ability to web conference just disappointing.

So it’s not innovative and its base price is hovering dangerously close to what most high-end Windows based netbooks cost… so what is the average photographer supposed to do? Well the answer to us is simple, based on Apple’s past history with new devices one of two things will happen with the iPad. This first generation tablet was designed to appeal specifically to the mac addicted die hards that wanted a Mac Netbook without having to create a Hackintosh out of a Windows based netbook. Though possible we think the second most likely scenario is that this is a first generation device and right about at the spot where Apple knows they’ll sell enough to get the market a little saturated. They’ll release the device now and next year they will announce a second generation iPad with a new and improved flavor and people will again jump for joy that a few of their expectations for first generation were finally answered in the second generation. They got away with this tactic when it came to the iPod and iPhone so it wouldn’t be shocking to see it repeat again.

So, to buy or not to buy?… If you’re a die hard fan you’re already camped out in front of the nearest Apple store. If you’re not and you think it’s cool but can wait, definitely wait. There’s PC versions being released in the 3rd and 4th Quarter of this year and you can be sure that it won’t take Apple long to release an updated version of their hardware soon enough.

What Is RAID? (A Quick Lesson) -

RAID is basically a set of two or more hard disk drives that are essentially “synced” together. By syncing the drives in what is called a “RAID Array” the drives then will copy your data to multiple drives. For more on RAID check out this lengthy wikipedia post.

Why Is RAID NOT A Backup Solution?

Many people, not just photographers think that RAID is an instant backup. It’s understandable given that RAID will essentially copy the same file to a second, third, fourth, fifth, twentieth hard drive without you having to do anything. On top of that it speeds up your computer because instead of opening the file from one of those hard drives it will use all of them. By doing this you open gigabytes of files in seconds and “feel” like you have backups of all of them.

RAID has a fatal flaw though if any one of those drives has a problem, writes the file incorrectly, a virus infects them or the hard drive itself stops working the entire RAID system is gone. Aside from all of these flaws we have one last flaw that is present in every computer, cell phone, car, and other consumer electronic on the planet, human error. All of these are reasons why RAID is not a backup solution and why if you are using RAID currently for backup you may want to reconsider.

If It’s Not For Backup What Is RAID For?

RAID is awesome for a few things, the main thing that we in the photography community enjoy it most for is speed! Remember just a minute ago when we said RAID will increase your speed by reading the same file on each of the hard drives? Ok, stick with us because this is what photographers need to use RAID for and why you’ll enjoy it. Lets pretend you have a NAS (Network Attached Storage Device) and it has 4 hard drive inside of it that total 4 Terabytes of drives. Each drive has a maximum speed that it can read and write, we’ll say it’s 100mbps (graphic left).

Because each drive can only read and or write at 100 megabytes per second opening a large file will take a long time. The hard drive has to spin the discs inside of it, the head reader has to scan the disks and find your files and then it all has to be sent to your processor so it can be run and displayed on your screen.

This is where RAID comes in,  it basically adds some rocket fuel to your computer. So lets pretend we just added RAID to this same setup, and because we’re going to keep this simple and not discuss all the different types of raid and use a simple example. like the one to the right.

We’ve enabled the RAID setup on the computer and now our 4 drives disappear and the computer sees all 4 drives as 1 hard drive. It’s also using half of our drives to “mirror” the data, so what this means is instead of having 4 Terabytes of storage we have 2 terabytes of storage and 2 terabytes of mirrors.

So you lose half of your storage but you gain speed, so now one file is copied over to multiple drives and now when you open a file it opens much faster than it would have before because it’s going to open the file using all the drives. This would give us a theoretical speed of 400 megabytes per second when opening a file instead of 100 megabytes per second giving use a 400% speed increase. The other neat thing about RAID is that if you’re using the right types you gain more speed with each additional set of drives you add to the array.

So If We Don’t Use RAID For Backup What do We Use For Backup?

Well, if you think of things like NAS, Drobo’s, and such as external hard drives (just with more risk) than you can work from there to create a backup solution that works for you. Though what we would recommend is that you keep your RAID devices as your “working” drives and use separate drives, online storage, DVD’s and servers for your backups. This will keep your data safe but still with a high speed access while you’re working on it. We’ll be covering more about data backup solutions in the coming days and weeks so stay tuned.

Still confused or have questions? Leave a comment below.