Reviews on gear and software

Dell XPS 9570 Part II

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Welcome to part II of my small overview of the Dell XPS 9570. (find part I here)
If you know my reviews you know I don’t like to give you a whole review about specs you can already read online and explain stuff you already know, we are all busy right, so I like to focus on the things that matter and be quick about it so you guys can continue your everyday work…. and that’s just what this is about.

 

The need for more speed… in perspective
I loved my MacBook Pro, in fact, I thought it was the best laptop ever… and it was.
But over time you start to wonder… is there more. I played a few times with the older Surface series from Microsoft and knew… “this is what I want” why carry a Wacom tablet with me if I can retouch on the laptop itself, it’s so much handier when travelling. But….. although I loved the Surface series I did encounter some problems at that time, including the fact that they didn’t make a 15.6″ one.

When Apple decided to seriously cripple their MacBook Pro and I ran into a problem which was solved by Apple but took my laptop away for a few days I knew it was time to change. Not having all my ports and a card reader really closed the door for me on Apple. I needed something else. Seeing that I already switched to a PC as a test in the studio and really didn’t find any “real” problems with the switch I decided it was time for a PC laptop and I decided that it needed to be 15.6″, touch screen, preferably with a digitizer, on-site service so I didn’t need to wait when something went wrong and of course ports and a card reader… enter my first Dell XPS 9560.

The machine performed like a champ. We travel a lot and I only needed onsite service twice, and both times they repaired everything in our studio on the spot so I could continue.

So why when the XPS 9560 was so good to switch to the XPS 9570?

The perspective of speed (here it comes)
In all honestly I love the fact if rendering goes a little bit faster, but I do have to say that the difference between rendering a video in 20 minutes or 15 minutes doesn’t really make me jump from joy and spend another 3 grand on a laptop, that would be the most expensive 5 minutes saved ever.

To be fair, if you just use your laptop for Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere, Capture One etc. at home or in the studio the XPS 9560 will do just fine, it’s a beast. However I’m always pushing time. A workshop day means up at 8:00 AM, to the studio to open the Vlog and do some work, teach the workshop, 16:00-16:30 do the final retouch and backups, go home to edit the vlog, upload the vlog and brush up my social media and emails and hopefully done by 21:00 for a movie with Annewiek.

These are the “normal” days.
When travelling, add to this home at 20:00, editing all images from that day, editing the vlog, uploading, doing all the other work etc. Hopefully in bed at 0:00 but most of the times it’s much later… but at 08:00 we want to go out again. Yeah…. well, I love my job but sometimes it’s a long day 🙂

So that 5 minutes faster rendering doesn’t really do it for me although it does help.
However the faster editing on the timeline, the faster previews in Lightroom/Capture one, the MUCH faster performance of exporting from Lightroom/Capture One, the MUCH faster preview rendering from apps like Alien Skin Exposure, and again the MUCH faster exporting back to Lightroom from these plugins/apps….. Sorry, I said MUCH so many times with capitals, but…. it’s really a lot faster than the i7 1050 XPS 9560.

Now again… when you work at home and have time I honestly couldn’t really care less.
The XPS 9560 handles my 60MP and 42MP files without a problem, it edits 4K video on the timeline without hiccups, but….. the i9 XPS 9570 adds to this that even when I speed up clips, add some tinting and edits the timeline feels a lot smoother, again it’s not that the XPS 9560 stutters but you sometimes have to press space to stop and start again after you leave an edited clip, also when using auto-duck the leveling and key-frame generation is a lot faster on the i9.

 

Real life experience
This Saturday it was time to do the first real edit in Premiere Pro on the XPS 9570 and it was a good experience, what I hoped for and a bit expected. The XPS 9570 is buttery smooth with 4K material from the Sony A7RII/D6500 and even when I correct the files (tint) and sped up certain scenes it just kept going through them on the timeline without any hesitation.

I also worked on some images in Lightroom and Capture One, and also there the speed difference is more than noticeable, I don’t want to say the machine flies… but it actually does. Now again… it’s cool that an export is like 5 minutes faster (15 minutes instead of 20), but… it’s the combination of everything added together that makes this a no-brainer upgrade when you’re like me always juggling with time. Add all those little speed increases together and I won’t say you save an hour a day… but it does all feel a lot faster and smoother.

For example.
I love to record videos with Camtasia, it’s just a simple screen recording. Exporting from Camtasia seems to have sped up with 50%, seeing that these videos are often done for my Patreon site, students, YT videos, clients etc. every minute I save on those exports is awesome and very welcome. So when you add the whole workflow together it’s very simple to see why I’m so over the moon with the new XPS 9570, it does make a dent in my workflow time, and for that it’s a solid highly recommended label in my book.

 

Is it perfect?
Well is anything perfect…. well no.
The XPS 9570 is pretty darn close to being the perfect laptop.
What I really miss is that digitizer part, add this to the new XPS and I’m more than willing to call it the perfect laptop, the lower placed webcam… well I’m tall anyway so people are used to looking up to me (I got this joke from someone else).

At home, I plug the machine into a USB-C adaptor which gives me network, more USB and one extra USB-C. Dell also has a cool dock which is better I think but I got this one for less than $100.00 and it works so far, but if it breaks down I think I’m going to try the Dell solution. One thing I HIGHLY recommend with the XPS series is this little miracle…..https://amzn.to/2lhXc2t it’s the power companion and is, in essence, an external battery specially designed for the Dell laptops.
It keeps the laptop running in the field for at least 60-65% longer and that often is just the difference between shutting down just before the end of a shoot or ending with 30-35% left on the battery.

Conclusion for now
I still have to work with the laptop more to really find out how it keeps performing but for now I’m very happy with the increase in speed, and as mentioned before, it’s really hard sometimes for people to judge speed increase. On almost all reviews you see comparisons with the same project and rendering speeds. And although that does tell you a lot, it doesn’t really tell you how much easier and more comfortable it is to work on a faster machine, those 5 minutes rendering time saved doesn’t really compare to the minutes saved everywhere in your workflow, and the sheer smoothness gained from the XPS 9560 to XPS 9570.

For creators that are always under time stress…. run out and get one. Also when you shoot a lot outside (the new screen jumped from 300 to 400 nits)
For people that just want to edit 4K video without problems, work on images in Lightroom/Photoshop/Capture One etc. I would highly recommend to check out the Dell laptops, the form factor and sheer performance is VERY hard to beat I think.

Now if the idea of a 2 in 1 really appeals to you… you might check out the XPS 9575 which is a truly remarkable machine. I didn’t have the pleasure to work with one, but it was high on my list, until I decided that for video the XPS 9570 would be better for me… IF I would not be editing video I think the 9575 would be my weapon of choice, it looks absolutely gorgeous.

Get the Dell XPS here, and also support our work.
For the XPS 9575 check this link
Get the Power Companion here

 

I’m not connected to Dell and paid full retail on the XPS 9570.

Dell XPS 9570 first impressions

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If I have to be honest, most of my work is done on my laptop.
Of course we have a blazingly fast machine in the studio, but most of the time I’m editing video or photos on my laptop, for the simple reason I have a station at home and although I love my studio I enjoy working from home just a bit more, plus when travelling I’m of course 100% depending on my laptop. So probably the most important machine for me as a workhorse is my laptop. So when a new CPU is launched I’m not immediately upgrading my desktop but as soon as a new laptop is released I’m on the look out if it’s a step up from my previous machine.

When I switched from Mac to PC, in all honesty there was only one machine that really caught my eye, the Dell XPS 9560.
I simply looked and felt the best compared to my MacBookPro. I sometimes even call it “what the macbook should have become”, a gorgeous 4K 100% Adobe RGB touch screen (shame it doesn’t include a digitizer), great keyboard, all the ports available and a heavy battery pack, plus a “cheap” external power solution and a great touchpad. But what makes it incredibly handy for me as a travelling photographer…. the 15.6 screen with very tiny bezels which makes this a 15.6″ laptop that will fit most bags without any problem where normally a 15.6″ would not, it’s really something that I love about the XPS series.

Add to this the on-site service, meaning you don’t have to bring it in, or send it somewhere and be without a laptop for 2-3 weeks. My MacBookPro suffered from “staingate” and although Apple replaced my screen for free, I did was without laptop for a week. Now if you’re just surfing the web or playing a game that doesn’t sound like long, but as mentioned before I almost life with my laptop so every day is one too many. I did need Dell twice and both times they arrived within 24 hours and within an hour I was up and running again.

Ok enough of the introduction.
The new XPS 9570 has arrived.

For your perspective
I ordered the i9 version with 32GB and 1TB SSD, 4K
I owned the top of the line i7 with 32GB and 1TB SSD, 4K

My XPS9560 was awesome, it’s very fast and editing 4K straight out of the Sony cameras worked like a charm on both Premiere as Davinci Resolve (although with Davinci resolve I did feel like I missed some performance). Premiere played back everything without any stutters on full res, and on 1/2 it showed all edits without any problem on full frame rate. Nothing to complain about. Also Capture One, Photoshop and Lightroom run like crazy, 60MP files are no problem.

So why upgrade to the i9 version?
Well I understand your question.
When travelling my workdays are pretty extreme, we wake up at around 8:00 and it’s hardly ever before 1:00-2:00AM that I’m in bed. Mostly because I try to edit all images and edit the vlog of that day before I go to bed. And this is a lot of work, plus it takes a hefty toll on the CPU and GPU so every single lit bit of speed increase I can get I welcome.

Some people complain about the new XPS 9570 not looking different from the old version… well thank you Dell. Now I can probably fit my old case and don’t have to buy a new one. The XPS series look awesome, I don’t see any need to change this, although I would love it if Dell would install a digitizer in the screen next time. In case you’re wondering what that is….. it makes it possible to use a wacom pen (or other) on the screen and pressure sensitivity.

So without wasting more of your time…here are the changes.

  1. The screen
    The new XPS 9570 has a slightly brighter screen. The XPS9560 had a nice output of 300 nits, the XPS9570 now clocks in at 400 nits. When shooting outside this can be just the difference, although I would love even more of course, we also have to be realistic with battery life vs brightness.
  2. USB-C/TB3
    The XPS 9570 now supports 4 lanes via TB3, which makes it ideal for using an external GPU, if needed
  3. GPU
    This is a big deal for most of the things I do, the XPS 9560 used a GTX1050, the XPS 9570 is outfitted with a “slightly underclocked” GTX 1050 Ti which is a much faster card.
  4. CPU
    Going from 4 cores to 6 cores can be a big deal IF the software supports it.

These are the changes that are most important for me, as a creator.
The nice thing is that Dell with the XPS really seems to think about people like me, the card reader is still there and is not a slow version but actually a very fast version of what you normally find in laptops. This means that if you have the cards that support the higher speeds, the Dell won’t disappoint you.

Of course the webcam is often up for debate, and yes…. it’s still in the bottom, creating a weird effect when talking to someone (up the nose) but in all honesty it doesn’t really bother me that much, I hardly use skype for business and my family… well they will have to get used to it, if you use skype a lot for interviews etc. I would advise to connect an external webcam.

Ok so is it faster, come on Frank….
Ok, ok.
here we go.

Yes. It’s a LOT faster.
Let’s take a look at some results.

First up Cinebench which I always use for testing.
XPS 9560—–CPU 603 / OpenGL 76.90
XPS 9570—–CPU 1177 / OpenGL 121.66

Next up is Haven, a benchmark that is really heavy on performance of GPU (and CPU) and is a good overview of how a system performance under heavy stress for video and rendering. I used the EXTREME setting.

XPS 9560—–Fps 30.5 / 769
6.9/71.8 (min/max)

XPS 9570—–fps 43.4 / 1094
7.9 / 99.5 (min/max)

As you can see the difference is pretty much clear, and I’m pretty surprised to be honest. Normally you will see some progress between laptops, but this is pretty extreme. Especially because there was some talk about Dell using a slightly underclocked GTX1050ti.

In Dell’s defence (and it shows here) I think they pretty much solved the “how to make a laptop run fast” puzzle. I remember seeing a comparision video between several laptops with higher specs than the XPS9560 but they were all beaten by the XPS9560 when rendering more complex video streams or scenes. The conclusion was (and it’s pretty obvious if you know a little bit about how a CPU and GPU works) that Dell has a much better control over the throttling of the CPU and GPU. This happens when a machine gets too hot and in essence it just clocks the speed down to let the machine cool down. This means that in theory you can put a GTX 1080 in a laptop but it will probably not outperform a lower card that has better cooling and runs cooler from it’s own. There are certain limitations you have to work with when you put components in a small housing like a laptop case. And it seems Dell really knows how to do this.

There are some discussions about giving the XPS9570 a slightly less voltage to run even faster and cooler but I haven’t (and am not going to) try this. It’s something that can make a machine unstable and I don’t want to shave off 1 minute working time with the risk of crashing premiere or photoshop 🙂

 

Conclusion
Dell has done it again.
I already loved the XPS 9560 (and still do, it’s a major laptop), but the XPS 9570 is much faster and now supports 4 lanes over TB3 and has a slightly brighter screen. If you’re a creator and demand the highest from your laptop… you really can’t go wrong, especially because Dell offers onsite service in case of emergency.

 

Problems
I did experience some weird behavior on the XPS 9570.
I normally always uninstall everything that doesn’t belong on a laptop and use the software Driver Easy to update all the drivers, often the drivers from a manufacturer are older, I did the same on the XPS 9570 and it resulted in a very slow working machine, I called it even a 286 at some point, I almost send it back because I thought it was defective. Even after a clean install it kept stuttering, showing the circle on the desktop etc. not unworkable but again it mimicked a 286 (ok maybe 486), only after downloading the chipset drivers from the Dell website and installing these instead of the newer from Intels site….. the machine sprang back to life in full speed mode…. I’ll be doing some testing on this later by manually installing driver by driver to see which one is the problematic one. But just beware when you are like me that in this case it’s better to keep the original drivers for now.

 

I paid full retail for my XPS 9570.
Dell doesn’t support me, and probably doesn’t even know me 🙂
I’m just a very enthusiastic Dell user (for laptops)

 

 

This is the link to the gaming XPS9570 https://amzn.to/2HV9FSE . I use the one with the I9 CPU

 

Challenge yourself and join me

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In photography (and life) you have to challenge yourself to progress, and we all want to progress right?

That’s why it’s important to always give yourself assignments, a while ago for example I asked you guys to use the hashtag #ruggedadventures to post images where you can see the very recognizable LaCie harddrives in cool or work situations, it’s always a challenge to find cool things to do with these shots (working on some myself as we speak), so please keep using that hashtag for that.

However next to photography concepts you can also think about something else.
Now it’s no secret I love Sony cameras, I think at the moment they have the best line up on the market period, and one of the things that I love about them is the EVF, or in other words the Electronic Viewfinder or in other words the “What You See Is What You Get” viewfinder (which you can also disable and make it act like a normal viewfinder for studio use for example, find the “setting efffect” in the menu).

Now using an EVF is cool for many reasons, but one in particular.
You can use the EVF to show information about your settings and see what you get, but you can also use an option called Zebras (for exposure) and Peaking (for focus), now that last one is important for what I’m going to do.

We are all used to autofocus lenses, you press the button and voila, peeep press and sharp (in most cases). But there are also a lot of cool lenses out there that are NOT autofocus, some modern lenses, but also a boatload of vintage lenses, and the cool thing about these lenses is that all look different, you could say that they have their own character. Now a days a good lens is a lens that doesn’t have any flare, that doesn’t give you a weird Bokeh (out of focus areas), no focus fall off around the corners, no weird colors, no fringing etc. etc. it has to be perfect…. and what do we do….. yep we use filters to Instagram the heck out of shot to make it look cool. Now in all honesty I’m not a big fan of using filters that way, but I do love to play with flare, some tinting and sometimes some focus effects. What I actually try to emulate is that old film look, I just love that.

Now comes the cool part.
Almost all older lenses you can fit on the Sony A series.
The reason for this is very simple.
A lens works on a certain distance to the sensor (flange distance), if that distance is equal to what the lens was designed for… well it can focus the way it was designed to do. If that distance is not 100% correct it will lose for example infinity focus or close distance or it will just not work at all. Now the cool thing about the Sony system is that the flange distance is incredibly short, meaning it’s possible to create a convertor for almost any lens you can imagine to use that body. And that opens up a lot of options.

Just do a search online for the term M42
This is a screw-mount lens that is HUGELY popular among vintage lens lovers (like myself), these lenses are readily available in numbers and for little to no money, in fact I’ve bought several on flea-markets for less than 5.00 each, and some are more expensive but in essence if you calculate between 10-50 for a lens you will have a great lens in the 50mm range, and if you add let’s say another 60-70 you will be able to get some really cool lenses, but as always the sky is the limit, some lenses go for well over 1000.00 so beware.

My personal favorite lenses are of course the M42 but also Leica R glass, somehow those Leica lenses are just amazing in color and look and feel, it feels like they make the image even more 3D than a modern lens, it’s something you have to see. Now first things first… don’t even think you come close in sharpness wide open to a Gmaster Sony lens, those lenses are wickedly sharp, also they are incredibly well build and have hardly no defects in the image, when you go the vintage route…. well…. expect a lot of defects, weird effects and slightly softer images wide open, although sometimes…… it can be amazingly sharp.

So why shoot with old lenses when you have the perfect lens?
First off it’s how it looks on the camera, on the street it will immediately set you apart from the guys/girls with a normal lens, this often opens up conversations and makes it much easier to shoot someone. I’ve had tremendous succes with a Yashica film camera for example, I had ZERO “no’s” when I asked to shoot someone with that camera. But next to looks on the camera there is more….

It has character/soul
All these vintage lenses have a certain look, the Russian models can be very very rough, the German models can be pin sharp with beautiful (or harsh) bokeh, some lenses have an insane amount of blades creating cool smooth buttery bokeh, some lenses have a defect and create swirly bokeh artifacts which can be incredibly cool, some lenses are literally afraid of the light and flare as soon as you aim them in the general direction of the light, etc. etc. In short… all these lenses look differently, and in all honesty somehow I just feel more like a photographer when I’m shooting with these lenses, yeah I know it sounds weird, but it’s true. I just LOVE the looks and how you have to work a bit harder and be a bit more aware of the limitations but most of all the strong points of those lenses.

You WILL be hooked
Now trust me on this one, you WILL be hooked.
Shooting vintage lenses is addictive as can be.
For me it’s always a bit of a wave, sometimes I shoot with it a lot and sometimes I just forget about them and shoot with the new lenses.

Why this new interest?
Good question
A few years ago I got into contact with Techart on a trade-show, they were the first to create a module that makes EVERY manual lens a fully functional auto focus lens, yes you heard that right, it will make that old M42 or Leica R lens a fully functioning AF lens. Now that full functional has to be taken with a grain of salt, but it is very impressive. Next to just using AF it will actually also support face tracking, continuous focus, single shot etc. Some people even claim that with a new firmware update Eye focus on the Sony works…. I don’t know that yet (it seems impossible, because not even every Sony lens supports that, but hey who knows).

Ok. so why that new interest.
As explained before I just LOVE that look of the old lenses, but sometimes I just don’t feel like always manually focus and just want to shoot fast, well at least faster than manual focus. Over the last 2 years I’ve tried to get in contact with Techart a few times and with no success, which is a shame because I would have loved to test this convertor out. With the release of the new Sony A7RIII my interest was peaked once before, the new A7RIII has an insane new focus system that is reportedly doing wonders for people with Canon AF lenses, if you have to believe some people, some Canon lenses perform faster in difficult light situations on the Sony than on the native cameras, now that’s interesting.

Now when the AF is that good, and it’s based on the mirror-less concept it really triggered me to try to get that Techart module again. Thanks to CameraLand in the Netherland I now have a review sample and next week I’ll begin testing the AF capabilities of this unit. The unit itself is not cheap, and if you don’t look online it seems way to expensive to get the convertor for Leica R and M42. Leica makes a convertor to mount Leica R on M (the Techart is a M mount) but these retail for up to 320.00 euros which added to the Techart makes it too expensive for what most people will do with it. However when you surf a little bit and google on “Leica R on M” and “M42 on Leica M” you will quickly find good quality converters for around 20 euros, in fact I ordered 2 for 37.50 including shipping. Now we are talking 😀

Ok the Techart is still expensive, but in all honesty it’s worth every single penny, because now you can use all those amazing old lenses on your new camera. And that’s what this project for me is all about.

 

The project
The coming months I’ll be shooting several M42 and Leica R lenses on my Sony A7RIII, with AF and Manual focus. I will label these as #VintageLensOnNew on my social media, and I ask you to do the same. Write a small piece about your favorite lens and make some images and share it on social media, but most of all send them also to me…. I will select the coolest shots and best stories and post them on my blog with links to your work. Also in our vlogs and digital classroom episodes I’ll be giving attention to this project.

We all need lenses to shoot, and lenses contribute to a large amount of the budget.
By using an AF convertor and some simple converters you have a tremendous amount of choices for lenses. Now don’t expect to be shooting the Olympics with these lenses, but from what I’ve seen now the Techart is fast enough to keep up with model-photography (easily), street and travel photography and I even saw someone doing some sports with it. So next to this project this could be the coolest way you can imagine to build a huge arsenal of very unique looking lenses that will not only trigger your creativity but most of all save you a boatload of money. (hey I’m Dutch).

So join me for this #VintageLensOnNew project and start hunting down those treasures.
Because that’s an added bonus to this project…  it will also motivate you to go out to hunt for these lenses, and that….. will give you great shooting opportunities because often these flea-markets are filled with cool characters and colorful or vintage stuff. So this project is not only fun it will also be good for your health (making those extra miles on those markets).

Joining the project is cool of course, but also please spread this blogpost to other people you know that are into photography.
Even if it’s not the love for vintage, it could actually save them a lot of money in lenses, because as mentioned before most of these lenses might be good and ok, some are real gems and rival modern lenses in sharpness and looks, just for a fraction of the price. let’s make #VintageLensOnNew rock. And don’t forget to send me those stories and images and your favorite lens.

 

LaCie DJI Co-pilot thoughts and tips

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Some products are released and you wonder…. “why that name?”
Or you just ignore the product for the simple reason that you think it’s not for you.
Well it’s no secret I’m a huge fanboy of the LaCie products, and we also work together with LaCie on some things, but still I hope you understand that this article is 100% my own thoughts, not paid for by LaCie, and certainly is not colored in anyway by the fact we work with them. In fact the ONLY reason I work with companies is because I just love their products, in my opinion that’s way more important than anything else, because that way you guys will give me your trust, and I would never do anything to break that…. well that being said let’s start.

The DJI Co Pilot
The minute I heard the name I was not immediately interested and I can imagine that many of you also have the same thoughts that I have…”It’s for a drone, and specific a DJI drone” right?….. well I understand that 100%, but I couldn’t be more wrong.

Let’s start with a little bit of a backstory.
Annewiek and I ran a computer store for many many years (actually over 2 decades) and in that time one of the things we learned was to make sure you have backups, and people knowing me know this is without a doubt something I always stress. We store not only images but actually frozen moments in time that will never ever come back, if something happens to them I would be devastated. Now in the studio or at home it’s easy. Just add a DAS (Direct Attached Storage) and a NAS (Networked Attached Storage) and if you want to be sure always backup this weeks work on a separate harddrive and take that home or to a friend or parent. But how do we do this on the road?

Well in my case I always travel with 2 rugged drives and backup every night (automated process) on these two drives, I’ve set them up like a sort of “mirror” with software. Now when we travel, one drive goes in the suitcase and one drive comes with me or Annewiek. And when we leave the room or hotel one drive is in our car or in our bag so when something happens in the hotel/house we have our images and video…. call me crazy but trust me in over 2 decades of running a pc store I’ve learned from other peoples mistakes.

So in short we always carry around a drive.
Now let’s go back in time.

There was a time when cards could be filled up during a day, in fact there were days where I easily would fill up 2-3 cards by just visiting the zoo, at that time cameras were not really build for RAW and cards were certainly not ready for RAW…. oh sorry let me rephrase… cards were not prepared for my addiction to shoot a lot of images (that sounds better and closer to the truth I guess) anyway… we needed more room.

Enter the Image Tank
Oh my, did I love these, I was literally in love with them, I think that over the years I have owned at least 3 different image tanks before ending up with one that had it all (expect battery life that was), replaceble harddrives so I could grow the system, extra batteries (very much needed) a “crappy” display that actually was so bad you could only see that it was done, and…. well it was relatively small…. oh man who am I kidding, the bloody thing was huge and heavy. But… it always traveled with me.

Ok we are now many years ahead in the future and we (in all honesty) don’t really need an image tank anymore. Cards are up to 256GB and if you have deep pockets you get much higher capacity. But there is also more, where in the old days I shot with one camera I’m now shooting with my A7RIII from Sony for stills, I have a Sony A6500 for the vlog, we drag a small Zoom recorder with us for recording interviews if needed and I have a drone (Mavic pro with me), plus we of course have our dashcam. I have to say…. this is in a worst case scenario, but it does happen that we bring all of this. (oh and add my phone to this). Long story short… we shoot a lot of material.

Again, we don’t really run into problems with cards, even when roaming the streets of New York I hardly shoot more than 64GB (my max card size) and when I do, well… I always have a second one with me, and I also never fill a 32GB card with video for the vlog, unless I’m doing time lapses, but hey… we have another 32GB for video with us. Yes I use 32GB for video and 64GB for photography, I always shoot very short videos for the vlog so I normally manage well within that capacity.

“Hey Frank, wait a minute this review thingy is going the wrong way dude…. ”
Yes I know, don’t worry.

The state of mind of the photographer
When I walk around in New York or any other city (I just always take NY as an example because I never shoot more images than in that city… it’s CRAZY) I might not fill up my cards but there is much more to worry about.

  1. My camera could get stolen, actually I did lose a 5DMKII at Photokina a few years ago during a demo I gave for Elinchrom, we actually have video footage that shows the camera in a rack under my laptop, and in the next scene it’s gone. Because I was rushed I didn’t backup the previous day, so I did not only loose the camera but also all the images, including some private shots of us and friends in the city which I still feel sad about.
  2. I could forget my camera somewhere, yes it did happen to me once, luckily it was still there.
  3. A card can crash. I always try to steer away from cheap cards but it happened to me a few times that a card just went from working great to refusing to read in any device I tried it. Sandisk btw had great service and replaced the card without any problem, but I still lost half a day of shots.
  4. When switching cards I can make a mistake…. did I really format that card that was full… or was that an empty one…. oops
  5. You can loose a card very very easily. I’m incredibly lucky, over all these years we lost app 4 cards, which in my book is still 4 too many. Luckily however never during a trip or with material on it, finding some wood now to know on…… one moment……… ok I’m ready to continue (don’t push your luck with this).
  6. Many more things can happen……

So where does the LaCie DJI Co-Pilot come in?

It’s so much more
The LaCie DJI Co-Pilot could be labeled as a hyper modern image tank. It’s not able to just work together with DJI products but it will actually do a lot more, in fact…. I think that it will be used by more people that don’t even own a drone than it will be by people that DO own a drone, as long as they realize the importance of a device like this.

So let’s take a look at some of the things it can do
First up the design.
You know I love the rugged drives, and it’s not just because they are orange (Hey I’m Dutch), but it’s the way that the drives are protected and don’t slide around in your bag or on a table.

Ok.
Looks nice right?
Even if it’s not orange…. LaCie maybe a Frank Co-Pilot in Orange one day 🙂 ?

It’s not that big, although it’s by no means small, (137.2 x 111.8 x 35.6 mm) but it’s a very good design to just drop somewhere in a bag and don’t worry about it anymore.

But design is not everything (is Apple listening :-), ok that was harsh).
So let’s see what this baby can do.

Copy files from an SD card to the Harddrive.
Connect your camera directly to the device to download files to the Harddrive (wonder if that also works with my Phone, but I see no reason why not)
Talking about phones… it can also charge your phone via the internal battery
And the internal battery can be charged by the included wall charger… but also via the USB-c connector (I don’t know the time difference)
View the images and video via the Android or iOS app
Via the display on the drive itself you can monitor the progress of copying

Now this all breaks or succeeds by the app that is used.
And what I’ve seen so far I’m very excited about it. I don’t expect it to show my RAW sony files full resolution on my Phone, as long as I know they are there it’s more than enough for me, and the app does that flawlessly as far as I’ve seen so far (do remember I don’t have a review unit yet), with video it’s able to playback even 4K video and to be honest this is a very handy thing for me because I can than quickly check if all the video is well recorded and I can record it again if necessary. Of course you can do this also on the camera but I find it much easier via an app.

Ok so why am I so looking forward to this product
As mentioned before we shoot a lot, and I’m always afraid of losing my data, with the LaCie DJI Co-Pilot I can now make (incremental) backups whenever I take a rest stop somewhere, let’s say we’re walking in NY and we want a coffee, let’s just backup the card and leave with shop with the feeling that all my files are save, want to watch some video from what we shot, start the app and watch. Want to charge my phone on the road… no problem… just charge.

And the cool thing…. as soon as we are back in the hotel just connect it to my laptop via the fast USB-C connection and….. well it acts like an external harddrive and I can make a mirror copy of all the files on the rugged drive and have my mirror set in tact. For me the LaCie DJI co-pilot will literally mean that one of my Rugged drives will be replaced with this one, and from carrying around “dead weight” just to be sure that we have our images with us, we now actually can make use of that drive that we carry around.

Now what if you’re not obsessed by dataloss
Well let me first say that you absolutely should, but what about people that shoot less images, or even jpgs etc.? Well also for this group there is a huge benefit… you don’t have to bring your laptop anymore, well ok it doesn’t mail, or play games but loads of people just drag their laptops with them on a trip just to backup their images. For a fact I do all my social media and mails on my phone, and use the dictate function a lot, this has transformed my phone actually to the task that was first done with my laptop. So I can imagine that the LaCie DJI Co-Pilot makes it possible for a lot of people to just leave their laptop at home and bring only this on a trip and travel REALLY light.

Conclusion
There are many products I love, but not so often are products released that got me excited. I can’t wait to test out the Co-Pilot. I think for ANY travelling photographer, being a smartphone or DSLR shooter and even when you’re out in the field and just want to make sure your files are backuped up the Lacie DJI Co-Pilot will be an amazing new tool for this. A real review will follow soon I hope.

OH…. and I forgot one very important thing.
The LaCie DJI Co-Pilot OF COURSE is covered by the amazing data recovery program from Seagate.
Need more convincing to buy one…….. ?