I think most of us will agree on this. If you want proper colors and happy customers (depending on the assignment of course) it’s very smart to calibrate your monitor at least once a month, but preferably before every important retouching job. But what are the important settings during calibration?
Calibrating your monitor is super easy.
I’ve been using Calibrite (X-rite) products for years. They are easy to use and compatible with the hardware calibration options inside my BenQ monitor. This is a big plus because although the software from Calibrite is great, hardware solutions are always better, of course. Most professional and semi-professional monitors support hardware calibration.
By the way, if you are in the market for a new monitor and you live in the EU drop me an email, I have a few 10% discount codes from BenQ They have been supporting my work with Digital Classroom for years and love to give you guys a nice discount.
Anyway back to the story.
Even with easy software, it’s sometimes easy to get an error that… well you can’t fix.
You checked everything, and although you know your brand new monitor should really be perfect, it’s far from.
Or maybe you don’t know how to read the rapports and just wonder why there is so much fuzz about professional monitors.
Step 1
This one is for all systems.
When you are using the HDMI connection make sure your monitor is set for 0-255 or FULL RGB.
If it’s set up for 16-235 (video) you will get all kinds of weird behaviors, very noticeable in the dark and bright areas, but in essence, your whole image looks way off.
When you are using USBc, TB, or Display port you don’t have to check this.
Those connections automatically select the right output.
So is HDMI bad… absolutely not, it’s just as perfect for what we do as USBc and Displayport, you just have to check that one setting.
Step 2
And that’s the nasty one.
In the Mac, there is one setting that will almost certainly have you scratching your head and probably a little bit in panic mode.
If whatever you do, you can’t pass the final certification from your calibration and the errors are constantly changing per calibration, there is probably one setting you forgot the turn off. You can find it under “Displays” in Mac OS.
This one will give you A LOT of issues when you want a stable and trusted display.
So turn it OFF.
This goes for all settings with labels like “auto”, “Enhancement”, “Super”, “Real”, “natural” etc.
Just turn everything off and run the calibration software.
You will see that you will pass the certification without any problems now 😀
Don’t forget this important setting during calibration!
If you have any questions, feel free to leave them below, or reach out via our social media.
https://frankdoorhof.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Untitled.png20482048Frank Doorhofhttps://frankdoorhof.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/studioFD_Logo-1FV.pngFrank Doorhof2024-09-21 18:00:542024-09-19 13:36:18That setting that drives you nuts during the calibration process on Mac (and windows)
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.
I’m not connected to Dell and paid full retail on the XPS 9570.
https://frankdoorhof.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/chrome_2018-04-03_06-11-14.png6401259Frank Doorhofhttps://frankdoorhof.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/studioFD_Logo-1FV.pngFrank Doorhof2018-06-18 18:18:212018-06-18 18:52:43Dell XPS 9570 Part II
Seeing the amount of responses we get on our iPad pro overviews I thought it would be nice to dedicate todays blogpost to the iPad pro in my way. So don’t expect to see a list of accessories, specs etc. you can find in many locations online (calling it reviews) but expect a real honest, in the field way of review where I tell you what I PERSONALLY think about the iPad pro, it’s bad and good things.
Let me start off by telling you I’m not an Apple fanboy, somehow I always feel the need to post this because (and I don’t know why) there is a certain group of people that will always try to bash Apple products on price or limitations they feel are important, so let’s start with those points.
Price
As far as I know most photographers and videographers are not sponsored by Apple, meaning we all pay full price for the products (if not please let me know, I would love to save money). So let’s look at pricing. Yes Apple is not cheap, but in all honesty in most cases I always get great resale value and the speed in which I sell my old gear is always impressive, although I have to say that selling my iPhone 6 plus took almost a week (compared to the 2 days of my other iPhones was a shock and almost had me worried). On the other hand what you get is pretty impressive, the products are beautifully designed and let’s be honest the OS is just very good, iOS is 100% touch and works like a charm and OSx is stable and also works pretty well (although the last few years first releases can be buggy in some departments).
The iPad pro is expensive without a doubt, but not that much more than a fully spec’d iPad Air2 with WiFi/LTD and 128GB and do remember it’s not just a bigger iPad…..
It’s just a bigger iPad
Well if you see it like this, than the iPad pro is without a doubt not for you, actually you should stay clear from it. The iPad air for surfing, mail, games, entertainment etc. has the perfect size, both Annewiek and me have travelled with iPads for years and they literally changed long flights from boring as hell to manageable and entertaining.
A lot of reviews state the obvious, “Candycrush will look great”, “Email is even better” yeah sure…. why do you need a bigger tablet if you only do that? I don’t see the profit in that, the iPad pro is bigger to carry around, it doesn’t fit most bags where the iPads fit in nice and snuggly, it will fit in the airplane seat nets, but not as easy as the Air, let’s be clear… the iPad air is the perfect travel companion and nobody would ever NEED anything more.
So we have the consumers that want to shine and show off with Candy crush and bigger E-mail and sacrifice in portability for this, and we have that other group, and that’s the group I belong to.
It’s an iPad pro
As a photographer and instructor I’m always busy, heck I’m happy if I have a day off to be honest, most people know me to be online a lot (answering your questions, posting updates etc) and most of this I do with my iPhone 6s Plus, love the bigger screen and better camera and I always use the iPhone actually instead of my iPad Air2 because it’s just easier, faster and smaller and it fits my pocket. Plus a lot of social media apps run on my iPhone and not on my iPad plus when I shoot an image and edit it in Snapseed or Lr mobile etc. it’s easier to upload and edit is straight from my phone than first “beam” it to my iPad to edit, “beam” back to send, it just doesn’t make any sense. In fact one could say that I use my iPad air2 for remote controlling our Home Theater with iRule, watching movies while traveling, watching TV via a dream box in the RV and do some other stuff when I don’t want to drag my laptop with me but will be surfing for a longer time. In fact I never ever typed a document on it. So when the iPad pro was released I was not willing to spend money on it, but things change.
When we shoot in the studio or on location with models I have a certain workflow that is almost routine, RAW developing in Capture One, open in Photoshop do the skin and tinting, save, sync into Lightroom (where my images life). But on the road my workflow is dramatically different. We shoot during the day and at night I download everything into Lightroom, do the edits in Lightroom or DxO optics and do my tinting in Lr or DxO and… well done.
So I’ve been experimenting a lot with Lr mobile and was very happy with the workflow because it saves me a lot of work when I arrive back home, now all my images are done, but most of all I like the fact I could now do it in bed (hotel desks are often not really comfy) or on the plane or while Annewiek is driving the RV, but on the iPad air2 Lr mobile already works pretty well, so no real reason to switch to the iPad pro.
We also film a lot during travels, Annewiek shoots 4K material and that is edited in FCPx on her laptop and I shoot some material on my iPhone which…. well is never edited, although the material is sometimes rather interesting, funny or just cool but when we arrive home I just don’t have the energy or need to go through this material and editing on the iPhone is ok but not a pleasant experience, on the iPad air2 it works a lot better but somehow I never really took the effort to do it. So where am I going with this….because as it looks now I never really used my iPad for serious work.
The Apple pencil
When I saw the iPad pro my first response was (as many of you) a bigger iPad but without MacOsX, that’s a shame….
BUT when I saw the Apple pencil my mind went into overdrive… this is it.
But it took some time before I was convinced, actually to be honest it took me till a few days ago before I knew 100% sure I was going to buy the iPad pro, so what changed my opinion.
Why don’t I use video editing on my iPad air?
Well it works fine, but the screen is a bit small and crowded, plus the whole finger thing to change clips… well it’s not very pleasant and fast, so enter the Apple pencil with 1 pixel resolution… that would be a lot better. For a while I used a Microsoft Surface pro and I was very impressed at how easy a well designed stylus (sorry pencil) worked in certain software, the reason I don’t use the Surface pro anymore was purely that we experienced some serious issues with shooting tethered during trade shows, USB ports were failing on me and sometimes a reboot helped sometimes not and my MBP always worked so I sacrificed the tablet experience (which I LOVED) for my MBP again, you saw that little line…. “the tablet experience I loved” because let’s make one thing clear working with the Surface pro was AWESOME, shooting tethered on location into a tablet instead of a laptop is great, and walking up stage with just a tablet to connect… awesome… but there were just too many problems, everyone has a mac so if you had the bad luck a projector wouldn’t sync with Apple there was always someone who knew, but with the Surface… well people just said “Yeah it’s windows, a Mac works” (thank you not very much), also as an OSx user I couldn’t really get used to the way the touch but not 100% touch OS worked, because although it’s a touch tablet the experience is not 100% touch, I know it sounds weird but in many instances I really wanted a keyboard or mouse under windows 8. But anyway I’m rambling let’s get back on track.
Sometimes there is this moment when everything just falls together, the moment it clicks (sorry Joe).
What if…..
I could get wireless tethered working and shoot wireless into the iPad Pro during workshops.
What if I use a lighting to HDMI convertor to connect the iPad pro to the big screen TV.
What if I use keynote on the iPad pro and control this with my iPhone.
What if I can transfer large files from iPhone to iPad or MBP to iPad without using the always flaky Airdrop (for me it never really works).
What if… and the list was pretty long and I started to work.
First shooting tethered, after a lot of experiments we solved this. Of course if you’re using Canon or Nikon you’re in luck with CamRanger and if you’re using ANY Sony A-E mount camera with wifi you’re in luck with Smart remote… unless you’re using their flagship the A7RII (the EVF stays black) until they fix this I solved the problem with a loop on my LCD, and to my surprise it works like a charm, although the EVF is sharper but it works. I’m using play memories and QDSLR dashboard as receiver software.
Connecting to a big screen is no problem at all, Apple sells these convertors, and you can even charge at the same time because it has a lighting adaptor inside the convertor.
Keynote can indeed be running on the iPad pro and controlled by my iPhone (love this), so now I can draw on the screen, see what I’m doing, using a laser pointer and walk around on stage and see the next slide and notes (which I never use but hey that’s me :D).
Transferring large files was possible with some sticks on the market with both USB and Lighting but these were very slow, so that was out. Until I found a new product online that promises to give MUCH more speed and works flawless with both iPhones and iPads (pros) and MBP, USB3 speed and lighting adaptor inside. See https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ishowfast-world-s-fastest-iphone-ipad-flash-drive#/ I’m waiting for delivery so I can’t tell you anything about it, but according to some “pre-release” reviews it’s indeed very fast.
So most of the problems and wishes I had were solved, and I was more and more looking towards buying the iPad pro and I was lucky to able to just walk into a store on the day of the release and get the 128GB space gray LTD version, so how do I like it?
Is it a notebook?
This is the first thing my parents asked when I showed them my brand new iPad in it’s Logitech create cover with keyboard.
“No… well a little bit” was my answer (obviously in Dutch).
If you don’t know about the logitech Create cover make sure to check it out, it really is one marvelous piece of kit. In essence it’s a backlit keyboard stand that also has some cool features like controlling the sound, light on the iPad pro and keyboard itself, audio, short cuts, home, some double tap things and more, it does however makes the beautiful iPad Pro into a bulky almost MBP look a like. But to get some serious work done where you need to type it’s great.
With Pages, numbers and keynote you really have the idea you’re working on a notebook, although you have to switch a lot between the keyboard and the screen, this sounds like a “no deal” but bare with me… I was working this way for an hour and Annewiek asked me something and it struck me as surprising I was trying to use her screen as a touch display……. yeah weird right. So I think that a lot of people who are screaming their lungs out that it will NEVER be a laptop replacement are dead wrong…. but not yet.
At the moment the experience is weird, not because it’s not working as advertised, but maybe because it’s working as advertised. Let’s take for example mail. When you are in Mail you can of course type, copy/paste with shortcuts, you can even delete mails by pressing delete on the keyboard…. but…. you can move up and down with the cursor keys, you need your finger for this. Now this could be my age of course or my long time use of mouse/trackpad and keyboard but it just doesn’t feel right, IF they would have added the cursor use I think I would have said that for mail this is a FULL laptop replacement.
I also hear some people about why Apple didn’t include a trackpad in the keyboards, and I’m glad they didn’t.
I love my MBP but on the plane I can’t use it because… well it’s too tight and we fly Economy or Economy comfort, however the iPad pro with the much less deep keyboard will be no problem at all, and I would have rather have the space than some form of “ok trackpad”.
In all honesty I think it’s a matter of getting used to the interface, we are now used to doing 100% on a keyboard and trackpad/mouse and nothing on the screen of our desktops and when we look back it was also very weird to start using a mouse and a lot of people were actually still using the cursor keys in a lot of early “windows like” software and sometimes grabbed the mouse, I think we are at the start of another revolution in which we have to get used to doing 90% on the screen with gestures and touch and only grab the keyboard when we need to type something, talking about this by the way… the new software keyboard of the iPad Pro is awesome and saves a lot of time switching between modes so for smaller things like emails this will do just fine.
If you take this into account I think that for 99% of the people the iPad pro indeed can be a full laptop replacement, because let’s be honest what do you really do on your laptop? You work with Excell, word, powerpoint, mail, surf and watch a movie right? I don’t see a lot of people running autocad or full blown photoshop with a wacom tablet on airports or in busses, most work is the more “basic” stuff. This week we switched from using Office to iWorks in our studio and I must say that’s its a delight, the interfaces are less cluttered, having all the documents in iCloud is handy and keynote just works better than Powerpoint for me, and being able to control it with your iPhone is a big added bonus for me.
Get to the point Frank
Yes I’m getting there, and exactly to the point actually.
The Apple Pencil.
I tried some styluses on the iPad Air and never really liked them, of course I didn’t try them all but it just didn’t feel right. The Surface pro actually changed this for me, I loved the way the Wacom pen reacted but as mentioned before I didn’t like the OS and felt it was too much of a mix to be comfortable for me personally.
Adding the Apple pencil in the mix made me wanting to run out and get the iPad pro.
I always loved to draw but haven’t done it anymore since childhood, I hope the iPad pro can trigger this again in me because when I played with the Apple pencil it really felt so much better than anything I tried before (including the Wacom series), but that’s not all. In the app store you can find an app called Astropad which in essence promises to replace the wacom you use now for a much better experience, now I’ve looked at the Wacom cintiq but never bought one, same with the companion. It all looked awesome but…. it didn’t fit my workflow or the battery time was too limited, seeing the iPad pro with the Apple pencil being used as an alternative Wacom really was the drop I needed.
For me the iPad pro buy decision was made based solely on the Apple pencil, IF they would have not sold this I would have NEVER switched from my Air2 to the Pro for the simple reason…. it’s just a bigger iPad. Now that I did I’m seeing other options. So after this long introduction a very short overview of my first experiences with.
Working as a laptop
When traveling I’m always switching like crazy between things I like to do, my attention span on airplanes is 45 minutes max so watching a movie is not really an option, I don’t know why but I just can’t concentrate much longer than 45 minutes. So with the iPad pro I can of course watch a movie but also work on a new blogpost in Pages, fine tune my presentations in Keynote etc. etc. I’ve worked with the Create and Pages and have to say that it’s a great experience and I really see me using this over my MPB, unless I have them both with me, the MBP is just a bit easier and faster for longer texts, but… this can change when I’m used to the touch screen and maybe I will even prefer working on the iPad pro, but remember this is HIGHLY depending on the keyboard you use and the create from Logitech I can HIGHLY recommend.
Surfing
What can I say. It’s cool, it’s better than on my Mac at home and MPB.
In portrait mode it’s like reading a magazine, bright and RAZOR sharp with popping colors (but still pretty natural) and the touch interface in safari is refined as can be and a really good experience, again I prefer this above any other way of surfing.
Video editing
I still have to wait for the Apple pencil but what I’ve done so far with iMovie and Adobe clip has been delightful. Here are two of the videos I created with iMovie and Clip (about the software itself).
Someone commented that I must be crazy to prefer this edit method and it was nothing like real editing, well my answer was very simple. “what do you want more?” both iMovie and Clip do all the basic edits, you can create looks for your video (actually it’s faster than on my MacPro which has to render the looks and don’t ask me how the iPad pro does but it’s almost instant), you can change audio, add tracks, change clips etc. etc. and even use titles, picture in picture etc. Of course FCPx and Premiere has WAY more options, but…. both iMovie and Adobe clip have the option to transfer your work to their host programs and finish it off there…. what more DO you want? This saves so much work, on the road you edit the clips in your spare time (heck even on the restroom, depending on time of course) and you can share straight to YouTube or Vimeo if you’re satisfied, or you can save it and finish the “ground work” at home in less time that before.
Lightroom mobile
As with the iPad air2 it works great, I just wish Adobe would make an extra option possible, transferring smart previews via USB, let’s be honest even with a fairly normal internet connection transferring files takes “forever” add to this the “great/not” speed in hotels or databundels via roaming and Adobe actually shoots itself in the foot with forcing a cloud sync, don’t get me wrong I LOVE Adobe and consider many of them as personal friends, but I never understood why with a program that is meant to be used on the road they rely so heavily on internet which in reality is almost non existent in most hotels, Email will do, facebook will do but syncing a gig of data…. yeah.
Till they solve this (if ever) I’m just leaving my MBP in the hotel and uploading the files while we are out, and hope that it’s done when we are back in and connect the iPad pro to download for offline editing during the nighttime, if I keep this up every day I’m sure I have all shots with me to select and edit while traveling back, and this would be a blessing because I wouldn’t feel the need to edit everything at night on my laptop because I know when I’m home I don’t have the time.
Magazines
I love magazines on the iPad but it was always a bit too small for me, reading was ok but I found myself often just zooming in a little bit, with the Pro… gorgeous and I mean WOW
Sound
Don’t ask me why it’s important because I don’t have a clue but the sound is LOUD and I really mean LOUD, and it’s pretty good too. For watching a movie in the hotelroom or RV this will rock but I honestly think some people give too much credit to this point, mostly I use my iPad with headphones or silent. Speed
Good grieves this thing is blazingly fast.
Editing, rendering and even switching between apps is amazing, and candy crush… don’t even start.
Without kidding it’s indeed VERY snappy and rendering 4K video, scrubbing and zooming is smooth as can be.
Portfolio shows
Can I be short…. awesome.
I use the smugmug app with offline images and it’s an experience, clients love it and the responses are nothing short of “breathtaking” and I hope they also mean the shots.
Apple Pencil
Only played with it briefly in the store, I think it’s ridiculous they don’t have enough in stock, I have to wait 7 days and I see now they are actually pushing this forwards if you order now to almost a month, as mentioned before for me the iPad pro IS the Apple Pencil and if it would have worked on the iPad air2 there would have been even a slight chance I would have just bought the Pencil. Apple should have made sure that the supply is at least 1:1 because besides the consumer that wants a bigger candy crush experience I don’t see why you should invest in a bigger iPad without making use of the pencil.
Some bad things (because we have to have those too)
Design is gorgeous with Apple and I love my MacPro but…. I never am able to use an iPhone without a case for the simple reason I’m afraid it will slip out of my hands, same with the iPad pro, it’s slippery as can be, you can’t balance this nicely on your lap without it moving/sliding around. I really do get that design is important, but I feel that with devices you handheld it’s more important to have a surface that’s sticky than something that looks sleek and is ALWAYS covered with a case so you never see it anyway.
As mentioned before the keyboard integration is awesome BUT misses some small things like cursor keys that would be nice to be functional in for example mail.
Price we can argue about for ages but I think everything is worth what you use it for and how much it speeds up your workflow and gives you new creative options and I feel the iPad pro does everything I want, and yeah I know I have to finish off some projects when I’m home and I will not use it for my model photography YET, but I can live with that, in fact it will save me so much backpains and time that I’m more than willing to shelve over the dough to get it.
A double edged 4G sword
We opted for the 4G version and I didn’t talk about that yet because I feel it’s awesome but I also feel I’m being ripped off.
The Apple sim is an awesome idea, travel, arrive, internet. The 4G network in most countries is blazingly fast and vaporizes most hotel internet connections.
For years we have been traveling with a MiFi where we simply visit a store, get a pre-paid card, put it in the MiFi and we have fast internet wherever we go, we actually have 2 (one for the USA with Verizon and one for Europe). But… sometimes it’s easy to get a sim like in the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Germany etc. but sometimes you also have to look REALLY hard, we found out that especially in the states it’s a disaster, we tried to activate our Verzizon device and were send away from every store, we had to find a main office store from Verizon and… well they were not close by so we ended up with just hopping hotspots that week, also the price for 1GB of internet was ridiculously expensive.
Enter the Apple sim, you land, you connect to a provider of your choice and no more looking for simcards or getting a card that doesn’t work or where you have the first call with your phone to activate the card (try to get a normal sim in an iPhone). Sound awesome, but it’s not all happy internet camping.
The pricing of the Apple sim provider GigSky is not cheap, on average you pay $50.00 for 1-3GB of data, compared to what we pay in Denmark or the UK for data this is PRETTY steep, I believe the last time we had 6GB of data for EU60.00 in the UK. Also when you check online you can use the Sim in the Netherlands (they even rate pricing) but when checking on the iPad pro it states I can’t use it in the Netherlands, but Belgium and Germany do work, maybe a bug. However we still opted for this option for the simple reason that we are loosing a lot of valuable time by looking for a simcard in some cases, so we decided to check on arrival when doing groceries and if we don’t find anything we pay the premium and just forget about it, because in all honestly loosing half a day of time is also very expensive when traveling so that 25.00 euro more you pay might actually be worth it.
Conclusion
If you’re still reading I must be doing something right because I think this is the longest blogpost I ever wrote.
In conclusion I love my iPad Pro for the following reasons
I do feel it’s not worth it’s money without the Apple Pencil
with a keyboard it’s a perfect alternative for a laptop unless you do hardcore video editing and you need full blown photoshop on the road (again who does), the interface will be something you have to get used to.
The iOS apps are already worthy work tools and it can only get better
for creatives this is a dream come true
Working on full blown photoshop is possible with astropad, see it as remote controlling your mac (have to test this when the pen is in)
screen is gorgous
it’s very fast
Shooting tethered to the iPad gives the students a bigger screen to watch and me less cables and carrying around stuff
it just saves a LOT of work because the groundwork can be done on the road
Thanks so very much for reading and one final remark.
If you’re planning on posting that the surface pro book is a better alternative because it runs full windows I have two remarks for you.
Yes it does, but I (and most people) don’t need a full blown windows for the simple reasons what you have to do in the field can be done with the iOS apps as soon as you realize it’s ground work, and to be honest it’s about the same thing I do with my MBP most of the times I also finish my work as soon as I’m home and use my MBP to “start” the work.
It’s not an Apple product… in other words I’m used to certain apps which I use and my while workflow is Apple based, when I used the surface pro I loved the product but the integration with Apple was ok but not stunning, when you use office it’s workable but with iWorks the experience is of a totally different level, plus we use a lot of notes and other small things that are inside the Apple workflow.
In the end there is always something better and especially something better is coming next year, for now I think working with the iPad pro is a revolution in terms of getting used to the touch screen as main device and keyboard just when you really need it, when you get over this it can be a 100% replacement of 99% of the laptops out there, and overall…. did I already tell you how amazing candy crush looks?
https://frankdoorhof.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/overview_social.jpg315600Frank Doorhofhttps://frankdoorhof.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/studioFD_Logo-1FV.pngFrank Doorhof2015-11-13 11:00:102015-11-16 11:31:49First few days with the iPad Pro
If you don’t know by now you must be living under a rock I guess, but Apple announced their iPad Pro a while ago, and online you have read a lot of opinions, hands-on etc. some even the minute it was released, so why am I so late in the game and why do I even post this…..
I love gadgets, don’t get me wrong, I’m just like all of you (well ok most) when something new is released my first instinct is “WOW have to see that”, but I’m also very realistic, meaning I hardly buy something I don’t use or need. Take for example the Apple watch, when it was “leaked” I had to have it, I love sports and I love gadgets and what the Apple watch promised was amazing (did you count the amount of amazing during the keynote?) however when it was released for me personally it was a huge disappointment, of course it’s a cool watch and I love to be able to see stuff on my watch, and yeah I think it’s the future but they took out all the cool stuff for health, so I skipped the watched and got a Fitbit Surge which I love by the way. Will there be an Apple watch in my future… without a doubt but not yet, they have to add stuff I can’t do with my surge that will benefit my fitness/health/sport etc. and the Surge is pretty complete. But hey this is about the Apple iPad pro.
A photographers view
I love photography, you could say I’m always doing something with photography, but I also would love to be able to draw, in fact when I was younger I used to draw a lot but somehow it faded away to the background and I never also found a way to draw digitally that I liked or that triggered me to start doing it again.
My first opinion when the iPad pro was launched was…. “OH NO… NO MACOSX… I’m not interested”
And I think many of you thought the same thing, and the pricing…. pffffff I’m better off with my MPB or a MBP air or whatever MacBook. And so it faded away and I never thought of the iPad pro again. Till recently.
I do a lot of workshops on location and to be honest dragging a laptop with me, USB cables and setting everything up is pretty annoying at times, especially when you move around on a location a lot, so I was looking into ways to tether wirelessly with my Sony, the Sony remote software works flawless although there is a small bug in which the EVF stays black, but I hope they solve this soon. The other option is an Eye-Fi card which SHOULD work flawless but I can’t seem to get it to work consistently (Eye-Fi is working on my problem and sending me a new one), then we have CamRanger, works flawlessly but not for Sony (COME ON CAMRANGER), but I’m also working on a solution here with a TP-Link router (will know next week if that works), in other words shooting wirelessly will happen. And on the iPad/iPhone this is a really handy tool which works like a charm, but in the meantime we also have this working on my MBP so let’s put it this way, we probably are able to cut the cables very soon.
So where does the iPad pro come in.
Carrying an iPad with us is like a dream come true during workshops, but…the screen is a bit small, so the iPad pro would rock there, so that’s one point for the iPad Pro.
Lightroom Mobile
When Lightroom Mobile was released I was over the moon, WOW amazing (oops) awesome, the idea of working on all devices connected is a dream come true. But at first I just used it for my portfolio so slowly LrM was forgotten, until I started looking into the iPad pro, I changed my portfolio from LrM to the SmugMug app (which also supports local copies) and I started playing with LrM, totally love it, but….. uploading files can be LOOOOOONG and especially on trips I’m afraid this will be a problem, but there is always a starbucks close by or another wifi network and I think if you just by routine let the laptop upload every night it will be ok to have everything on your iPad when you travel. Because that’s the idea, but ideal it’s not (yet)
Now I spend sometimes hours behind a crappy desk in a hotel doing edits and selects in Lr from my street and travel photography, I don’t need anything more than Lightroom for 90% of those shots, and even worse… when there is no good desk I do it on the bed and end up with back-pains from sitting in a weird position for 1-2 hours. Imagine….. doing this on the iPad (pro) and indeed after some testing I did in the last few weeks this indeed works like a charm, I’m a bit faster on Lr on my MBP/Mac but… the speed in which you can actually edit and select is pretty cool it really works. Because you can tell LrM to edit OFFLINE you can download the whole catalogue on your device and work on it on the plane, in the bus or whatever. Having the real estate of the iPad Pro…. well point 2 for the iPad Pro.
Video editing
We love video, and you guys love video.
And we do film a lot of stuff, but most never sees the light of day because we have more important projects and most edits could be done pretty fast, we experimented a while on the iPhone during travels and the iPad air and it worked… but to be honest on the iPad it was ok but on the iPhone it was a less than happy experience to say the least, it’s ok for small videos but a larger project no way. When I saw a small demo of what iMovie was capable off on the iPad pro I was like….. interesting and this actually triggered my interest from the iPad pro from “I’m gonna skip it” to “I’m looking into it”
Now I hear you ask, how do you get the videos from the iPhone or cameras into the iPad?
Well there are plenty of solutions out there that support a memory stick with both Lighting and USB so that would not be a problem, just download the material from the iPhone and upload it into the iPad (pro).
But iMovie? Seriously?
Well yeah, why not, and when we are done with the edits, copy the project to FinalCutProX and complete it, as long as the “flow” is there, and let’s be honest that takes the most time. But even then, for most videos like BTS etc. you could do more than enough with iMovie.
Entertainment
Not so much for that, of course playing angry birds or candy crush on a big screen is cool, but not worth the 1000+ you have to pay for the iPad pro, I love my iPad air way too much for that, that being said…. movies… well ok that would be nicer. Half a point of the iPad Pro.
Drawing
This is where I was most impressed about on the iPad pro, and seriously…… Wacom watch out.
At the moment the best experience I ever had on tablets were on Wacom tablets, and trust me I tried a few and they all failed miserably, but the first Wacom I got… well I never looked back and now even travel with one. But for my retouching I don’t really need the drawing power of sensitive, angles etc. but remember I told you that I loved to draw when I was younger…. well this still is inside me, thinking about the options to draw on a tablet like the iPad pro when flying or traveling or when you have a few moments off…. for real artists probably 10 whole points for the iPad pro for me just add another half point.
Retouching
Now it gets more interesting for us photographers.
Ever lusted for the cintic?
Ever drooled over the companion?
Be honest…..
Be honest….
Yeah me too, but I just can’t justify the costs, but it would be incredibly handy for those composites you do and the drawing of masks etc. well enter an app called ASTROPAD which I recently found out, it promises (and as I can see delivers) the cintic killer, zoom in on you work with the gestures and edit without lag (if you use a cable) on your photoshop work. For under 50.00 (the price seems to change constantly) you’re up and running and with the normal styluses the people are already raving about it… imaging the iPad Pro pencil which works on a pixel level instead of the rude way the iPad styluses work, that would be…. well ok I say it once… amazing.
Let’s say 1 point again for the iPad pro (because I can also work with a Wacom for what I do, but for some people this will be another HUGE amount of points)
The future
Ok the iPad pro works with apps.
But is this really a bad thing……
Yeah if you want to retouch models on it.
Photoshop fix is awesome, but don’t even thing about running it from LrM because you will be working on a smart preview, in other words a smaller resolution, yeah it saves a great PSD you can fine tune in Photoshop later on (this works pretty well by the way and really wowed me) but if you want to do this you have to import TIFFs on the iPad (pro) and edit from there and then upload them to the cloud and later back on your mac.. and to be honest that won’t work for me. So retouching skin or taking stuff out of a shot not for me, I don’t believe in that until there is a full blown Ps running with plugins and that will take some time.
Having said that…
We all know what happens when Apple releases something, first people deny it will ever work or be a succes and slowly (sometimes very fast) people start seeing the benefits and app makers jump to the opportunity to create something cool and use the device to the max, I expect Adobe to not jump on the iPad pro but I think they will RUN to the iPad pro and I mean RUN!!! this device is so powerful and has such a great opportunity with the Pencil that Adobe would be crazy to not take full advantage of it. I think the mobile apps we see now are just the beginning of something that will maybe be a full companion to our desktop programs and interact even more with on the road and off the road.
Think about this.
In the studio connect the iPad pro and edit on the iPad Pro with your Pencil in Photoshop, Lightroom, Paint or whatever you use, when you disconnect all you work is synced to your iPad pro and you can work on the road, as soon as you’re back home and connect the iPad Pro again it’s synced and you can continue. The processing power is there, the accuracy of the pencil is there, Adobe has already a great suite of mobile apps…. the next step will be made, or in other words it would surprise me if they didn’t. They just have to skip the cloud action and the options are endless (well as long as you have enough storage that is)
This is of course as we call it “Coffee thick watching” but I think within 6 months we will see things happening on the iPad pro that will blow your mind, or at least help your creativity.
The competition
I hear you say “Frank nice and Apple fanboyish, but what about the Microsoft Surface pro?”
Well I will tell you even better, did you see their new Surface book… talk about a machine WOW, can’t wait to get my hands on one of those to be honest, that looks like the perfect machine for any photographer/retoucher out there, a super powerful machine with full versions of Capture One, Photoshop, Premiere etc. USB ports for tethering, wifi etc. And when you want to use it as a tablet you just take it off and you work with it, and it also supports a pen. to be honest I was thinking about getting one and leaving my MacBook and iPad pro when traveling… but I also read some reviews, the trackpad is not as good as the MBP and be honest you work with the trackpad a lot, the pen is not as good as the iPad pro, and that’s where a lot of creative people will probably leave, if you see their keynote they do indeed focus A LOT on office and not on drawing or painting.
That being said, for ME personally the Surfacebook would be more than I need for my workflow, and 3100.00 well ok it’s a LOT of money but it could replace my MacBookPro and the iPad pro so in the end it’s cheaper, so why not buy that one?
Well I’m “afraid” that within a few months when the iPad pro is out I will regret it, but I will try to get my hands on a Surfacebook and test it (let’s hope Microsoft is willing to lend me one), I did LOVE their surface pro tablets and even used one for a while but I switched back to the mac because of the interaction between my devices which was a bit more smooth when I used all mac devices but things have changed. So I’m open for that.
Final thoughts and notes
As you can see this is more a notepad to myself, which hopefully also helps some of you guys out there, to decide of the iPad pro is for you. For me at the moment there are a lot of plusses to the iPad pro, the size is very nice for the workshops on location (if we get Wifi tethering working it will be a sure buy) but could be a problem during travel in the airplane (will it fit in the little net in front of you), entertainment on the road is cool but not necessary this big, but having the option to do quick video editing in downtime, don’t have to sit on the bed or behind a crappy desk in a hotel but just work with touch while being comfortably on the bed or seat also adds A LOT. Also the prospect of what could be possible is very intriguing and because it’s an Apple product I’m willing to risk it.
Adding everything together I’m still on the point of Yes/No, although the Yes will probably win, but I’m also looking at the Microsoft Surfacebook although the idea of using one machine with Windows and everything else with MacOs also scares me seeing the experiences in the past. And because I also want to be able to draw a bit more I don’t know if that would be the best choice.
The final thing that I have to add is the addition of the Apple Sim.
We travel around a “bit” and we now have 2 mifi devices, one for europe and one for the USA.
In Europe we hardly have any problems, go to the first local shop and get a simcard plug it in and voila internet, and pretty cheap too. In the USA it’s a huge problem, we have a Verizon Mifi and to our “horror” nobody could help us to get it working again, we had to go to a Verizon head office store, and the closest was 10 miles and it was closed that day, so we ended up forgetting about it and just hopped acces points that week. With the Apple sim the moment you land you can buy an Internet package, pricing is ok but a bit steep, on the other hand if we calculate the loss of half a day to get a mifi working in the states well… it could pay back itself. However in Europe everything is about to change, in about 1-2 years there are no more roaming costs, meaning we can use our own bundle also in other countries, meaning the Apple sim would be useless.
The iPad pro promised a lot, it’s bound by apps.
At the moment the main things I want to do I can do much easier on the iPad pro than on the iPad or MBP while traveling, and some new options have opened up which draws me more and more towards the iPad pro. Let’s see what happens and I wonder what your opinions are?
Feel free to post them below.
https://frankdoorhof.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/ipad_pro_vs_laptop_video_editing.jpg9621515Frank Doorhofhttps://frankdoorhof.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/studioFD_Logo-1FV.pngFrank Doorhof2015-10-24 07:00:382015-10-23 11:33:03The iPad Pro