Month: September 2019

With digital cameras the colour red can be an issue. When you think of a Bayer, the four square matrix is made of you a green filtered pixel, a red filtered pixel, a blue filtered pixel and then one more green that is used to capture the luminance, information. That is why a 4 MP camera can be thought of as a 1 MP camera as only one pixel in four has the luminance information.

The red pixel though has an issue. The red filter is much darker, and lets in less light and thus is prone to underexpose. When shooting a scene with a lot of red the camera in software and the photographer tend to counter this with over exposure and often end up blowing the red channel. It looks fine on the little screen on the back of the camera but when you come to edit it there is no real detail in the red channel.

Photography for me is not my primary job, its mainly a hobby but I undertake professional commissions through the year. In order to keep things fresh I like to set a challenge every now and again.

As you can see from the lack of posts this year, my personal photography work has been pretty much at a standstill. So it was time for a challenge to get the creative juices flowing. What better then a challenge in Red!

I decided to work in a controlled environment so the location was my favourite local studio in Worksop, Nottinghamshire. I also picked one of my favourite amateur models who happens to have dramatic dyed red hair. Add to that a red background and lots of red fabric a bit of flash also pointing at the camera to try and produce a bit of artistic flare and I was on course for a shooting nightmare.

So I said I would be looking out for a new laptop and I am. Its really a difficult choose. Previously I have always bought close to the top of the range and this has seen me through quite well.

For the type of work I do editing in Lightroom and Photoshop with a powerful machine is ideal. But can I bring myself to have a lower powered laptop and use my desktop machine for the power work.

Its a difficult ask as buying a less powerful laptop seems like throwing money away.

I generally process 24 and 36 Mega Pixel photographs, while the thought of using a smaller lighter machine is tempting, Adobe have updated Lightroom recently to make better use and off load cpu intensive tasks to the graphics card. This makes buying the 15 inch laptop with the better graphics card an easier choice, but you looking at a grand (£1000) more for the purchase.

While I have to admit that buying high end in the past has worked well, my previous laptop is over eleven years old and has lasted well; the high end for Apple is relatively good value, its there low end machines are not good value. Her in the UK with BREXIT on the way the pound is devaluing fast and I can justify purchasing high end again.

Its a tough choice and one I will be making in the next few weeks.

13 inch or 15 inch MacBook Pro? Or go super light with an air, which is still more capable then my current machine.