Two Tips: One for Fuji X-T1 Owners, One for Apple Laptop Buyers

First of all, a few days ago when we were discussing the Fuji X-T1, a couple of people complained about the write speed. The X-T1 is one of the few cameras on the market configured to take advantage of the new UHS-II high-speed cards. UHS-II cards are significantly more expensive (I wanted four of the 32GB Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-II cards, but bought just two of the 16GB cards, attempting to have my cake and economize too), but they're much faster—250 MB/sec. write speed compared to 90 MB/sec. write speed for the UHS-I version of the same card, and just 6 MB/sec. for the cheapest SD cards! A big difference.

With most cameras you won't see the speed difference. UHS-II cards will work with UHS-I devices, but not at the higher bus speeds.

UHS-I card vs. UHS-II card

Laptopland
Under the heading of Lessons Learned the Hard Way: if you're buying an Apple laptop, and you intend to do photo editing on it, you really do want the Retina screen. There's a good reason Apple is transitioning to Retinas—it's because its older screens have horrendous vertical viewing angle problems. On the good side, you can adjust the tonality and density of pictures you're looking at by just tilting the screen. On the bad side, well, the tonality and density of what you're looking at changes radically when you tilt the screen.

The iMac with the 5k Retina display is on sale today too, in limited quantities.

The several people who told me to get a Retina screen when I was asking for advice about my current laptop can now say "I told you so." In my defense, for the most part I'm using the laptop with a 27" Cinema Display, in which setup the quality of the laptop screen doesn't matter. But if I had it to do again I'd get a Retina screen like the 13" Macbook Pro that's on sale today. Worth the extra cost, according to someone who was too cheap to shell out said extra cost.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Fazal Majid: "The Retina MacBook Pros are the only ones with IPS panels, and also the only ones that have true 8-bit panels, as opposed to 6-bit panels that cycle very quickly between values in a form of temporal dithering. The iPads also have IPS/Retina, which is why an iPad is superior for displaying photos to any non-Retina MacBook Pro."

Ctein: "Dear Mike, re: the laptop screen...I will take advantage of your terribly kind offer. Toldja so."

Comments

[Kalli]

Four 32GB cards? I could almost fit two years of photography on those. In fact, if I don't count the photos from that wedding I photographed last year and required me to use more than one of my 8GB cards, I could fit my entire 2013 and 2014 output on those four mammoth cards.

(Yes, I wish I photographed more but… reasons.)

[Yonatan Katznelson]

Are you going to give us a review of the XT1? ... Please?

[Larry Gebhardt]

I'd get the 15" Macbook Pro, and spring for the option of the accelerated graphics. It can make a difference with Photoshop (though I've had problems on my older machine). I've also noticed B&H and Adorama have them for much less than Apple. My daughter just saved $300 over the cost of the same machine at Apple, and the AppleCare was over $100 cheaper as well.

You can probably sell the laptop for not too much of a loss and pickup a retina screened one.

[Richard Man]

I'm not a Mac person, although my wife is on her 4th Mac and 2nd GIGANTIC Cinema Display (currently still using a 30" monster). The 5K iMac is the first Mac that I say "hmm... that looks very good..."

[Stephen Scharf]

The Apple Retina laptop displays also have almost exactly 100% of the sRGB color space, and profile with much more accuracy and linearity than the non-Retina LED backlit Apple laptop displays. Their delta-e is lower, as well.

The other thing that was surprising was just how close my X-Rite profiled 27" Retina iMac display was to my Spectraview-calibrated 27" NEC PA-series display (PA272W-BK-SVII).

Yes, there was a "statistically significant" difference between the two, but not a "practically significant" one. Quite remarkable, really. Apple did an excellent job calibrating those big Retina displays at the factory.

[Michael Bearman]

Saw the 5K iMac at the apple store in Melbourne. I want one. But at A$5200 fully optioned (32 g ram, 1 tb flash mem, etc, etc), I don't think so...

[BH]

A question about the card for the X-T1:

Does the faster card make a difference in the speed of the functionality of the camera itself?

With the original X100 the card used greatly impacted the speed of the camera, not just the write time for the files. I'm wondering if it's worth upgrading my cards for the X-T1. I have no problem with the write times, simply wondering if faster cards improve performance in other ways.

[David]

Got a retina iMac (aka, riMac) just three days ago, after my laptop died from my clumsiness.
I don't know how it compares with other displays, from Apple or anyone, only how it compares against my non-retina 17" macbook. But its an amazing display, that seems to get better as I look through my collection of favourite photos.
I am so blown away by the detail in my E-M1 files, that I never really knew was there! I cried for a week when my macbook died. Now I know it was for the best...

[psu]

When I look at my retina Macbook for too long it actually takes a few minutes to switch back to even the 27" screen in the iMac ... everything looks all fuzzy for a few minutes until your eyes recalibrate.

The color depth and quality is similar in both screens, but the difference in the quality of the text rendering is where the real win is in higher resolution LCD panels.

[Ronny]

I'm puzzled, are the people who have problems with the write speed using UHS-I or the older sd-cards.
I just started upgrading my old sd-cards to UHS-I and found that the speed really improved, and I don't have a budget to spend on 6 32GB UHS-II cards. (and before anybody comments on that amount of cards, it's my normal quota for 2/3 weeks of shooting raw without a laptop)

[Bob Bradley]

Thanks for the card speed tip. I just sold the last of my Canon gear and ordered a Fuji XT1 today with the UHS-II card.

[Bill Tyler]

I wouldn't worry too much about your "mistake". The MacBook Air weighs half a pound less, and has a longer battery life. When you were shopping, light weight/travel was a prime consideration, and you've got that. When it's connected to your large display, you won't notice that it doesn't have a Retina screen.

[Michael]

Mike, do you find that you're not as fussed by resolution and sharpness of prints as many other photographers are? I'm not surprised to hear that you regret not getting a MBP, but am surprised to hear that this is simply due to viewing angles, and not resolution.

I've got a new 5K Retina iMac right next to the iMac that it replaced. When switched off from front-on they look identical (except for anti-reflective coatings), and I thought it would make for a great dual-screen setup. I calibrated both screens and set up some Keyboard Maestro macros so that I can move and resize windows really quickly.

But in practice I find I really don't like looking at anything on the near side of the old iMac screen. It's okay on the far side, but when I can see both at the same time the difference in resolution drives me nuts.

Frankly I was amazed that any keen photographer (I'm barely one any more, but I still love TOP) would consider buying a non-retina screen. So many photographers spend time poring over MTF charts and comparing resolution of lenses. Whilst I recognise that the Air is considerably lighter than a rMBP, it seemed bizarre to me that you'd buy a screen with literally half the linear resolution than other similar ones for a few hundred dollars more.

Interesting to hear that your regret is not due to the resolution, but the viewing angles, of the Air's screen.