Greetings,
Been a while since I've posted so pleased to see many of the same folks still vertical and posting here.
Here is the Given:
Area of Interest: Landscapes, architecture, occasional portraits.
Cameras: Currently Nikon 800e with prime Zeiss glass lenses; have many large files from past cameras: Hassie 50MP and also 4x5 negs that were scanned on the Howtek HiResolve 8000 dpi laser scanner that I used to have (some of the 4x5 files are over 1 Gig each).
Future: Waiting for a 50MP with great DMAX, do not feel the Canon excels in that area.
Computer: MacPro, early 2008 with 20GB RAM, 2x2.8 GHz Quad Core Intel Xeon
RAM is 20GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB
Monitor: LG 34UM95 (I have really found this monitor to work great for my work and I can get a good calibration out of my EyeOne system with it.)
Using three internal drives - 1TB scratch, 2 x 1 TB for image storage.
External drives - 2 that are 1TB each - one is for OS backup, 1 is for backup only of internal image drives.
Wireless keyboard, mouse, Wacom tablet.
LG
Concerns: Is there a MacPro 2016 on the horizon to replace the current 2013? If so, I know it will be released the ween after
Software: PS CS6, LR6, Photomatrix Pro, PTGui, Helicon Focus, Dreamweaver 4
(I do not care for the "Cloud" logic so I stay away from it.)
I do a lot of stitching, pano builds, etc.
That's the Given, now for "Where to from here" is what I am pondering:
I would like to make my final career be strictly focused on photography, my life passion.
IF you want to see my work to get an idea of what I have done in the past, just go to shadowsdancing dot com.
This year is the year to reinvent myself.
I'm sober in my thinking and feel it is rare the person that can make a decent living (say $75K/year) with landscape work.
So figure I will be shooting high end homes for realtors where I can extract a decent price for a days work.
Will adjunct that with life in a trailer traveling at times for a month to 6 weeks of landscape work.
As such, I have concerns about my trusty MacPro Early 2008 unit.
It runs well, and since I do no video, I have no real problem. But it is old and if it fails I'd be in a rush to figure out what to replace it with.
Choice 1:
Keep what I have, increase RAM from 20GB to 36 GB for very little money, say less than $125.00.
Put larger drives in for my image work that would have a faster response time for saves and reverts to original.
Other than that, not much I would do to it BUT I'm open to suggestions.
Now, need to mention that over the life of this unit the mother board has failed twice and each time has run about $450 repair.
Should it fail again, all is lost as it relates to the MacPro. Today I could sell it on eBay and get a few bucks to put toward a current unit.
Now, I have a MacBook Pro, 17" Late 2011 but must admit I prefer working on my MacPro. Could sell it and put cash recovered toward
the new MacPro.
IF traveling in a trailer (Airstream maybe) the size of the new MacPro would be great and I have several 24" monitors I could mount in the trailer permanently so all I'd have to move into the trailer for a trip is the wireless gear and the tablet.
Price is a concern but:
Should I hold out a bit longer in hopes the next gen MacPro is released?
If not, and buy a current flavor of MacPro, best proc configuration, etc would need to be defined.
Figure with new MacPro, changing to Thunder2 drives, etc I'd probably be hitting the IRA for $6K +/-.
Please respond IF you have made the change or recently started the same evaluations.
Regards to all,
Jack