2016 MBP upgrade from 2012 MBP

[ashleyman]

I've got a 2012 15" MacBook Pro (Non-Retina) and I'm wondering if it's worth upgrading.

I'm a photographer and often have to shoot tethered, I find tethered shooting painful and often suffer slow imports to Lightroom & Capture One, camera disconnects and often have to pause a shoot to reset the camera connection. I mostly shoot Canon Full Frame but also Phase One on occasion.

My current MacBook Pro specs are as follows:
MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012), 2.3GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB,
512GB Crucial CT512MX SSD / 2TB 7200 RPM SATA instead of a DVD drive.

I was looking at the £2699 model with 512GB SSD and was wondering if I would see a significant performance increase between the 2 laptops. This machine would be a secondary machine as my daily workhorse is a 5K Retina iMac with secondary display thats as fast as they come!

Any help or advice is appreciated. I'm not too bothered by the Touch Bar, dongles isn't an issue and have already bought some whilst they're still cheap. I love the designs of the new Macs but for me it has to be performance over style. Also looked at the Surface range and just can't get comfortable with it.

[mikef]

Big difference in disk speed - 4x to 5x faster then your SATA ssd. You'll only really know the answer to your question if you try out your software and workflow on one

[ashleyman]

mikef said:

Big difference in disk speed - 4x to 5x faster then your SATA ssd. You'll only really know the answer to your question if you try out your software and workflow on one

I was planning to buy one tomorrow from Stormfront as they have a 0% finance deal for 12 months I can utilise instead of paying out nearly £3k all in one go. It's not a problem and I can afford it in cash but it was more convenience to keep my cash in the bank if the machine wasn't right for me. They're returns policy isn't as good as Apples though and if I use the machine then I have to keep it.

I'm really struggling to find any solid evidence that it is an upgrade, but my current Mac just can't keep up.

[dmsims]

You have to isolate the issue ( appreciate that may not be easy) e.g. it could be a software issue

Do other photographers have the same problem?

Could you not visit an Apple store explain the issue and test out a new Mac ?

Edited by dmsims on Friday 31st March 01:03

[ashleyman]

dmsims said:

You have to isolate the issue ( appreciate that may not be easy) e.g. it could be a software issue

Do other photographers have the same problem?

Could you not visit an Apple store explain the issue and test out a new Mac ?

Edited by dmsims on Friday 31st March 01:03

The issue is the files I shoot are so large that the MBP just cannot process them fast enough, it then stops to try and recover but because I'm still shooting there's more data going to the computer and it can't cope. It then is behind me shoooting and I have to wait for it to catch up or crash.

I tried to solve it by sending low res JPGs to Lightroom but even then it doesn't always keep up and when a client is there it needs to work all the time. I appreciate I could use a generator, tent, iMac or Mac Pro and a proper display but there sometimes isn't budget or space to do this so having a laptop is ideal.

I'm sure it's to do with processing power and building previews and stuff. Hard to test in a store as you can't install software on the demo macs.

[dmsims]

How long is the USB lead ?

Lightroom version ?

Edited by dmsims on Friday 31st March 01:59

[Vaud]

Are there any independent Apple dealers near you? Their demo machines may not be as locked down?

[mikef]

Where in the country are you OP? Maybe one of us that has the new Mac could let you try out your files in LR (afaik Adobe CC comes with a free trial period)

[ashleyman]

mikef said:

Where in the country are you OP? Maybe one of us that has the new Mac could let you try out your files in LR (afaik Adobe CC comes with a free trial period)

I'm near Epsom in Surrey. I've currently got an Adobe CC subscription but it does come with a trial. I'm about to go to an approved retailer this morning to ask about trying one out.

dmsims said:

How long is the USB lead ?

Lightroom version ?

Edited by dmsims on Friday 31st March 01:59

Usb lead is about 10 metres and is a good one. Lightroom version is the very very latest.

[dmsims]

ashleyman said:

Usb lead is about 10 metres and is a good one.

Make/model or a picture?

[ashleyman]

dmsims said:

Make/model or a picture?

Brand name is Lindy. Picked it up at a Calumet shop last year.

I've done research into the USB ports on my devices and as I mostly shoot on 5D 3's although they have 'Hi Speed USB' they're only USB 2.0 and 3 so thats likely to be my main issue over the MBP speed.

[dmsims]

Doesn't matter how good the cable is the delay is set in the interface

5m is max for USB 2 so you need an active USB cable

Can you test with a short cable ?

Does the same issue happen in DPP ?

[ashleyman]

dmsims said:

Doesn't matter how good the cable is the delay is set in the interface

5m is max for USB 2 so you need an active USB cable

Can you test with a short cable ?

Does the same issue happen in DPP ?

I can test with a short cable. Do you think in real world use as a photographer I'll notice a speed difference between USB 2 and USB 3?

If the answer is yes then I'll go and buy myself a Canon 5D4 with my money instead of the MBP.

[mikef]

ashleyman said:

mikef said:

Where in the country are you OP? Maybe one of us that has the new Mac could let you try out your files in LR (afaik Adobe CC comes with a free trial period)

I'm near Epsom in Surrey. I've currently got an Adobe CC subscription but it does come with a trial. I'm about to go to an approved retailer this morning to ask about trying one out.

If that doesn't work out and you can get over Tunbridge Wells way I can let you try as much as you'd like (I have a CC sub, but don't actually use Lightroom - I probably should...)

[ashleyman]

mikef said:

ashleyman said:

mikef said:

Where in the country are you OP? Maybe one of us that has the new Mac could let you try out your files in LR (afaik Adobe CC comes with a free trial period)

I'm near Epsom in Surrey. I've currently got an Adobe CC subscription but it does come with a trial. I'm about to go to an approved retailer this morning to ask about trying one out.

If that doesn't work out and you can get over Tunbridge Wells way I can let you try as much as you'd like (I have a CC sub, but don't actually use Lightroom - I probably should...)

Thank you. I'm about to take my current laptop, 5D3 and cables up to Calumet in Euston to physically test a 5D4 on my current MacBook and see if theres a performance difference. I think I'll see more speed with USB 3.0 camera body than I will with a new MBP still held back by the 5D3's USB2.0.

[TonyRPH]

I was going to ask if USB3 was available to you, and if your camera was USB2 or USB3.

blah said:

Speed differences between USB2 / USB3

The now-aging USB 2.0 standard can theoretically transfer data at a very high 480 megabits per second (mbps), or 60 megabytes per second (MBps).
That's impressive, but not as much as the newer USB 3.0, which can handle up to 5gbps (640MBps)—over ten times as fast as the 2.0 maximum.

I think a USB3 camera is the answer OP (assuming the Mac has USB3 ports)

Also - did you try a test shoot using your '5K Retina iMac'?

How quickly does that process the incoming data from the camera?

[ashleyman]

Managed to get a MacBook Pro on test for the weekend.

Have done some tests and so far it's outperforming my 2012 MacBook in most areas.

To give an example:

Copy 300 RAW files from a CF card into Lightroom, Convert to DNG and build previews takes 10 minutes, 9 seconds on the new one. The same task on the old one took 19 minutes, 40 seconds.

I plan to do a test tethering session tomorrow to try out the 5D MKIII tethering situation. I've not tried to tether with the iMac - never even thought of trying that!

I also went to Calumet earlier and had a go with one of their 5D MK4's tethering to my 2012 MBP and being honest I didn't see any noticeable difference between the 5D4 and 5D3.

[TonyRPH]

Interesting that the later camera with USB3 wasn't that different.

The fact that the newer MBP was faster by almost 50% suggests that the bottleneck may lay elsewhere?

Obviously CPU, RAM and disk speed is a factor here too.

I note that your existing MBP has a 2TB disk alongside the SSD - you don't think that's slowing things down?

Maybe try another SSD in place of the 2TB disk?

[ashleyman]

TonyRPH said:

Interesting that the later camera with USB3 wasn't that different.

The fact that the newer MBP was faster by almost 50% suggests that the bottleneck may lay elsewhere?

Obviously CPU, RAM and disk speed is a factor here too.

I note that your existing MBP has a 2TB disk alongside the SSD - you don't think that's slowing things down?

Maybe try another SSD in place of the 2TB disk?

The SSD in the new MBP is 50% faster than the one in my 2012 MBP. It reads and writes at over 2GBPS.

One interesting fact is on the 2012MBP my CF cards write at 140MB/s but on the 2016 MBP using the same card reader except with a USB-C to USB3 adapter it only writes at 136MB/s. Done the test over and over and the difference is always 4MB/s.

[dmsims]

So you need to try:

a short USB cable

and

DPP