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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[ashleyman]

Make of this what you will! Very confusing...

Tethering to EOS Utility 3 & the latest Lightroom CC. Canon 5D MKIII + 24-70 F2.8 Lens. Shooting RAW + S JPG to a 120MB/s card. Pointing the camera into 3 set places so all of the photos are roughly the same with the same data.

For the first test I'm shooting RAW but telling EOS Utility to only move over the JPG to the computer. Got Auto-Import on the go in Lightroom so I can apply a preset/metadata on Import. Do this with most shoots just to clean up the exposure, contrast and add tags as I shoot - helps clients to visualise things.

Time from pressing shutter to preview showing in EOS Utility. (Lightroom is shut)

iMac: 2.35 seconds
Old MBP: 1.65 seconds
New MBP: 2.27 seconds

Timed from pressing shutter to preview showing in Lightroom.

iMac: 8.56 seconds
Old MBP: 5.38 seconds
New MBP: 5.50 seconds

For the second test I'm shooting RAW but telling EOS Utility to only move over the RAW to the computer.

Preview showing in EOS Utility. (Lightroom is shut)

iMac: 2.99 seconds
Old MBP: 3.4 seconds
New MBP: 2.5 seconds

Preview showing in Lightroom

iMac: 12.10 seconds
Old MBP: 9.9 seconds
New MBP: 9.5 seconds

The length of the USB cable doesn't really make much difference. The old MBP seems to be the best at processing the JPGs but the new MBP seems to be the best at processing the RAW images faster than my iMac or old MBP.

The difference in performance is not that great when used with my current 5D3 but I'm unsure if I'll see any performance benefits when shooting Phase One.

Edited by ashleyman on Saturday 1st April 15:19

[ashleyman]

Tethering directly into Lightroom shooting RAW

Timed from pressing shutter to preview showing on Computer.

iMac: 7.5 seconds
Old MBP: 8.1 seconds
New MBP: 8.8 seconds

[ashleyman]

dmsims said:

Firstly - good job on the benchmarking - it helps you understand that the tethering and LR is the issue

It would be interesting to try it on a PC with some real horsepower

Did you try turning off all the processing in LR ?

Can you open a support issue with Adobe?

Lightroom is without doubt what's slowing it down. The times in my previous post are all without processing, sorry I should have said that. Processing doesn't add much at all, but it's something I do on set to make images a little more presentable!

The problem with Lightroom is when you're shooting with EOS Utility and uploading just the JPGS from the camera, they get saved in a folder. Lightroom then 'watches' that folder and Auto-Imports them to your collection/folder wherever. BUT when it imports them there's no way to set it up without Lightroom wanting to 'MOVE' those folders on the hard disk. For example, EOS Utility will save files in User/Ash/Picture/Tether. Lightroom will watch that folder but then want to move the files so you end up adding a processing step for no reason. It's impossible to tell Lightroom not to move files too. Lightroom then copies the files from User/Ash/Picture/Tether to (for example) User/Ash/Picture/Tether/NewFolder

The other issue is cutting out the EOS Utility step means you're stuck with transferring over full RAW files and not just JPGs. That really shows up the slowness of USB2 on the 5D3. So although there's less 'steps' going into getting something from camera to Lightroom there's more data involved as you're moving whole RAW files. I guess this is where USB3 would be handy as those transfer speeds would be faster.

Thinking about the laptop on it's own - the screen itself is a MASSIVE step up from my 2012 MBP. I can now see more tools down the right hand column and also view files in better resolution. Colours look nicer and more 'true' although it's not totally configured yet it's a beautiful display.

The speakers are awesome on this thing. Not as good as my iMac ones but a massive step up from the 2012 model.

The touchbar is fantastic and annoying at the same time. My middle finger on my left hand tends to rest on the Escape button and as it's a touch screen it tends to freak out sometimes. However, in apps it has awesome customisation and after using the machine all day yesterday and then sitting at my desktop today I did miss it! Safari shortcuts, volume and brightness sliders, finder buttons and even unlocking the computer with TouchID all cool. The Photoshop tools are great but I would welcome an option to display standard F keys too. The keyboard is nice but not as nice as the wireless desktop keyboards I'm used too. The trackpad is massive and the pinch and zoom tricks are fun!

I didn't think the dongles would bother me but I was getting frustrated as I kept going to plug the bare USB cable into the 2016 MBP and then remembered I needed the dongle. Wouldn't be too bad in a real life situation but as I was doing lots of switching around it was noticed. Forgetting a dongle would be a disaster. If I do keep this machine I'll need to buy a couple and keep them in different places just in case. Perhaps even leave one in the car as an emergency option.

I've got a morning of Phase One training so will see if I can have some time to plug the Phase into both laptops and record the differences in performance. I guess anything with USB 3 is going to outperform USB 2. The fact the new MBP is quicker when dealing with the RAW files makes me think it will also be quicker when using USB 3 cameras and processing Phase files. Will be testing on Monday.

If I do end up keeping the current MBP (looking likely) then I'll have to start tethering with just EOS Utility. Never really experimented with it before and being able to see photos within 2 seconds is much better than waiting 5 for it to be in Lightroom. The only downsides are no processing on import and no way of looking back at previous photos - it only displays the most current.

[ashleyman]

mikef said:

I'm doing it the other way around. I only have two or three USB devices I'm likely to use with the MBP so I bought a few of these at sale price and keep them attached to the cables: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B015Z7XE0A

I bought the Apple ones as they were £9 each. I'll probably just buy another CF reader and have 1 in my kit bag and 1 on my desk. When they release an iMac with USB-C only that will make it easier as it'll all be consistent!

[ashleyman]

Vaud said:

Would the Canon 5D MKIII be faster over Gigabit ethernet and a small switch?

I'm not sure. Depends how the data gets from the camera to the ethernet. If it's using USB to Ethernet the it'll still only be as fast as the USB 2.0 port.

[ashleyman]

dmsims said:

Vaud said:

Would the Canon 5D MKIII be faster over Gigabit ethernet and a small switch?

Assume a raw is 33MB

Simplistically (remember frictionless pulleys )

USB2 time about 0.5 second

My point was if the ethernet switch plugs into the USB 2 port. It would still be limited to USB 2 as thats the speed the image is coming out of the camera.