The Amazing Sony A1/A7/A9/APS-C & Anything else welcome Mega Thread!

snerkler said:
That’s what I’m going to do next time, I’ll probably shoot with medium or small size in camera.

Should be reasonable, MBP with i7 processor (2.9ghz from memory), 16gb RAM, decent GPU and SSD.

Maybe it’s because I tried sending the raw files from LR rather than opening directly in PS. I assume you were using raw?

TBH I’ve often wondered if there’s something that I’ve done in the ‘setup’ somewhere as I’ve found for quite some time that LR isn’t as fast as I’d like/think it should be. I thought when I upgraded to this MBP it would improve things but it didn’t. It can be fast for a while then it slows and I get the spinning wheel a lot. Sometimes if I just flick through 4-5 images it can do it, and that’s using any files even m4/3.

I might try creating a brand new LR catalogue again, but this time not having it syncing in Dropbox.
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Yeah macs suck.

Yes I always build Brenizers from full size raws.

The main thing with Lightroom / photoshop for good performance is having a good sized fast scratch disk. Not sure if you can set up an external drive as a scratch disk pretty sure you can’t, making mobile devices useless for any intensive post work really.

I have a 1tb ssd that is only used as a scratch disk. You don’t need to use photoshop for building Brenizer style images you can also just merge them as a pano direct from Lightroom.
 
f/2.8 said:
Yeah macs suck.

Yes I always build Brenizers from full size raws.

The main thing with Lightroom / photoshop for good performance is having a good sized fast scratch disk. Not sure if you can set up an external drive as a scratch disk pretty sure you can’t, making mobile devices useless for any intensive post work really.

I have a 1tb ssd that is only used as a scratch disk. You don’t need to use photoshop for building Brenizer style images you can also just merge them as a pano direct from Lightroom.
Click to expand...
I prefer Macs to PCs, plus I always thought Macs were preferred for design software such as PS?

What's a scratch disk? I have a 1TB SSD but it has everything on it, plus I only have about 140GB free so have to constantly delete things off it (mainly raws) to maintain free space.
 
snerkler said:
I prefer Macs to PCs, plus I always thought Macs were preferred for design software such as PS?

What's a scratch disk? I have a 1TB SSD but it has everything on it, plus I only have about 140GB free so have to constantly delete things off it (mainly raws) to maintain free space.
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Macs are awesome, I spent 12 years building PC's for a living and i'd never touch one again, been MAC since 2012 and love them.
 
By the way you can set up a scratch disk on the Thunderbolt port of a Mac (and USB but much slower)

Set up scratch disks in Photoshop

Learn how to select scratch disk, clear scratch disk space, and resolve scratch disk full error in Photoshop.
helpx.adobe.com helpx.adobe.com
 
imattersuk said:
By the way you can set up a scratch disk on the Thunderbolt port of a Mac (and USB but much slower)

Set up scratch disks in Photoshop

Learn how to select scratch disk, clear scratch disk space, and resolve scratch disk full error in Photoshop.
helpx.adobe.com helpx.adobe.com
Click to expand...
Am I understanding this right, you have a separate drive which PS accesses for processing which speeds the process up? Do you still have the files on the main computer or do these go on the scratch disk as well?

I don't have designated thunderbolt ports but I believe the USB-C work as thunderbolt?

TBH, for the amount of processing I do in PS I'm not sure it's worth the expense of a separate drive. Can LR take advantage of it too?
 
snerkler said:
Am I understanding this right, you have a separate drive which PS accesses for processing which speeds the process up? Do you still have the files on the main computer or do these go on the scratch disk as well?

I don't have designated thunderbolt ports but I believe the USB-C work as thunderbolt?

TBH, for the amount of processing I do in PS I'm not sure it's worth the expense of a separate drive. Can LR take advantage of it too?
Click to expand...
Any programme could use it as a scratch drive and if you partition it you can use it to store images on and just set a small partition for the scratch drive. It acts as "virtual" memory, basically it's used by a programme when all of the available RAM is used up. Yes you can use USB-C.
 
snerkler said:
I prefer Macs to PCs, plus I always thought Macs were preferred for design software such as PS?
Click to expand...

10-15 years ago absolutely, now they are just a low spec intel based computer in a fancy box


snerkler said:
Am I understanding this right, you have a separate drive which PS accesses for processing which speeds the process up? Do you still have the files on the main computer or do these go on the scratch disk as well?

I don't have designated thunderbolt ports but I believe the USB-C work as thunderbolt?

TBH, for the amount of processing I do in PS I'm not sure it's worth the expense of a separate drive. Can LR take advantage of it too?
Click to expand...

The scratch drive is for the temporary files created when doing intensive post production. It is advantage for every program but more so for design programs that create large temporary files.

The quicker the drive is the better as it is where all working files will be when you are editing. It needs to be reasonable size for panos etc. For example a decent size Brenizer can generate a temporary file of around 400gb.
 
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f/2.8 said:
10-15 years ago absolutely, now they are just a low spec intel based computer in a fancy box




The scratch drive is for the temporary files created when doing intensive post production. It is advantage for every program but more so for design programs that create large temporary files.

The quicker the drive is the better as it is where all working files will be when you are editing. It needs to be reasonable size for panos etc. For example a decent size Brenizer can generate a temporary file of around 400gb.
Click to expand...
That might be where I ran into issues, I only have 120gb free on the hard drive.

Does the scratch disk automatically empty itself or does it eventually fill?

Would an SSD over USB-C be fast enough?
 
snerkler said:
That might be where I ran into issues, I only have 120gb free on the hard drive.

Does the scratch disk automatically empty itself or does it eventually fill?

Would an SSD over USB-C be fast enough?
Click to expand...

It's temp data. Yes an ssd over usbc will be fast enough, is your usbc bandwidth the same, as TB3? If it is you could go for external nvme which is around 3-4 times faster than a normal ssd.
 
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twist said:
It's temp data. Yes an ssd over usbc will be fast enough, is your usbc bandwidth the same, as TB3? If it is you could go for external nvme which is around 3-4 times faster than a normal ssd.
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Err no idea what the USB-C bandwidth is, I assume TB3 is thunderbolt 3 in which case no idea what bandwidth that is, and no idea what nvme is :oops: :$ Guess I’ve got some reading up to do.
twist said:
@snerkler dig deep if you want the fastest... about 3x as much as if you fitted a internal 1tb nvme to a decent pc.

Samsung X5 1 TB Thunderbolt3 External Solid State Drive (Portable SSD) (MU-PB1T0B): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Buy
www.amazon.co.uk
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:eek:

These are what I usually use for back up drives, but nowhere near as fast.

SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD 1 TB Up to 550 MB/s Read https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B078STRHBX/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_QNauFbX37MYA4
 
Can someone recommended a fast SD card reader please? I use cards with 300mb/s read speeds but they still take “forever” to transfer across. When I used XQD cards from my Nikon file transfer was much quicker even though read speeds weren’t much faster.

Edit: after having looked into it my card reader is only UHS-I so have just bought a UHS-II with 500mb/s read (y)
 
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f/2.8 said:
Yeah macs suck.

Yes I always build Brenizers from full size raws.

The main thing with Lightroom / photoshop for good performance is having a good sized fast scratch disk. Not sure if you can set up an external drive as a scratch disk pretty sure you can’t, making mobile devices useless for any intensive post work really.

I have a 1tb ssd that is only used as a scratch disk. You don’t need to use photoshop for building Brenizer style images you can also just merge them as a pano direct from Lightroom.
Click to expand...

You can set any drive as a scratch disk, Lightroom/photoshop will only see it as another drive, you can set the order they are used in photoshop as well; they will of course be limited by the external interface speed. USB 3 is the minimum otherwise it will be slower than an internal mechanical HDD.

Set up scratch disks in Photoshop

Learn how to select scratch disk, clear scratch disk space, and resolve scratch disk full error in Photoshop.
helpx.adobe.com helpx.adobe.com

@snerkler i don’t think the issue is with the scratch disks. I reckon your mac is out of Ram and is caching to the internal HDD which causes real slowness. I have 52GB (3x16, 1x4GB) in my iMac and if I export a Single A7ii 50mb raw file into Photoshop from Lightroom it takes around 32GB ram, so I would suspect your multiple much larger a7r4 files will far exceed this. You can check the ram usage via activity manager, if the swap is being used your Mac will slow down.

View memory usage in Activity Monitor on Mac

In Activity Monitor, view the amount of system memory being used on your Mac, including physical, compressed, wired and app memory.
support.apple.com

Hope this helps gents
 
G.K.Jnr. said:
Just a simple Snapograph taken at Dungeness Kent UK of what I think is the power section of an old Discarded Winch, possibly used for hauling fishing boats or the catch etc up the beach from the sea. Its just one of the many things scattered about the beach that have just been discarded and left behind.
I've deliberately gone for a higher contrast gritty look to this snap to emphasise the rust & decay etc.
I'm also working on a personal project called Things Left Behind and this will be one of the shots included.

RX10M4, 1/680th @ F5.6, ISO-100, Bit Of Fill Flash, Tripod.
Discarded Winch Power Section-03455 by G.K.Jnr., on Flickr

:ty: for looking., (y):sony:

George.
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Very nice George, love how it just pops.
 
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A7 and Nippon Kogaku 24mm f2.8.

swM1i3U.jpg


upSFYb1.jpg


iZNyDhc.jpg


What a lovely lens this is. It's a bit susceptible to flare though.
 
Fuji Dave said:
Very nice images, and like Mrs Woof Woof image.
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Her best friend back in Thailand is a gay guy she calls Kathoay (pronounced gatoy, Thai for Ladyboy) and Mrs KK sends him pictures to make him jealous and when he is she doesn't hear from him for a while. She thinks when Kathoay sees today's pictures he'll disappear for a few days :D

There does look to be nice separation in that picture despite the wide FoV.
 
twist said:
Not spoiling your fun, just think it wouldve probably been a better idea to put your money towards a few GMs rather than so many bodies.
Click to expand...


I was having a look at the 16-35mm earlier, but got the little Zeiss instead for the 6400 I now only really want the 90mm.
 
A6400 or A6500?
 
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