PHOTOGRAPHY GEAR GUIDE: COMPUTERS + TECH

Apple 15.4″ MacBook Pro Notebook Computer with Retina Display
Whether you’re a Mac or a PC the best thing you can do to keep the pixels flowing in your post-processing software is to max out the RAM and upgrade to the best graphic card available.

Get the full specs at Amazon | B&H

Apple 27″ iMac
Great affordable desktop option for tethered capture and post-processing if you max out the RAM and upgrade to the best graphic card available.

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Seagate 2TB Slim Portable External USB 3.0 Hard Drive
Hard drives are really, really cheap. Memories are priceless. Get a pair of external hard drives for redundant storage. Use the second as a backup for the first. When you fill them up, buy two more. One day you’ll thank me.

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OWC Other World Computing ThunderBay IV 4-Bay Thunderbolt 2 Drive Enclosure This is a four bay, SATA III 6 Gb/s enclosure and each bay will support a 3.5″ hard drive or SSD. Once drives are installed, you can RAID them using the software RAID of your choice to setup the ThunderBay 4 for multi-drive performance or data redundancy.

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Synology DS1813+ DiskStation 8-Bay NAS Server
NAS Server from Synology is a network attached storage solution built for speed and reliability with a 2.13 GHz dual core processor and 2GB of DDR3 RAM (upgradable to 4GB). Load 3.5″ or 2.5″ SATA (II) drives into any one of the eight bays located on the back of the enclosure for up to 32TB of storage. Network connection available through four redundant Gigabit Ethernet ports plus four USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 ports for local connection.

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HGST Deskstar NAS 3.5-Inch 4TB 7200RPM SATA III Hard Drive
Enterprise-quality 4TB hard drives are my choice for business critical files like my archives. This drive is designed for use in NAS systems as it comes equipped with a SATA 6 Gb/s interface, a 64 MB cache memory buffer, and a 7200 rpm rotational speed ensuring efficient drive performance.

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i1 Display Pro
The latest i1 Pro Display is greatly improved for calibration of the latest retina displays and LCD projectors. It’s small size and durability handles the bumps in the road like a champ.

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i1 Publish Pro 2
Maintaining a properly color-managed workflow saves you time and money. Coupled with the latest i1 Profiler software, the new i1 Pro 2 is the perfect choice if you want to create custom printer profiles for your workflow

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X-Rite ColorChecker Passport
ColorChecker Classic 24 Patch target that easily fits in your bag. Shoot a frame in each lighting situation and you’ll always be able to find your neutral.

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Tether Tables
Tether Tables safely hold your laptop where you want it and they fit standard light stands or tripods that you probably already have on set.

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Tether Cables
Since I’ve got big feet and all the grace of a mule, I love the High-Visibility Orange TetherPro USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Active Extension Cables. They keep me from tripping and tearing down the set.

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Cable Management
I love JerkStoppers because they keep the connection to your camera and computer rock solid when tethering…

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Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5
Since it debuted, Lightroom has become the default must-have image editing software. It pays for itself many times over in the ability to quickly batch apply looks and adjustment.

Get the Full Version at Amazon | B&H
Upgrade at Amazon | B&H

Adobe Photoshop CS6
Your best deal is the subscribe to Photoshop CC – but Photoshop CS6 is still available for those who prefer to buy and own. For all the advances and great time-savings in Lightroom, Photoshop remains the only software for real pixel-pushing image retouching.

Get Mac Version at B&H | Get PC Version at B&H

Capture One Pro 7
Rock solid, industry-standard tethered capture software. Capture One Pro 7 excels in its ability to produce high-quality imagery with exceptional color balance and fine detail with intuitive and efficient control capabilities.

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onOne Software Perfect Photo Suite 8
This software offers a whole suite of versatile photo editing solution for fine-tuning and enhancing the look of imagery within an intuitive and efficient interface. Available as a Premium stand-alone app or as Plugin version for Abobe Lightroom.

Get Premium Version at Amazon | B&H
Get Lightroom Plugin at Amazon | B&H

Drive Genius 3 by ProSoft Engineering
If you use Mac this is the single best piece of software to defrag and ensure the health of your hard drive. If you’ve ever taken a Mac into apple so they can run diagnostics on the machine, this is what they use.

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Alsoft DiskWarrior 4.0
DiskWarrior is the safest, the most technologically advanced, and the most powerful utility to eliminate directory damage available for any computer. Instead of patching the original directory, it builds a new replacement directory using data recovered from the original directory, thereby recovering files and folders that you thought were lost and that no other program could recover.

Get the full specs at Amazon

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