thinking go lighter

Bruno Gracia

Bruno Gracia

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Feb 14, 2011
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Hi there!

A year back, I bought an Eizo CG246W, just amazing, never seen such a quality, the bad part is that I've only used two days, because I'm travelling and living outside my hometown.

So now I have this Macbook Pro Aluminium from 2008 (Don't know the color gamut but should be pretty good), and I'm wondering if I would go better with this little gem: Vaio Sony Z 3rd Gen, 13 inch display antiglare covering 96% ARGB, in a very small packet 1,18kg. i7, 256SSD, an optional dock with 2gb GPU and BR disc...

What do You think? Good enough for printing purposes?

http://www.mobiletechreview.com/notebooks/Sony-Vaio-Z-2012.htm
 
I am on my second Sony Laptop (currently a flip 15 - fantastic for Lightroom) and find the Sony products are built well and next to Apple are probably the best I have used. That is until it breaks, which granted is not often. But if it does the customer service (in the US anyway) is often less than stellar.
 
Tejasican said:
......But if it does the customer service (in the US anyway) is often less than stellar.
Click to expand...

Tejasican is being generous towards Sony customer service.

Grab your MacBook and run the other way. Many Sony products are meant to be replaced, not fixed.

If weight is a real issue, get a Macbook Air and have the memory maxed out, you will be much better off.

B2
 
For travel and long trips, I have been using an iPad (and the iPad mini for the past year and some). To me, there's no point to doing serious image processing on the road. I want a system, as light as possible, to do communications and very occasional checking of my shooting work, maybe render a couple of snaps for on-the-road posting. The iPad mini with Retina Display and 128G of storage space does this very very well.

My laptop(s) are provided by work: I have a current model MacBook Pro 13" Retina, a slightly older MacBook Air 13", and a current model MacBook Air 11". All three do a terrific job.

G
 
But the color accuracy with non retina are disappointing, even retina displays just cover 74% of the gamut.

Someone can share his experience with wide gamut laptops?
 
i have the mentionned z series in older i5 since about 2 years. ssd is amazing quick. and its terrific, if the price is right buy it in a heartbeat, probably sonys finest, display is really good, and matte non glare to me a must. slips in every small back has workstation power and is featherlight
 
Bruno Gracia said:
But the color accuracy with non retina are disappointing, even retina displays just cover 74% of the gamut.
Click to expand...

I'm not producing fine art grade prints when I'm traveling, unless that is my business.

I think you're over-thinking this issue. Are you traveling and doing photography, or are you producing fine art prints?

Be aware that the vast majority of papers and printing mechanisms cannot match sRGB gamut, which is much less than an iPad can reproduce.

G
 
Bruno Gracia said:
But the color accuracy with non retina are disappointing, even retina displays just cover 74% of the gamut.

Someone can share his experience with wide gamut laptops?
Click to expand...

Okay, Vaio Z user here. I've been through two of those - an early 2011 dual core model and a fully decked out last gen one. And while I'm an unabashed Sony fan, I have switched to a macbook retina for my mobile photo editing needs. The Vaio I still use, but only when I want to crunch data with Excel on-the-go.

The screen is excellent provided that you can have it calibrated properly. With laptops I've found this to be a big pain, since lighting conditions can be predictable. The Z's screen is also pretty dim, but bright enough to reach professional calibration nit levels; it can get difficult to use in bright sunlight, though.

Why did I eventually gave up on using the Z for picture editing? Because of the dismal trackpad and shallow keyboard. It's very easy to key in the wrong shortcut because you don't have a lot of feedback, and a external mouse is absolutely crucial, the trackpad is so bad that you'll never want to use it more than 10-15 minutes. It's the worst trackpad I've ever used on any laptop.
 
Just to be fair, I loved the Z for the most part. The design is great, it's super-light, super-thin, and it packs a punch when you plug the PMD in. The battery lasts about 4-7 hours, and it's probably the smallest laptop ever that can push three 1080p displays.

My question would be, do you see yourself always using a mouse when you're traveling? If so then the Vaio Z is a pretty nice option, if not I'd suggest a 13' rmbp, which has an impeccably excellent trackpad.
 
Bruno Gracia said:
and I will use my new 3880, which space cover it?
Click to expand...

The Epson 3880 supports 16bit input, but this does not affect its gamut and colorspace all that much. It is potentially capable of exceeding sRGB colorspace, but cannot quite achieve the full colorspace of AdobeRGB (1998) in 8bit.

The only printers I know of that can match or exceed AdobeRGB (1998) are much higher end machines sold for commercial printing. Most of these are CMYK web-press printing engines. And then you get into paper limitations...

The whole point to having large component bit depth and ProPhoto RGB colorspace is for editing overhead. It allows much manipulation without clipping values, a high-bit-depth display allowing you to visualize changes easily without clipping for the same reason. But there are very few outputs for the finished products of photography that can deliver larger than the AdobeRGB colorspace in 8bit depth.

I've posted many photos on this and other forums, to flickr, that were processed from in-camera JPEGs to final product using the iPad and Snapseed or Photogene. To date, no one can tell me which ones they are, whether looking at them high-res on a display or seeing the final fine-art-grade print.

G
 
So no need for a normal user to use these high end monitors?
I meant if I want to print for an exhibition some day?

The Vaio will be more than enough with its 96% of ARGB and 100% of Srgb.
 
Godfrey said:
For travel and long trips, I have been using an iPad (and the iPad mini for the past year and some). To me, there's no point to doing serious image processing on the road. I want a system, as light as possible, to do communications and very occasional checking of my shooting work, maybe render a couple of snaps for on-the-road posting. The iPad mini with Retina Display and 128G of storage space does this very very well.

My laptop(s) are provided by work: I have a current model MacBook Pro 13" Retina, a slightly older MacBook Air 13", and a current model MacBook Air 11". All three do a terrific job.

G
Click to expand...


I agree with this. I stared using the Lightroom mobile App to edit (not process) projects in progress. I should be more disciplined, but I find I spend more time editing and thinking about projects if I can do it anywhere, at anytime when the creative urge strikes.

For basic post-production tasks on the road, I suggest the 11" MacBook Air with 8GB ram would suffice The screen is small but sufficient for initial rendering. In most cases the light temperatures where you work on rendering changes from location to location and is unpredictable. Rigorous color calibration becomes moot.
 
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