Dell Precision M6400 and photography

The proper title should be "Dell Precision M6400 and a Leica M9, Phase One P45+ and Canon 1DsIII" but that's just a bit too long.

I'm probably not your "normal" photographer in that I choose not to use an Mac for my work. Don't get me wrong, I did use one several years ago however I've used PC's much longer and when the time came to upgrade computers I chose to return to a PC - warts and all. The studio computer which I've had for several years is a Dell Precision 690 with 32GB RAM, 2-video cards supporting 4 monitors, as well as 4-internal hard drives and 2-Drobos totally close to 12 terabits of storage. I wanted a laptop that would hold its own while on the road and when I replaced my reviously underpowered laptop I decided to go all in and ordered the Precision Workstation M6400. I've been using the 690 now since August 2006 and the 6400 for close to a year (ordered February 2009); both computers have far exceeded my expectations.

I use 2-cameras producing large files with every image and Sandy's 1DsIII that produces a slight smaller file. I also shoot multiple images that are either stacked one on top of another to achieve focus or stitched together for a panorama, either of these techniques often produce files larger than 1.5GB. My normal workflow is to download all the images from the day each night saving them on 2-separate external hard drives. I then open the images on one of the drives to ensure I achieved what I was after and do anywhere from slight to through processing; there's nothing worse than having 4-images all taken with a slightly different focal point thinking that it's going to be okay only to find you goofed when you're 1,000 miles away. Thus you need just as good equipment after the image is captured as what you used to capture it in the first place; I needed a laptop that was as close as possible to my studio computer.

I had originally ordered the M6400 with 1-drive and 8GB RAM knowing I'd grow into it. I quickly added a second drive and left it in that configuration until just recently. I've also been using a set of Western Digital USB Passports 250GB external drives for temporary storage. The main problem with standard external drives are that they are usually slow drives spinning around 5400 and connected using USB. The external drives can and have caused bottlenecks while attempting to process images on the road. That's changed.

I've just finished tweaking the M6400 to it's fullest potential as well as the external drives. Going to Cruicial.com I upgraded the RAM to max out at 16GB at the same time swapping the OS drive for a Crucial 250GB SSD. The original thought was to also change the 2nd drive out as well however that proved to be impossible as the connections wouldn't line up properly so I've kept that drive the same. What I've done is taken the 2nd SSD I bought for this upgrade and placed it into a Macally PHR-S250CC Firewire-400/USB 2.0 external drive. I chose the Macally because it has 2-firewire ports that allow for multiple drives to be daisy chained (the M6400 as a single 6-pin port). I've daisy chained the four external drives together and have more than enough storage and speed while on the road.

Bottom line is that I have a kickass (yes that's a technical term) road system that allows me to work on images on the fly thus letting me know that I got what I wanted or more importantly if I need to reshoot. While the entire retrofit was expensive it's not as expensive as if I lost an image.

This is what's been added or changed or replaced:
• 16GB RAM
• 1-250GB SSD internal (it now takes less than 30 seconds to boot and CS5 and C1 Pro are much faster)
• 1-250GB SSD external firewire drive
• 2-300GB external firewire drives
• 1-128GB SSD external drive that I had laying around that will be used for video storage.

This entire system rocks! I've gone to Dell recently and see the replacement to the M6400 is the new M6500 with up to 32GB RAM! I thought the 6400 was fast. It looks like laptops will have more and more RAM in the future; no wonder Dells calls these mobile workstations.

Just a minor point of irritation... After cloning the OS drive onto the new SSD drive I of course opened my primary imaging software, Capture One 5 Pro and CS5. While both programs opened much faster than they had before, I had a slight problem with one of my plug-ins namely Nik Viveza 2. Viveza 2 thought it was running on a trail basis and when I entered the product code it kept bouncing an error message. Not a great thing to happen right before Christmas. I contacted support at Nik and 5 days later got an answer that included a link for a patch that fixed a "known issue on some computers". I'm pleased to say that I just reinstalled Viveza 2 along with the patch and all seems to be working as it should. Two notes here; I run everything in a 64 bit environment and my other Nik plug-in Silver Efex Pro caused no problems whatsoever. I plan on obtaining a trial of HDR Efex Pro early next year and hope to be able to report on that.

Thanks as always for letting me share.

Happy Holidays to all

Don

Saying goodbye to Shiprock

We left Farmington/Shiprock NM area early Tuesday after spending 3-days shooting in great weather. Sandy & I were at breakfast Tuesday morning and received a weather advisory saying to expect winds in excess of 50MPH with gusts even higher. We took a look outside the window and saw clear blue skies both agreed that the past couple of days were as good as it would be and decided to cut our stay by 2-days.

Normally I say the worse the weather the better the images however with winds at 50 MPH and higher gusts, we'd have conditions that just wouldn't be safe for either us or our equipment. Besides we need to be able to see to capture images and with all that dust and dirt blowing the visibility would be cut drastically. We did however have 3-days of great shooting conditions so we can't complain.

We're back in Tucson now and will continue to work on the images from both Shiprock as well as the Jackson Hole area. Christmas is right around the corner and orders for our DVD set are picking up so there's plenty to do here.

We have a simple shooting schedule for next year; we return to Yosemite late February and plan on stopping at Death Valley on our return leg. We also plan to return to the Jackson Hole area later in the year and in-between all this we have work scheduled here in Tucson. The plan is to have Volume III of our DVD released in the spring so stay turned for that.

Sandy & I wish to take this opportunity to wish everyone a safe holiday season and an even safer new years.

The image you see on this page was taken on our way out of Farmington. We had been passing this area everyday as we drove out to Shiprock and it wasn't until the last day that we noticed the "snowman" we call Scratchy. Scratchy is sitting in front of a firehouse in Farmington and made of tumbleweeds.



Sandy & Don

Shiprock (Tsé Bitʼaʼí) "rock with wings" or "winged rock

 Canon 1DsIII 24/70 (70mm) f/8 1/125 ISO 50

We arrived in the Shiprock area around 2-P.M. on Friday and were greeted with perfect conditions, blue skies and beautiful cloud coverage.  The conditions were so good we decided to drive out to the area before we even checked into the hotel as we wanted to take advantage of the conditions while they lasted.  We ended staying in the area for several hours before finally heading out to find our hotel.

 Canon 1DsIII 24/70(68mm) f/8 1/125 ISO 50

Canon 1DsIII 24/70(48mm) f/8 1/100 ISO 50

Saturday wasn't near as good as Friday afternoon; we woke to clear skies and very little clouds and a lot of wind.  It was also 28 degrees in the morning warming up to the low 50's by afternoon.  We made the trek to the Shiprock area once again and concentrated on the western view whereas we had been on at the eastern view the previous afternoon.  Once you drive off BIA 13 the roads turn into dirt and gravel with some ruts.  It's been dry so far this trip however we can see where rain could seriously affect the conditions of the dirt roads.  Then there are for lack of a better term, trails.  These trails are heavily rutted in places and you'll need a high clearance vehicle throughout.  In other words if you're driving a rental car don't do it.

Canon 1DsIII 24/70(35mm) f/8 1/80 ISO 50

Canon 1DsIII 135mm f/8 1/100 ISO 50

Yesterday, Sunday greeted us with red skies as the sun rose in the east and we had some of the clouds we had Friday afternoon.  We decided to return to the original area we visited Friday afternoon stopping several times to capture images.  This time we followed the trail which in some places was very faint and others just a couple of ruts.  However we managed to drive completely around the rock ending up at a stop we liked from the day before.

 Cambo WRS/P45+ Schneider 72mm f/8 1/250 ISO 50

Cambo WRS/P45+ Schneider 120mm f/8 1/250 ISO 50

Cambo WRS/P45+ Schneider 120mm f/8 1/250 ISO 50

Today we have clear skies with zero clouds.  We've decided to take it easy today and maybe see some of the other sights near the Shiprock/Farmington NM area as well as catch up on the images from the past couple days.  Tomorrow and Wednesday are rumored to be better days with a chance of snow and cloudy skies so we'll hit the area once again before leaving the area.

Leica M9 24mm f/8 1/350 ISO 200

Leica M9 24mm f/8 1/350 ISO 160

Enjoy the images and Happy Holidays!



Sandy & Don