Wedding photography

I think Im posting in right area, if not I apologise. It is time to purchase a new

desktop. I am looking at one that will be ok for CS3 and a wedding photography

business. I have always had PC. I know that no matter what I say this will start a

PC or Mac debate, not what I am looking for. What brand is most reliable and what

do I need power & memory wise? All help is very appreciated

Jim

OK, im not gonna suggest a PC i know there good, fast and cheap but i dont know much about them.

 

What i could suggest is a Imac24inch 3-4 gig of ram; fast & expensive : ) but in the Mac world, they are your best bet for your money

 

 

know let see where this post is going ; ).

Ok , Would I then need to replace my CS3 windows for a Mac CS3? and what about the other PC on my home wireless network?

I think you can have a cross platform update, but you will loose all your pc license..so you migth be better to stick with a pc then..i will let other user that could have the same setup as you give you better advice.

As a person who manages an IT support function, I think the PC you know how to

use the best is always the best choice. I use both, I prefer Macs, but that means

nothing. I also have a home-made desktop at home running Vista 64 that's rock

solid.

 

the rule of thumb for power is not as simple; if you're using a 32 bit version of

Windows, adding a ton of memory might not help since those versions can't address

it all. For a new PC, I'd recommend Vista 64, 8G of RAM, and suitable hard drives.

By suitable, I mean one for the OS and apps and some data, and whatever you

might need to store images. I have a pair of mirrored 750G drives for image storage,

in addition to optical backup. This is all highly situational, however, since if you're

running a business, you may want to consider a dedicated server.

 

On the Mac side, avoid the Mini. Not enough video horsepower. the iMacs are nice,

but I hate the glossy screens. Hate them. That leaves the Mac pro, which is a

wonderful machine, but expensive. If you get a Mac Pro, get it "stripped" and add

memory and drives yourself since Apple really overcharges for those items. Which

is why I have a home made Vista 64 PC at home...

If you shoot weddings in RAW, then you will need a sizeable amount of storage space. There are a couple of storage related things that I really don't like about the iMac is that the hard disk isn't user replaceable for 99% of the iMac users. If you keep your RAW files, then you'll fill up the internal hard disk in a little over a season. This means you will be using external storage devices for things other than backup, and the iMac doesn't have eSATA ports; there's Firewire and USB. Firewire is significantly slower than a SATA connection with some of the new hard drives (and I'm not talking about WD Raptors either). USB is even slower than Firewire. When editing there's a lot of reading and writing to the HD, and with wedding photography there's a lot of files. A Mac Pro is a lot more suitable for this work than an iMac, but it costs way more. A Hackintosh is the best bang for the buck if you really want OSX, but there aren't too many people willing to go there.

 

If you are never going to open up your computer, or tend to buy the very affordable 500 gig, USB drives, then it doesn't make much difference which way you go.

Fire wire 800 or even 400 is quite fast enough to hundreds of images at a time. I do it

on a regular basis on an iMac. You don't need to shell out for a Mac Pro for

photography. iMac 24" with 4 GB ram and an external fw HD will work quite well.