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What mac hardware do you use for your Photography?

Full time advertising and fine art shooter:

iMac Pro 10 core, 128GB ram, 16GB GPU, 2TB PCIE
2018 MacBook Pro 15" 2.9ghz 6 core, 32GB ram, 2TB PCIE
204TB of diversified RAID 5.
 
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mid 2011 iMac 27, 2.7ghz/ 12GB/ 1TB HD Backup by 2TB HD & 4TB HD
Fulltime EDM House Photographer
 
I use an iMac Pro 10 core, 64 GB memory and the Vega 64 graphics..I shoot nothing but RAW and use Capture One with the Tangent Element Kb panel to facilitate editing.. The Tangent allows simultaneous corrections without any stuttering..each adjustment is responded to immediately..For minor tweaks in final jpeg from other cameras I use Pixelmator Pro.
This iMac Pro is also used for my 4K video editing with FCPX. Have several 8T external drives for storage and backup..
 
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2015 MBP 15" with 16GB of RAM and AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2GB, but I'm going to be getting a desktop before long. I use a 2TB Samsung T5 portable SSD for my current library and backup older photos to two hard drives and keep my best photos backed up a third time to Dropbox. I use an LG 27UK650-W 27" 4K IPS display. But I actually do a lot of my editing on my iPad Pro 10.5" using Lightroom CC and then will finish the very best shots in Lightroom on my Mac if I intend to print them or need to stitch a panorama together or something else weird like blending together multiple exposures of a rocket launch. It's nice to just kick back and edit on the iPad, and it's great for rating and flagging. Sometimes if I have the full resolution file off my iPad while traveling I'll export the full size and then edit in Affinity Photo to touch up areas or dust spots.
 
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Micky Do said:
Until recently a Mac Mini here too, but nothing flash. Just a base model early 2009 Mac Mini, the only upgrade being an additional 4 GB RAM, for a total of 5 GB. It is connected to a 22 inch Samsung Monitor. I still use the Mini to archive keepers, but I got a new MacBook Air (base model again 1.8 GHz i5 / 8 GB RAM / 128 GB SSD) a few weeks ago, which I now use for editing.

No fancy software either, just using Photos 3.0 on the Air, which I find OK..... a big step up for on the Photos 1.0 that I got landed with when I upgraded the Mini to El Capitan (more recent OS updates have dropped support for the 2009 Mac Mini). I quite liked iPhoto, but lost it with the El Capitan update.

Nothing flash in the camera department either, just a Fujifilm X20, which has a 12 megapixel sensor. No interchangeable lens, just the fixed one with up to 4 x zoom.

It would be nice to have something like the Fujifilm XPro 2 with a 50 - 140 zoom, and a more recent mid-level Mac Mini for editing, but all that is beyond my budget at this stage. Not interested in getting into more advanced apps.... I'll leave them for the pros.

As a photographer, I just like to document things, usually with a bit of action going on. I'm not looking for anything artistic or whatever that would put me in the "keen amateur" category. My photos are used on various web sites or groups and also often by the local press for sports reports.

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Really like the attitude.

At times (often really) I regret having spent as much as I have on past improvements.

In my case going beyond my needs for the sake of the word 'professional'. I seemed to forget that it only meant getting paid for what you do - not how complex your work flow is. ;-)
 
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I have a mid-2011 iMac with a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 (I think 2nd generation) and 12 GB of RAM. It's really showing its age these days. It can very painfully run Lightroom but it's not even worth it. Even Photos is sluggish with a lot of lag in edits. I think it's time for an upgrade so I'm excited to see what Apple announces tomorrow. Aside from what might be coming, would Apple's current base model iMac with 2.3GHz dual‑core Intel Core i5 and 16 GB of RAM comfortably run Lightroom? I'm not looking for any really in-depth editing, just basic slider stuff. I'd definitely be interested in some spec upgrades, but for now I'm just curious what a minimum starting point would be.
 
TonyC28 said:
I have a mid-2011 iMac with a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 (I think 2nd generation) and 12 GB of RAM. It's really showing its age these days. It can very painfully run Lightroom but it's not even worth it. Even Photos is sluggish with a lot of lag in edits. I think it's time for an upgrade so I'm excited to see what Apple announces tomorrow. Aside from what might be coming, would Apple's current base model iMac with 2.3GHz dual‑core Intel Core i5 and 16 GB of RAM comfortably run Lightroom? I'm not looking for any really in-depth editing, just basic slider stuff. I'd definitely be interested in some spec upgrades, but for now I'm just curious what a minimum starting point would be.
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I can’t see why not. I too am ready to upgrade from my late 2012 iMac. The biggest speed bump you’ll get is (presumably) going from a spinner drive to an SSD.
I have the 1TB fusion drive and 16GB ram with an i5 processor. It’s okay on LR but the drive is pretty near full and I really want a Mac mini Pro with a pair of matching BenQ monitors. Currently I run an NEC screen with my iMac as glossy screens don’t work for me for photo editing.
 
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Apple fanboy said:
I can’t see why not. I too am ready to upgrade from my late 2012 iMac. The biggest speed bump you’ll get is (presumably) going from a spinner drive to an SSD.
I have the 1TB fusion drive and 16GB ram with an i5 processor. It’s okay on LR but the drive is pretty near full and I really want a Mac mini Pro with a pair of matching BenQ monitors. Currently I run an NEC screen with my iMac as glossy screens don’t work for me for photo editing.
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I’m definitely interested to see what the new Minis will have to offer.
 
I'm also very interested to see what (if any) Mini improvements will come. As much as I like my iMac setup, I'd still prefer to have a separate monitor and computer. I miss the old desktop / tower days....
 
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2018 2.9GHz 1TB i9 32GB RAM MBP with an LG UltraFine 5K Display

I'm an engineer and strong photography enthusiast. Whether running SolidWorks in BootCamp or PS and Lr in macOS I have been pretty happy with what I am getting out of a laptop.
 
I'm on a 2014 rMBP with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB drive.
In my workflow, I copy photos from the camera to the SSD (one reason I love the pre 2016 is the built in card reader), Usually all my editing happens in Lightroom 6. No subscription model for me, because I don't believe in it.
Once my current batch of pictures is completely edited, got my favorites exported and distributed, I move them to a 1TB USB3 drive that my main library resides on.
I just got another 1TB drive to mirror the first one as a backup using Bombich Carbon Copy Cloner 5.
Love that software as it makes backup easy. I just set up a rule that whenever those two drives are plugged in at the same time, the first mirrors to the other and I also back up all the Lightroom library files/presets from the MacBook at the same time.
 
Full time (mostly) retired guy . 2013 MBA , i7/8/512 , its my travel machine . I use it to store stuff from CF/SD cards while I'm away .Works great but I have a nice HP tower for editing . Got tired of waiting for a new Apple headless desktop about a year and a half/2 years back so ended up with a Windows machine . I've always had a Windows box for work stuff so I was certainly not traumatized by the change . Still prefer MacOS though . Maybe a new mini in a few years assuming Apple doesn't let it languish like they did with the 2014.
 
I have a Late 2009 Mac mini (2.53 GHz, 4GB Ram), a 23" Apple Cinema Display and a Epson V500 for scanning film. I use Lightroom 6 (I don't want to pay a subscription particularly since, as I understand it, the current and future subscription versions of Lightroom don't run on El Capitan) and sometimes Silver Efex Pro with files from a digital camera.

The Mac is a little slow from time to time but the whole process is slow (take film to lab, spend an age scanning etc). I don't think I can afford current Apple prices so I hope it all continues working for a long time.
 
I'm using a late 2015 27" 5k iMac with track pad for the bulk of my editing. No complaints. All my photography is on www.oneintenwords.com and associated socials.

Thinking seriously about adding a 12.9" iPad Pro to do some lighter editing so I can free myself from the desktop once in a while. I've been toying around with Lightroom CC Mobile on my old iPad Air and like the experience. I think I'd enjoy more screen over the 11" version.
 
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Late 2015 5 k iMac with 24gb of ram. After using mac towers for ever this was my first all in one machine. I bought it for the display. I must say I am very happy with the machine and will probably buy another iMac when it comes time to replace this one. I was a photo retouched for years and now I’d work in prepress, and thought I would never touch a glossy screen. But it the correct room it is fantastic.
 
For those using MacBook Pros, have you had any issues with overheating and throttling?
 
Look forward to hearing how the new mini fairs for you all.

I’m still good with my base 2017 5K iMac. I just learned this past week that it can handle 1080p gaming pretty darn well under bootcamp.
 
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