The Technology Behind Mac’s Trip

Dropped Mac at the airport this morning (6.30am!!!) after an excellent week here.

It was great to finally meet him, and I was (and still am) very impressed that he came all the way from Canada. Apart from anything else it was great to have another ‘tech junkie’ to hang out with, as there is absolutely no one here that fits that bill!!!

A huge part of the trip was spent with cameras in our hands and I certainly learnt a lot from Mac. If you have seen his pictures over on his blog you will know that he takes some pretty impressive stuff. My confidence with F stops, ISO and editing has grown immensely this week, and I was secretly pleased that my ‘eye for a picture’ wasn’t too far behind his. We came up with some useful post production pre sets for the Long Way Round photos that I take, and I was very pleased that in terms of shots of the bikes my stuff was as good as his!!!

Mac brought over his MacBook Air, and I have to say that apart from looking nice I wasn’t at all impressed with it at all!! It didn’t have the power to edit with Lightroom and Photoshop open, and the 13″ screen was too restrictive. I could see how it would be fun to have as light notebook to access the web etc, but it is a very expensive way of doing that. My summary? Over hyped and over priced, and a right ‘girlie piece of kit’!

I don’t think Almerimar has ever seen as many iPhones as it did this week!!! With Mac, Sands and I all using one it was pretty funny, and I have to say I used mine in anger for the first time this trip, specifically bookmarking some locations in Maps for return visits to Almeria. I did find out that a friend has one, but as he had left it in the house when I was with him I can’t verify that face, and to date the only three iPhones that have been spotted in the wild in Almerimar are our three!

The iPod Touch that Mac has is very very sweet indeed. Maybe a little too thin as it feels somewhat fragile, but I really liked it. Have zero requirement for one, and other way more important things on the wish list, but I wouldn’t kick one out of bed as they say.

Spent a few hours over the odd beer talking Macs, workflow, applications etc and we are both basically at the same stage i.e. the days of trying Apps for the sake of it are well and truly in the past, with the only focus now being on using the apps that we know work for the tasks that we need to do. I think my backup strategy was more anal than his, but he is far more proficient with the old keyboard shortcuts that I am.

Got to say thanks for helping out with the printing issue from vMWare Fusion which had been bugging me for ages …… solution was to add the printer as a local printer, but point it to the IP address of the Airport Extreme.

So all in all a truly excellent week. Right now Mac should be boarding in Madrid to get back to his family who all sound great. He plans a family trip back here in the future and it will be a privilege to meet them all.

8 thoughts on “The Technology Behind Mac’s Trip

  1. John Marshall

    Sorry to hear about your lack of ‘techy’ support in your part of the world. Am currently in Mobile (Alabama) where it is all go,but will be with you ere long (Dec) to remedy the situation. Hold on!!!
    PS
    Have you seen the new abacus???

  2. jeremy

    It was good to hear Mac on Tim’s show too. Regarding his photos, too much photoshop for my taste

  3. Chris Marshall Post author

    That is interesting. Mac and I discussed that a fair bit in the context of the photos that I take for the off road motorbike holiday makers. Basically I do no ‘post production’ partly as the fee/time doesn’t warrant it but also because I reckon that a good photo with a D80 is better than the usual standard they will get.

    I tend to prefer the ‘as shot’ approach myself (as does Sands) but can see some benefits of Photoshop and particularly Lightroom ……..

    What I have found though is that once you start ‘fiddling’ it can be hard to stop. I do like the photos that Mac has done though a lot.

  4. Mac Sokulski

    Hmm interesting ….. too much photoshop….. probably the vignetting part, as I know, you’re not a fan of those, Jeremy. Other than that, all the processing that was done in photoshop, on most photos was level correction, and a bit of sharpening. Which is compared to some really nothing.

  5. Chris Marshall Post author

    An issue that I have found is that I get into a rut or maybe better put a style that I tend to repeat on all post processing ….. sort of like a current fad. I think part of this issue is that I am not exactly sure about what a ‘correct’ photograph should be like so tend to go with what I like.

  6. Mac Sokulski

    The “correct” photograph is the one that you like. Or if you are doing it for a client, the one that client likes. It may involve a lot of post processing, or very little. In the “olden” days, photographers would choose different film types for different situations. Different film types would give you different results, depending if it was portraits or landscapes. Now with digital we can recreate these effects with out affecting the original digital photo.
    I always believed that the photos that I take do require some post processing. Some like it some don’t, but really I do it for myself, and not for anyone else.

  7. Chris Marshall Post author

    That is a good and valid point ……..

    Maybe you could publish a few ‘before and after’ photos for comparison’ I know that when I did that a while back I got a lot of really good and constructive comments. I fact I should do it myself again!!

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