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New Mac Pro: What it means for Phase, Leaf

pyrojim

New member
No need for an interface faster than the ability to read the sensor
-bob
Its the entire interface that I like because it is now integrated in all of apples products.... so...so what if it is faster than the sensor can be read? Dont think that will stay that way forever...

Although, I suppose I am still thinking small- I want a slick interface cable...

I should be thinking of when the entire system will be wireless from the back...
 

Ed Hurst

Well-known member
Wow Ed...you must be using "short" exposure times (like 30 sec or less) for each exposure? Well, you can't be going to 1 minute because that would amount to 20-28 hours [even without darkframes]...and outside the polar regions, nights are not that long!

But you're using a Pentax 645D, if I'm not mistaken? So why not shoot 5 or 10 minute stretches of startrails?

Ray

Hi Ray. Good question! But there is method in my madness. If I am shooting in places without light pollution, I do indeed use longer exposures (though not usually as long as 5 mins). However, I often shoot trails in Sydney where I am balancing the trails with quite bright scenes which can bleed into the star areas if very long exposures are used. I have found that 10-15 sec exposures still pick up the stars without letting this happen. I can blend darker exposures of the light areas in layers of course, but the key thing is to stop the bright areas from bleeding into the sky if heavily over-exposed. For that reason, I often end up using shorter exposures and stacking many files! Naturally this pick up fewer trails but it's a compromise.

On another note, I don't use the 645D for star trails because of its compulsory dark frames which would yield discontinuous trails. So I use my D800E for these shots.

To give you an idea of the sort of shot I mean:
[/url] StarTrailsFromFiles_DSC0017-852(PlusFile928ForDarkFrame)Step9CropSpotSMALL by eduardotunnel4, on Flickr[/IMG]
[/url] STARTRAILFROMFILES_MG_0176-211(PLUS212FORSCENEAND218FORDARKFRAME)STEP12V2(STRAIGHTPERS)TidySMALL by eduardotunnel4, on Flickr[/IMG]
 

ondebanks

Member
Hi Ray. Good question! But there is method in my madness. If I am shooting in places without light pollution, I do indeed use longer exposures (though not usually as long as 5 mins). However, I often shoot trails in Sydney where I am balancing the trails with quite bright scenes which can bleed into the star areas if very long exposures are used. I have found that 10-15 sec exposures still pick up the stars without letting this happen. I can blend darker exposures of the light areas in layers of course, but the key thing is to stop the bright areas from bleeding into the sky if heavily over-exposed. For that reason, I often end up using shorter exposures and stacking many files! Naturally this pick up fewer trails but it's a compromise.
Ah, I see! Excellent shots, and thanks for the explanation of your technique.

On another note, I don't use the 645D for star trails because of its compulsory dark frames which would yield discontinuous trails. So I use my D800E for these shots.
I didn't realise the that 645D's dark frames were compulsory! At what exposure time do they kick in?

Ray
 

Ed Hurst

Well-known member
Hi Ray,

There is some complexity around that! It seems to be roughly 30 seconds, but the problem is that repeated shots seem to make it kick in with shorter exposures - almost as though there is some algorithm to deal with building sensor heat or measurement of it...
 

bensonga

Well-known member
I guess this puts the final nail in the coffin of my 2008 Mac Pro. Still sitting in the box, never even fired it up. Two Quadcore processors, 16gb RAM...now a hulking dinosaur. Fifty years from now...a collector's item? Too late...I'll be dead and gone.

It's true what they say (in a different context)...use it or lose it.

Even so, I'm glad to see that Apple FINALLY came out with a new Mac Pro. :thumbs:

Gary
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
I guess this puts the final nail in the coffin of my 2008 Mac Pro. Still sitting in the box, never even fired it up. Two Quadcore processors, 16gb RAM...now a hulking dinosaur. Fifty years from now...a collector's item? Too late...I'll be dead and gone.

It's true what they say (in a different context)...use it or lose it.

Even so, I'm glad to see that Apple FINALLY came out with a new Mac Pro. :thumbs:

Gary
Why don't you sell it?
 

bensonga

Well-known member
Why don't you sell it?
I hate the thought of parting with it, knowing that it's only worth a small fraction what I paid for it. I keep hoping that one day, I'll find or make room in my office for a second workstation and get it set up. Mostly, I'm a WinPC guy and so my main computer is a HP i7 machine, although I've always had a Mac of one sort or another since the late-80s.

Gary
 

bensonga

Well-known member
Tried to convince my wife to let me set it up in our family room, replacing the WinPC she uses...but she's never been a Mac fan. :(
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Tried to convince my wife to let me set it up in our family room, replacing the WinPC she uses...but she's never been a Mac fan. :(
Now I see... this home has 3 Macs but no wife. Does that mean that the two are incompatible? That I have to get rid of a Mac to find a wife? :(
 
This is from: Intel Xeon E5 Chip – What You Need to Know - Canadian Web Hosting Blog and News

"Anytime Intel releases a new server chip, it usually is a time for celebration. What this means for server customers is more power for their servers and new technology integration that creates additional avenues for improved performance and design. Earlier this week, Intel officially launched their latest Xeon E5 CPU platform, which delivers an estimated 80-percent performance gain over the previous generation of Intel's server chips. With this platform, server customers have seen more than a 100x’s improvement in raw performance and processing power over the last 10 years."

"The new E5 Xeons each processor now has a maximum of 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes, with each lane running at a top level of eight gigatransfers per second — roughly equivalent to 6.4Gbps. The amount of power consumed by the chips has grown slightly, with thermal design power (TDP) for the E5 family ranging from 60W to 150W. A new feature targeted at high-performance computing and supercomputing, named, Advanced Vector Extensions, which essentially doubles the floating-point performance of all the processors. This is significant especially for customers with compute intensive applications like medical imaging, heavy database read/writes and customers working with heavy visuals."
 
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