Laptop for photo editing and WFH

[Tricky_Trev]

Ooh lovely, I have serious glass envy. And I thought I had some decent kit! I bought my body second hand, low shutter count and mint so no worries there. I used to buy second hand kit all the time. Nikon gear tends to last, even if it looks battered it's usually optically ok.
What's the tokina like? I've heard mixed reviews?

It took me a while to get used to it. When I bought the tokina, the temptation was to shoot everything ultra wide, even when it didn’t need to be. So I didn’t get good results at first as I was using it wrong. Once I calmed down a bit with it, and used it in the right situations, I started to love it. For the price I think it’s a good buy. It’s sharp, though not as sharp as my Sigmas. I haven’t used any other ultra wide lens though, so can’t comment on how it compares to rival lenses.

At the moment though, I like telephoto landscapes more, so the tokina isn’t even getting in my bag at all (pre-covid19!). Not a reflection on the lens though, just the photos I want to take.

 

[crublue1]

It took me a while to get used to it. When I bought the tokina, the temptation was to shoot everything ultra wide, even when it didn’t need to be. So I didn’t get good results at first as I was using it wrong. Once I calmed down a bit with it, and used it in the right situations, I started to love it. For the price I think it’s a good buy. It’s sharp, though not as sharp as my Sigmas. I haven’t used any other ultra wide lens though, so can’t comment on how it compares to rival lenses.

At the moment though, I like telephoto landscapes more, so the tokina isn’t even getting in my bag at all (pre-covid19!). Not a reflection on the lens though, just the photos I want to take.

I've heard if you get a good one then it's ok, but the qc isn't as good as sigmas. One guy I read about sent 3 back before he got one he was happy with.
Anyway I digress, can I ask did you go straight to light room or did you start on one of the free ones? I'm reluctant to shell out at the moment.

 

[sir baconface]

Advise to any one... do not get serious about photography as a hobby unless you are wadded! Already have photography gear worth £3-4k but it took me forever to build it up. Then you need a laptop that’s over a grand too, to run the software. Expensive thing to enjoy!

To be honest, most hobbies get expensive the more you get into them.

Mine doesn’t involve a big outlay ...unless I get caught.

 

[Tricky_Trev]

I've heard if you get a good one then it's ok, but the qc isn't as good as sigmas. One guy I read about sent 3 back before he got one he was happy with.
Anyway I digress, can I ask did you go straight to light room or did you start on one of the free ones? I'm reluctant to shell out at the moment.

I went straight to Lightroom, but I did watch dozens and dozens of YouTube videos to learn how to use it before committing the money. It’s not as daunting as it looks, I can vouch for that. There’s some amazing tutorial videos out there for any level of photo editing.

 

[crublue1]

I went straight to Lightroom, but I did watch dozens and dozens of YouTube videos to learn how to use it before committing the money. It’s not as daunting as it looks, I can vouch for that. There’s some amazing tutorial videos out there for any level of photo editing.

OK mate cheers for that.

 

[Tricky_Trev]

Anyone have any thoughts on Acer laptops? Are they reliable or not?

And specifically, the Acer Aspire 5?

Core i7 processor
8GB RAM
1TB SSD
15.6 inch Full HD screen
Dedicated NVIDIA MX250 graphics card

For £799.99

Seems ok on paper for photo editing? I won’t be doing any heavy gaming and nor will I be video editing, so the graphics card should be enough, despite it not being high end? I hope.

Would like 16GB RAM but have to compromise somewhere.

Thoughts?

 

[chedinho]

Anyone have any thoughts on Acer laptops? Are they reliable or not?

And specifically, the Acer Aspire 5?

Core i7 processor
8GB RAM
1TB SSD
15.6 inch Full HD screen
Dedicated NVIDIA MX250 graphics card

For £799.99

Seems ok on paper for photo editing? I won’t be doing any heavy gaming and nor will I be video editing, so the graphics card should be enough, despite it not being high end? I hope.

Would like 16GB RAM but have to compromise somewhere.

Thoughts?

https://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=9MF56EA&opt=ABU&sel=NTB

nowhere near the price you want to pay. But it is a great laptop.
I was looking to pay £500 like you until I saw the spectre.
I’m not an expert. I wanted something nice that would do the job I wanted it to do without any fuss. And it does.
I edit my GoPro videos on it. What once was a toil is quite easy and enjoyable now.

 

[Tricky_Trev]

https://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=9MF56EA&opt=ABU&sel=NTB

nowhere near the price you want to pay. But it is a great laptop.
I was looking to pay £500 like you until I saw the spectre.
I’m not an expert. I wanted something nice that would do the job I wanted it to do without any fuss. And it does.
I edit my GoPro videos on it. What once was a toil is quite easy and enjoyable now.

Yeah the spectre looks really nice. Do you find you use the convertible-ness of it a lot? You sound similar to me in that I went in thinking £500 would do the job, yet I nearly ordered a high-spec Dell XPS 15 yesterday for £1449!! You find yourself looking at an £800 laptop and thinking hmm.. for just £150 more I can get this. Then you justify £950 as your budget. Then you move up to £1,100, before then thinking fuck it, I want the best! But I decided to snap out of it and look at the £700-900 range a bit more. If the Acer Aspire 5 is good enough I’ll get that. If not, I might just end up spending a similar amount to you.

You certainly don’t regret going that far over your initial budget then?

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

I am using an Acer Aspire 6 (A615-51-881T).

Intel i7-8550U, 1.6GHz (boost up to 3.4GHz)
20GB Memory (4GB DDR4 + 16GB Intel Optane SSD cache used as additional memory space)
1TB HDD

I think I paid about £600 for it on offer in PC Wold about 18 months ago.

I can run LR and PS simultaneously, and I've got 13500+ images in my LR Catalogue.

It does get a bit creaky every now and again when working with particularly large images in PS, but for basic editing in LR it is fine.

 

[chedinho]

Yeah the spectre looks really nice. Do you find you use the convertible-ness of it a lot? You sound similar to me in that I went in thinking £500 would do the job, yet I nearly ordered a high-spec Dell XPS 15 yesterday for £1449!! You find yourself looking at an £800 laptop and thinking hmm.. for just £150 more I can get this. Then you justify £950 as your budget. Then you move up to £1,100, before then thinking fuck it, I want the best! But I decided to snap out of it and look at the £700-900 range a bit more. If the Acer Aspire 5 is good enough I’ll get that. If not, I might just end up spending a similar amount to you.

You certainly don’t regret going that far over your initial budget then?

I regretted it when I first had to tighten the purse strings for a month.
I don’t regret owning it. I have been more than impressed with it.
I’ve been able to mess about with the editing of my videos with ease.
I’ve never used the convertible part. I’ve not even thought about it until I read your post. There is probably a lot more to this laptop that I don’t use. I thought it better to have more than less.

It wasn’t easy buying a laptop. I might start putting £10 a month aside for the next one.