A photographer dream? New iMac with 27", 14.7 megapixel (5K) retina display

[ahsanford]

I have never cared for the all-in-one imac design. I prefer my peripherals to remain separate and easily switchable in case something breaks or there is an upgrade.

Unfortunately, Apple doesn't sell a classic desktop computer. You have a choice between:

• Really roughing it: iPad and keyboard
• A laptop on a stand plugged into a monitor (my choice for many years)
• A mini: a little shuttle that has relatively limited horsepower and limited upgradeability
• An all in one like the iMac (which is upgradeable if you don't mind following some step by step guides: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iMac_Intel_27%22_EMC_2639)
• A budget busting Mac Pro.
• Or you spec a killer PC and set it up as a hackintosh, but that's fraught with some degree of risk -- risk of buying components that don't play nicely with MacOS, risk of cooking components, risk of being locked out with subsequent OS updates, etc.

The value proposition has been best with the Mini, but I have considered replacing my 5 year old Macbook Pro with an iMac as I never use the laptop out of the docked position these days (due to iPad use, phones capable of moving files more easily, etc.).

So the iMac announcement seems like a feature-level winner, but there are some drawbacks:

• The last iMac was a much better value proposition. I believe there's a huge price bump for the new retina 5k version.
• How many video cards natively support that massive resolution? Upgrading to a nicer card in 2-3 years time (a common move by PC builders to stretch the life of their PCs) may be difficult, expensive, or outright impossible if Apple has a difficult mount geometry (which is highly possible with these kind of all-in-one rigs).
• If you also use your nice Photoshop box to play games, you are likely hosed. 99% of the world presently makes all of its desktop/TV games for 1920x1080 resolution, and we all play them on monitors with exactly that resolution, as leaving that native resolution on an LCD monitor aliases everything all to hell. So with that fancy new monitor, you either have to (a) enjoy gaming on a fuzzy TV like view or (b) wait until game companies offer games that run in a native 5k format (don't hold your breath) and you crush your video card trying to render all those pixels real time. So if I bought this, it would be a dedicated Photography box only and I'd need additional space and different monitor for a gaming PC.

- A

 

[ahsanford]

Oh yeah, I forgot. Ever-so-green Apple uses 100% arsenic free glass on their displays, ipads, phones, etc. I always forgot about that because my MBP is plugged into a Dell 24" widescreen matte monitor.

A glass display is a categorical fail for me, resolution be damned. I have two large windows in my office -- the reflections would be horrible.

- A

 

[tolusina]

It is a POS! Who cares about a 5K display if it is only sRGB

What is the colour space of the Internet and almost every computer screen? sRGB.

This ^ from the guy so thoroughly dissatisfied with Canon camera's current DR???
You desire (but cannot afford) the ultimate in DR but are also satisfied with limited gamut?

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

5120x2880 pixels: http://www.apple.com/imac-with-retina/

not bad.

But I'd go for the 5k Dell, it will have wide gamut (programmable sRGB emulation mode too of course), programmable high bit internal LUT, programmable screen uniformity compensation, if it follow the path of the UP2414Q it won't use PWM and will use fancier direct current control of the LEDs for brightness dimming.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

I have never cared for the all-in-one imac design. I prefer my peripherals to remain separate and easily switchable in case something breaks or there is an upgrade.

+100000000000000000000000000

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

It is a POS! Who cares about a 5K display if it is only sRGB

What is the colour space of the Internet and almost every computer screen? sRGB.

A lot of photo people have wide gamut, although many don't. Most of the better IPS LCD screens are wide gamut.

It's weird that Apple OS is like the only OS that is totally color-managed and yet they are the only company that doesn't make wide gamut displays!

Overall the 5k vs 1080p will make the most overall difference for sure, but don't knock wide gamut. It can make a difference for stuff like fall foliage, golden evening lighting on almost anything, sunsets (sunrises if you are awake), bright color clothing and cars, flowers, brilliantly plumaged birds and those are some pretty top notch subject types to shoot. Plus stuff like emeralds and certain minerals and tropical waters.

Even a simple red rose will clip something horrible on sRGB. (even wide gamut isn't quite enough) In fact the whole stuff you read about digital sensors blowing reds or Canon sensors being notorious for blowing reds- that's all myth. It is sRGB that blows the reds. The Canon sensors capture reds way beyond was sRGB can handle (as do the sensors for other brands). Another myth is that AdobeRGB only gives you extra greens compared to sRGB. It actually gives you a lot more light and bright reds/oranges as well, although most current wide gamut monitors give you even more reds/oranges/purples than AdobeRGB can handle. But yeah sRGB clips reds horribly.

 

[wopbv4]

Wide colour gamut? IPS? Matte screen? Unless the answer to all three is "yes", then the answer to the title of this post is "no".

Game, set and match.

Jim

Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite only supports 8bit/color channel (24 bit color). This is absolutely ridiculous as good monitors such as Eizo and Nec support 10 and 12 bit/color channel.

For those that push photoshop to the limit, such as working on detail in shadows, this results in banding.

A pc with proper graphics card and let's say EIZO CG276 will deliver proper colors. I know that the EIZO is only 2560 pixels

 

[tolusina]

It is a POS! Who cares about a 5K display if it is only sRGB

What is the colour space of the Internet and almost every computer screen? sRGB.

This ^ from the guy so thoroughly dissatisfied with Canon camera's current DR???
You desire (but cannot afford) the ultimate in DR but are also satisfied with limited gamut?

Understand that my comment above does not express any personal desire or lack of desire or opinion, it simply reflects the facts with respect to computer displays.

Your disclaimer appears to be a load of bull.

 

[jrista]

It is a POS! Who cares about a 5K display if it is only sRGB

"5120‑by‑2880 resolution with support for millions of colors"

Millions? What about BILLIONS... like 1.07 Billion give or take to be exact.

This is the problem I see with most 4K or 4K plus displays, lack of color depth.

The ASUS PB287Q may only be a 4K monitor but it handles 60x more colors.

All you hear people harp on is Dynamic Range... Dynamic Range... And then you throw away a BILLION colors?

I am sure it is a "nice" display, and it is a "big" foot print. But I like colors... Lots of colors.

And even if you do get one of the few 1 Billion+ display monitors that are out there, so still need a card that can handle that as well.

Yeah, this is the bigger issue for me. If I am going to spend a lot of money on a new high resolution screen, I want it to be one of the high grade graphics design/photography displays like the NEC PAW line or Eizo ColorEdge. I won't spend a lot of money on a new screen until I can get at least 4k with at least 97% or more AdobeRGB coverage. I also don't think I could live without the really flat even rendering across the entire area of the screen or the clean, crisp colors from a hardware LUT.

 

[tolusina]

..... I want it to be one of the high grade graphics design/photography displays like the NEC PAW line or Eizo ColorEdge. .....

Be warned, I have a PAW, the clean, crisp and brilliant colors are so brilliant they almost hurt to look at, a price in the quest for accuracy.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

It is a POS! Who cares about a 5K display if it is only sRGB

"5120‑by‑2880 resolution with support for millions of colors"

Millions? What about BILLIONS... like 1.07 Billion give or take to be exact.

This is the problem I see with most 4K or 4K plus displays, lack of color depth.

The ASUS PB287Q may only be a 4K monitor but it handles 60x more colors.

All you hear people harp on is Dynamic Range... Dynamic Range... And then you throw away a BILLION colors?

I am sure it is a "nice" display, and it is a "big" foot print. But I like colors... Lots of colors.

And even if you do get one of the few 1 Billion+ display monitors that are out there, so still need a card that can handle that as well.

Yeah, this is the bigger issue for me. If I am going to spend a lot of money on a new high resolution screen, I want it to be one of the high grade graphics design/photography displays like the NEC PAW line or Eizo ColorEdge. I won't spend a lot of money on a new screen until I can get at least 4k with at least 97% or more AdobeRGB coverage. I also don't think I could live without the really flat even rendering across the entire area of the screen or the clean, crisp colors from a hardware LUT.

You don't need Eizo or NEC for that these days. The Dell Premiere Color UP2414Q UHD screen has 99% AdobeRGB (plus a lot beyond AdobeRGB as well), high bit internal programmable LUT, screen uniformity compensation and it even uses variable direct current driving of the LED backlights instead of PWM. The 24" UHD display from NEC is not a PA series but EA so there is no way to internally calibrate its sRGB calibration mode and something else too was worse and it costs a lot more and it even uses PWM for brightness (although at least it uses a very high frequency). It's odd they didn't make it a PA series but only EA for their UHD display.

 

[sarangiman]

LTRLI:

Do you use Windows or Mac? If the latter - how do you even profile the wide-gamut Dell displays? My understanding was that their internal LUTs are only addressable by the included software, which only runs on Windows.

Any other third-part software (like the excellent dispcalGUI/Argyll) would, AFAIK, not have access to the internal LUTs, which means it'll be making corrections to the 8-bit data, which is, of course, not so desirable (not when you have internal LUTs anyway).

I wish more displays would have user-addressable LUTs - please correct me if I'm wrong though re: 3rd party software accessing the LUTs of the Dell displays.

Also - has anyone *confirmed* that the Retina iMac is *not* wide-gamut? If they're using similar panels to the Dell 5K monitor, how is there a difference in gamut? Is it perhaps the same hardware but with a forced, limited gamut mode?

To be honest, I'm not that surprised Apple generally chooses to go for more standard gamut monitors, although I'm a big fan of wide gamut. The problem of the wide gamut displays is that a lot of times you end up editing in colors that aren't in sRGB (especially when working from Raw), that don't then convert well to sRGB for web output. So you get this massive color change to oranges/reds especially sometimes when you convert to sRGB for web.

Also, profiling wide-gamut displays isn't so easy - if you use standard colorimeters, they need to have color correction matrices generated by a spectrophotometer to deal with the primaries of wide gamut displays (standard colorimeters expect different RGB primaries, and so can create very inaccurate profiles when profiling a wide gamut monitor). Or you *have* to use a spectrophotometer for profiling, which to me is not so ideal since they don't 'see' darks very well (unless the software is intelligent enough to increase the integration time during profiling for dark colors).

In fact, I've found that to make the best profiles for my Dell U2711, I've had to use a ColorMunki to create a color correction matrix for my i1 colorimeter, which I then use to actually profile (dispcalGUI lets you do all this). Otherwise, upping the integration times when profiling w/ the ColorMunki means it takes *forever* to make a profile. Whereas w/ the correction matrix, you just do that once, then every future profile generation step is quick w/ the i1 colorimeter.

I've verified that the results from ColorMunki+long integration times ends up creating roughly the same profile as the i1 colorimeter + the ColorMunki generated correction matrix.

How have others gotten around this profiling issue?

Apologies if I went a bit OT there...