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If you can afford a $30,000 medium format camera, you can afford the Xeon workstation it usually needs. The kind of person that work with those systems would p

If you can afford a $30,000 medium format camera, you can afford the Xeon workstation it usually needs. The kind of person that work with those systems would pay $6,000 for an umbrella that doesn't even have any electronics in it: https://www.adorama.com/bcb3355203.html?gclid=CLKvmd2erNICFYWEswodIDUCJQ https://www.adorama.com/bcb3355203.html?gclid=CLKvmd2erNICFY... Absolutely no one that owns one of these professional cameras uses them with non-Xeon CPUs. Really the only use for greater than 64Gb for non-Xeon CPUs would be student animation or machine-learning projects.

Retric 10y ago
It's 25 pounds so not really an umbrella. It's like calling Xeon's just sand.
mcbits 10y ago
Just because someone can afford to rent a $30,000 camera doesn't necessarily mean they have unlimited cash to burn on other things.
- arjie 10y ago
  Rent an Azure G5 and remote in perhaps?
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  No, but the difference between i7 and Xeon is significantly less than what you'd have to pay for that extra RAM. We're talking O($100).
  - pvg 10y ago
    So O($1)?
- dpark 10y ago
  It's about $2000/week to rent an IQ180. If you can afford the rental price, you can afford a computer to process the images.
  - mcbits 10y ago
    That still doesn't follow. Having a certain amount of money doesn't imply that you have even more money, nor that you want to spend more than is truly necessary.
    - haikuginger 10y ago
      Diminishing returns on increasingly exponentially-priced cameras means that if you're paying for the very top tier, value is no longer a consideration. Your average flagship smartphone camera is a Toyota Camry. It gets the job done. Upgrade to a high-end bridge camera or entry-level DSLR (phones have killed the bargain point-and-shoot market), and you're looking at something like a basic 328i; already more car than most people will ever need. Upgrading to the top end of the 35mm DSLR market is a bit like an AMG Mercedes; no one is going to make eyes at it unless they're looking for it, but it can competently handle pretty much any situation that you might normally encounter. Going to medium format is like buying a supercar. Yes, it is better than every other option, but it's also an exercise in vanity- you don't buy a supercar because you need to accelerate the way a supercar does on a regular basis, but because there might be a situation where you need one, maybe two, of its advantages over the Mercedes. So where does that leave the IQ180? It's a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse- a $2M exercise in masturbation that can only be used to its full capacity if you're willing to pay $42,000 for a set of tires that will burn through after 10 minutes at top speed. No one buying a Veyron will hesitate to pay for the tires, because if you're buying a Veyron, there's no cost/benefit analysis that would keep you from it. No one buying an IQ180 will shy away from a computer to take advantage of its capabilities.
    - dpark 10y ago
      Sure it does. If someone can't afford the machine necessary to process the images that they got from the camera they spent thousands to rent, the problem isn't actually money. It's that they're an idiot. You don't buy/rent a camera you can't afford to process images from just like you don't buy a car you can't afford to service and you don't buy a house you can't afford taxes for. Or if you do, I have little to no sympathy.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  If you are buying that level of professional gear, it's probably for a profession. The rates you are charging ought to include the necessary costs of all necessary equipment.
c2h5oh 10y ago
While still true it might not be for long: "advanced amateur" small formal SLRs with 36mpix @42bpp now start below $2000 and 24mpix @36bpp in the lower part of $500-1000 bracket. https://www.adorama.com/ipxk1.html https://www.adorama.com/ipxk1.html https://www.adorama.com/inkd810.html https://www.adorama.com/inkd810.html https://www.adorama.com/inkd7100.html https://www.adorama.com/inkd7100.html Which brings a slightly unrelated note: people seem to be blissfully unaware that you need less than 9mpix for a 12x9" 300 dpi print or that the zoom lens they bought with the camera has sharpness that effectively limits the resolution to 5-10, maybe 12 mpix if they are lucky. But megapixel count is easy to sell -> race for more megapixels -> smaller physical pixels -> more signal amplification needed -> more noise / general lower photo quality.
- mozumder 10y ago
  I used to shoot 33megapixel medium format cameras 10 years ago, on 8GB machines with 1GB GPUs just fine, doing multilayer photoshop on 48-bits-per-pixel TIFFs. 64Gb is completely unnecessary for photography. Photographers don't even go over 16GB.

Retric 10y ago

It's 25 pounds so not really an umbrella. It's like calling Xeon's just sand.

mcbits 10y ago

Just because someone can afford to rent a $30,000 camera doesn't necessarily mean they have unlimited cash to burn on other things.

arjie 10y ago
Rent an Azure G5 and remote in perhaps?
semi-extrinsic 10y ago
No, but the difference between i7 and Xeon is significantly less than what you'd have to pay for that extra RAM. We're talking O($100).
- pvg 10y ago
  So O($1)?
dpark 10y ago
It's about $2000/week to rent an IQ180. If you can afford the rental price, you can afford a computer to process the images.
- mcbits 10y ago
  That still doesn't follow. Having a certain amount of money doesn't imply that you have even more money, nor that you want to spend more than is truly necessary.
  - haikuginger 10y ago
    Diminishing returns on increasingly exponentially-priced cameras means that if you're paying for the very top tier, value is no longer a consideration. Your average flagship smartphone camera is a Toyota Camry. It gets the job done. Upgrade to a high-end bridge camera or entry-level DSLR (phones have killed the bargain point-and-shoot market), and you're looking at something like a basic 328i; already more car than most people will ever need. Upgrading to the top end of the 35mm DSLR market is a bit like an AMG Mercedes; no one is going to make eyes at it unless they're looking for it, but it can competently handle pretty much any situation that you might normally encounter. Going to medium format is like buying a supercar. Yes, it is better than every other option, but it's also an exercise in vanity- you don't buy a supercar because you need to accelerate the way a supercar does on a regular basis, but because there might be a situation where you need one, maybe two, of its advantages over the Mercedes. So where does that leave the IQ180? It's a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse- a $2M exercise in masturbation that can only be used to its full capacity if you're willing to pay $42,000 for a set of tires that will burn through after 10 minutes at top speed. No one buying a Veyron will hesitate to pay for the tires, because if you're buying a Veyron, there's no cost/benefit analysis that would keep you from it. No one buying an IQ180 will shy away from a computer to take advantage of its capabilities.
  - dpark 10y ago
    Sure it does. If someone can't afford the machine necessary to process the images that they got from the camera they spent thousands to rent, the problem isn't actually money. It's that they're an idiot. You don't buy/rent a camera you can't afford to process images from just like you don't buy a car you can't afford to service and you don't buy a house you can't afford taxes for. Or if you do, I have little to no sympathy.
dragonwriter 10y ago
If you are buying that level of professional gear, it's probably for a profession. The rates you are charging ought to include the necessary costs of all necessary equipment.

c2h5oh 10y ago

While still true it might not be for long: "advanced amateur" small formal SLRs with 36mpix @42bpp now start below $2000 and 24mpix @36bpp in the lower part of $500-1000 bracket. https://www.adorama.com/ipxk1.html https://www.adorama.com/ipxk1.html https://www.adorama.com/inkd810.html https://www.adorama.com/inkd810.html https://www.adorama.com/inkd7100.html https://www.adorama.com/inkd7100.html Which brings a slightly unrelated note: people seem to be blissfully unaware that you need less than 9mpix for a 12x9" 300 dpi print or that the zoom lens they bought with the camera has sharpness that effectively limits the resolution to 5-10, maybe 12 mpix if they are lucky. But megapixel count is easy to sell -> race for more megapixels -> smaller physical pixels -> more signal amplification needed -> more noise / general lower photo quality.

mozumder 10y ago
I used to shoot 33megapixel medium format cameras 10 years ago, on 8GB machines with 1GB GPUs just fine, doing multilayer photoshop on 48-bits-per-pixel TIFFs. 64Gb is completely unnecessary for photography. Photographers don't even go over 16GB.