Apple LED Cinema versus the Hewlett-Packard LP2475w - Part Two

After posting my brief comparison of the color gamut displayed by the Apple 24″ LED Cinema Display and the Hewlett-Packard 24″ LP2475w, I was asked if the comparison was fair as the computers used to build the profiles of the two monitors were different.  While the only piece of hardware that truly matters when comparing the profiles built is the display adapter (video card), this component was, indeed, different between the HP laptop and the MacBook Pro.

In addition to comparing the color gamut of the monitors to the Adobe RGB color space, which is used by many digital SLR cameras, I was also asked what ramification viewable gamut had on printing using Epson 4000 and Epson 4800 print engines.  I compare the gamut viewable by the monitors with Epson’s ICC profiles (for both printers) of Enhanced Matte Photo Paper and Premium Luster Photo Paper, both of which now have strange names: Ultra Premium Presentation Paper Matte and Ultra Premium Photo Paper Luster.

Method:

The equipment used for this comparison was  a MacBook Pro v3.1 (with a DVI connection) with an nVidia GeForce 8600M GT video card, an Intel Core2Duo 2.2 GHz processor and 2GB RAM running OS X 10.5.8.  The calibration unit remained the same as in the previous comparison: a Gretag-Macbeth / X-Rite Eye One Pro spectrophotometer.

Unlike the laptop used for the previous comparison, the DVI connector meant that there was no obvious way to connect the MacBook Pro to the new Apple 24″ LED Cinema Display, which has only a “Mini DisplayPort” connector.  To overcome this problem, an Atlona AT-DP200 Mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter bridged the gap between the monitor and the laptop.  So long as an older style MacBook is plugged into the monitor with this adapter–and the USB cable from the monitor is also plugged into the laptop–the user has complete control over resolution and brightness.  There are no color controls, unlike the HP monitor, but this has been true of all cinema displays from Apple over the past few years, and that did not stop many a PC user to purchase an Apple screen.

The ICC color profiles created by the Eye One Match 3 software were then compared using a trial version of Gamutvision 1.3.7 with a rendering intent of “None” on a two-dimensional XY Chromaticity (saturation map) projection.

Results after the jump!

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Tags: Apple LED Cinema Display, color gamut, color management, comparison, HP LP2475w, monitors, Reviews
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At long last (OK, a couple of weeks later), I’ve posted online my photos of the directors, faculty, participants, and crew of the 61st Missouri Photo Workshop held in Festus & Crystal City, Mo. this past September-October.  The galleries can be found on my Zenfolio site here: http://davidkennedy.zenfolio.com/mpw61.

Here, as a teaser of what can be found, is the gallery entitled “Work:”

Tags: Missouri Photo Workshop
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Preamble:

I really don’t review many products except those that I own and use.  However, an opportunity arose at the University of Missouri to compare, side-by-side, the Apple Cinema LED monitor (selling for $860) with what has been my workhorse monitor over the past year, the Hewlett-Packard LP 2475w (selling for $550).  (You can read my earlier review of that monitor here.) Physically, there are a lot of differences between these two monitors, and one of those differences might actually play a role in performance.

First and foremost, the “looks” category goes to the Apple display.  That said, the Apple LED display comes only in a glossy screen.  Eek!  Everything about its design was appealing up to that point.  The HP monitor is very straightforward, no-frills, and with lots of buttons for accessing its menu, switching to different inputs (it can accept VGA, DVI, Component Video, HDMI, DisplayPort, etc., etc.), and, of course, switching it “off.”

The Apple monitor has no buttons, and can only connect via “Mini DisplayPort,” which is currently found only on the latest Mac products.  I can only surmise that Apple and its shareholders were sick and tired of the entire world of photographers on budgets buying their screens, and making money for the company.  </satire>  Furthermore, the lack of a menu in which one can control brightness, contrast, and the red, green, and blue outputs is sorely lacking.

As this is a short review, I’ll get to the meat of the comparison (after the jump!):

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Tags: Apple LED Cinema Display, color gamut, color management, comparison, HP LP2475w, monitors, Reviews
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I really haven’t photographed food before–not in any serious fashion–so when I found myself confronted with a silver platter of chocolate-covered potato chips yesterday at the Candy Factory in Columbia, Mo., I was thrown for a loop.

There was no chance I would use existing light: it was a mix of daylight and tungsten, and exposing for the chips coated in which chocolate would have meant underexposing the others significantly.  So I set up two lights bouncing into umbrellas at either end of the silver tray.  It took me a while for all that I learned about photographing metal–and look how little of it wound up in the final frame!–and its family of angles to come back to me (about 50 chimped frames) but once the reflections were under control, it just became a matter of the ratio between the key and the fill lights.

Ultimately, the SB-80-DX, on camera left, was fired at a third stop under 1/2 power, and the 550EX on camera right was fired at 1/16 power.  Could I have balanced those a bit?  Probably.  The shadows cast by the milk chocolate potato chips bother me a bit.  I’ll file that in the “next time” category.

Canon 5D II and 70-200mm f/4 L IS lens @100mm with 25mm extension tube; exposed 1/160 sec. @ f/11, ISO 200.

Tags: food, light, lighting, lit, strobe, Strobist, studio
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The other night I found myself on assignment in the pouring rain and my 1D Mark II N, as well as my cell phone and a 50mm f/1.4 lens, all came into contact with the buckets of cold water falling from the sky.  After I got home, as a result of improper weather precautions, generally wet conditi0ns, and some forgetfulness regarding the acclimation of a cold camera body to a warmer, drier environment, I found myself resorting to dunking my lens, cell phone, and even my 1D II N into containers of rice.  To recount: rice: 1, weather: 1.  My cell phone came back alive, but my 50mm is on its way to Canon’s facility in Jamesburg, N.J. at this moment.

What I didn’t mention much in my previous posting was the sad state of my 1D II N’s viewfinder.  It completely fogged up after coming home, and I immediately began to kick myself for not sealing it in a plastic bag before taking it inside, as the viewfinder had not been a problem–had not been fogged up–before bringing it in.  Absolutely brain-dead stupid!!!

1D II N with rear viewfinder cover plate / convex lens removed.

Anyone who knows me well knows that one of my greatest personality flaws is my impatience.  When I want something to work, I want it to work right now.  I also have a tendency to tinker with the electronics that I own; when they stop working and they’re within warranty, I’ll send them in for repairs.  Why not?  But when something is long-since out of warranty, I have the proper tools, and the fix looks like something anyone can do, why should I spend lots of money to FedEx the product to the manufacturer to have them do exactly what I could have done, and have them bill me for it?

Story continued after the jump!

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Tags: Canon, condensation, EOS 1D Mark II N, fog, moisture, repairs, viewfinder
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Memorial Stadium in the pouring rain. The Nebraska Huskers beat the Missouri Tigers in a last-minute comeback in the 4th quarter to win 27-12 on Thursday, October 8, 2009 in Columbia, Mo. / Canon 1D II N and 24-70mm f/2.8L lens @ 42mm; Exposed 1/60 sec. @ f/5.6, ISO 1600

This evening I spent a solid two hours in the pouring rain to photograph fans outside of Memorial Stadium before tonight’s football game.  In particular, my editors wanted a photo for Vox Magazine that would illustrate the tremendous amount of refuse and recycling generated by the tailgaters to football games.  Too bad that the assignment seems to have killed my 50mm f/1.4’s autofocus, and possibly my cell phone!

More after the jump

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Tags: football, photography, problems, rain, repairs, tailgating, wet
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