Voigtlander, Zeiss and computer meltdowns

I’ve prepared both Voigtlander 20/3.5 and Zeiss ZF 21/2.8 comparison pages to be published soon. The comparison with the ZF 21/2.8 Distagon will be in Zeiss ZF Lenses (only), but the bulk of the coverage of the Voigtlander 20/3.5 will be in DAP. I had planned to publish today, but cross-checking results took priority.

To wit, f/8 and be there, and you get what you pay for.

A computer meltdown last week threw a monkey wrench into my schedule, though I learned a great deal (paid for in hair), much of which will make it into Macintosh Performance Guide over time. Let’s just say I won’t be recommending a certain brand of data-destroying RAID card anytime soon, and that I’m very, very pleased and relieved that Sonnet has their venerable Tempo E4P working on the Mac Pro Nehalem—two of them are installed in mine now.

Separately, an iMac can work as a photographer’s workstation—but with a lot of screwing around to achieve the level of reliability and backup and speed I require for my data. I now have a lot of experience with the iMac 3.06Ghz, and I can state unequivocally that unless it’s a space constraint issue, run screaming from the room and go straight to the Mac Pro. And if you want help, I offer consulting on how to set up the Mac Pro for performance and reliability and backup.

I’ll also be reporting on how the screaming-fast Intel X25-E solid state drive works in a Mac Pro and MacBook Pro. The X25-E is a proxy for what we can expect in the next 18 months from solid state drives, which is to say that hard drives are dinosaurs whose fate is sealed. I’ve been booting off the Intel X25-M for some time now, and the X25-E only improves matters.