A few years ago, while leading a photo tour in Patagonia with Justin Black, we had a participant that was working with a 150 MP Phase One digital back on an Alpa Camera using large format lenses. That photographer, David Chew, is incredibly talented and showed us every day his incredible skill creating amazing landscape images. Along with his incredible high-end camera set up he also had along with him two tripods and two different tripod heads. It isn’t often that I see new, high-end gear that I am not aware of, but on this trip David had a few things I had never seen before. One of those was the Arca-Swiss Core 75 Leveler Geared tripod head and the other was the Arca-Swiss Quick Link system. I reviewed the Quick link system in my last blog post detailing various tripod systems and when I use them.
Over the course of that phot tour, David and I hung out quite a bit and it was very interesting to watch how he chose which tripod and tripod head to take on each outing. He had with him the amazing Arca-Swiss Cube as well as the smaller Arca-Swiss Core 75 Leveler, both of which I had never seen. The Cube is a great tripod head but it is massive and something I wasn’t ever going to be interested in since I often have to hike a long ways with a tripod. The Core 75 was a different story. David was aware of my interest in the Core 75 and let me borrow it on a few outings. As a ball head aficionado, I found the Core 75 to be a slower, much more methodical tripod head but I also saw that it was incredibly precise and allowed me to dial in the landscape compositions in an exacting manner I had not experienced before. David graciously offered to let me keep using his tripod setup on other occasions but I declined because I was worried I would get a little too attached to that stellar setup.
In the last few months, while using my older tripods I kept thinking about how smooth and efficient that experience was with David’s gear back in Patagonia. The seed was planted and it took a while for me to pull the trigger but here we are. I recently purchased the Really Right Stuff (RRS) TVC-24L tripod and the Arca-Swiss Core 75 Leveler Geared tripod head in an effort to level up my tripod game. As someone who has mostly used ball heads for decades now, I am very familiar with the troublesome scenario where you think you have the perfect composition, then you lock down the ball head and it settles ever so slightly to a different position that may or may not be level or exactly what you wanted. In my experience, the better (and more expensive) the ball head the less settling there is, but even with the best ball heads they can shift ever so slightly and if you are really trying to dial in a composition this can drive you nuts. Hence, the need for some thing like the Arca-Swiss Core 75 leveler tripod head.
I seem to be at that point where the usefulness of a tripod head like this really comes in handy–especially when photographing landscapes. Now that I have had this tripod head for a little while, I have found it a bit faster to use than I previously thought. It is just a matter of getting used to the controls so that they become second nature. The Arca-Swiss craftsmanship I do have to say is remarkable. This tripod head seems to be carved out of a block of steel. Even so, this geared head has a lot more moving parts than your typical ball head (like the RRS BH-55 shown below next to the Arca-Swiss Core 75) so if the weather is going to be really bad, I usually will take a ball head that can deal with sand, rain and snow a bit better — and not need a cleaning afterwards.
I opted for the screw knob lock on top of the tripod head for tightening down the camera mounting plates–most of mine are RRS camera plates so not the standard Arca-Swiss camera plates but very similar. The screw knob lock allows for a little more adjustment depending on whether you are using Arca-Swiss plates on your cameras or another brand, like the Really Right Stuff plates I typically use. At some point in the future I might change this top mounting plate out for a RRS flip-lock attachment. Time will tell if I can get along with the one already built into the top of the tripod head. So far it has been very easy to use.
As can be seen above and in all of the images of the Core 75 Leveler, I have the tripod head attached to the tripod with the Arca-Swiss Quick Link system (shown below). This system allows for easily changing out the tripod head without having to pull out the Allen wrenches every time. To change out the tripod head you simply rotate the locking collar on the Quick Link base and the tripod head will pull straight up so that another head can be inserted and locked down. This makes for a very nice system to travel with one tripod and multiple tripod heads if needed. It also allows for hiking with just the tripod legs (without a tripod head attached) and then attaching the tripod head at the location when you set everything up.
I realize that everything Arca-Swiss makes carries a hefty price tag. They are after all a Swiss brand and anyone who has traveled to Switzerland knows nothing in Switzerland is cheap. As is usually the case, you get what you pay for. In this case, Arca-Swiss has a sterling reputation and the level of build quality in their products comes at a price. The Core 75 Leveler sells for $725 USD, which makes it by far the most expensive tripod head that I own. I own a few $500 ball heads (some that I have had for decades) so this is just the next step up in price. What I have learned over the years is that tripods and tripod heads pretty much last forever if taken care of. Aside from the horrible first few shaky and cheap tripods I purchased at the very start of my career, I still have and use all of the high-end tripods and tripod heads that I have ever purchased. I am certain this Arca-Swiss head will outlast them all.
In use, the Core 75 Leveler can rotate 15-degrees side to side and up and down. While this may sound quite limiting, it is easy enough to lower one of the tripod legs to extend that range. The tripod head can also be mounted onto a ball head to massively extend the movement range–as with genres like macro photography. For my work, I don’t see the need to attach it to a ball head. On the head itself, there are two different tubular bubble levels that can help to level the tripod head. I tend to use the levels on the camera itself as they are easier to dial in and possibly more accurate as well. The Core 75 Leveler can also handle up to 66 pounds (30 Kg), which makes it the most robust tripod head that I have. By comparison, my venerable RRS BH-55 (shown above) can only handle 50 pounds (22.7 Kg) according to RRS.
The Core 75 Leveler also has a dual panning feature where you can pan the base at the bottom of the tripod head and also pan from the top of the tripod head. This top panning mechanism allows for very precisely creating panoramas once the camera is leveled. Of course for the best panorama images you will probably want to attach a nodal slider so that you can put the nodal center of the lens right on the panning axis. With my FUJIFILM GFX cameras and their 102 megapixel sensors I often create panorama images from a single frame by cropping the panorama from the full frame image. Especially now that we have the Super Resolution feature in Lightroom where we can upres images by a factor of four this works incredibly well and gives me a final file size in the range of 240 MP to 280 MP once the image is cropped to the panorama format.
As can be seen above, the Core 75 Leveler is also limited in that it cannot rotate the camera 90 degrees to the vertical position. Because of that, you have to have an L-bracket attached to the camera (as shown above with my FUJIFILM GFX 100 II). This is a small thing but just something to consider if you don’t have L-Brackets for all of your cameras. L-Brackets are not something I have on my cameras all the time as they can add a lot of extra bulk and weight, but for landscape photography they are very nice to have.
All in all, if you need or want a geared tripod head and want one that is fairly light then the Arca-Swiss Core 75 Leveler is an excellent option. It is significantly less expensive than the Arca-Swiss Cube or the D4 that they make, both of which are over $1,000 USD. Arca-Swiss also make a smaller version of the Core 75, which is the Core 60 Leveler. The Core 60 Leveler is quite a bit smaller and lighter but only has 10-degrees of tilt. I figured that the extra 5 degrees of tilt that the Core 75 offers would make it more versatile and it is still quite small and light, especially compared to my heavy-duty ball heads. The Arca-Swiss D4 is another excellent option as well but it was bigger and heavier than I wanted to deal with. Of course, there are also many other brands that make similar style heads but once you work with an Arca-Swiss head there is no going back. They are works of art. For more information on the Core 75 Leveler and the Quick Link system visit the Arca-Swiss website.
Tripods in general don’t get a lot of mention. I am not sure I have ever really talked about the tripods and tripod heads that I use. As an adventure photographer most might not think that tripods are a big part of my world, but there are quite a few occasions where I need to use a tripod. As shown above, I often use giant lenses to document the adventure world and that is prime territory for tripods. I also create quite a few landscape images and studio portraits where a solid tripod comes in handy. Over the years I have amassed quite a collection of camera support gear. Here I thought I would discuss the tripods and tripod heads that I use and rely on–and when I take each out on assignments.
At this point I have three Gitzo tripods (see my gear on the Equipment page) and several different tripod heads–everything from a Really Right Stuff BH-55 ball head to a Wimberley Gimbal head. I don’t say this to crow about the gear I use but just as reference. I have a variety of tripods for various scenarios and sometimes need multiple tripods for assignments where I will be setting up remote cameras. On the high-end, I have a super heavy Gitzo GT5541LS tripod (one of the older top-end Gitzo tripods) that can handle just about any gear I will ever use. The modern equivalent of this tripod would be the Gitzo GT5543LS. The other high-end Gitzo–that I have had for decades–is an old GT2541 carbon fiber model. The GT2541 is quite a bit lighter and smaller than my bigger, heavier Gitzo. The modern equivalent of my GT2541 is the Gitzo GT2542. I have had both of these Gitzos, and another old Aluminum heavy-weight Gitzo 1340 for a long, long time. That old 1340 tripod (nearly 30 years old now) is at this point a museum piece but it still works extremely well–it is just a bit on the hefty side compared to my carbon fiber options. Tripods like these last forever if you take care of them.
In my lineup, I have had a hole of sorts for a long time. The GT5541LS is huge and quite hefty. I rarely take it on assignments unless I know I am going to use it a lot and don’t have to hike very far. On the flipside the GT2541 is so light that every time I use it I wish I had a slightly heavier tripod. In all honesty, I haven’t really ever loved the lighter GT2541, mostly because the center column design is a bit wobbly and also because the tripod is a little too lightweight for the heavier gear I tend to use on a tripod. In terms of designs, the GT2541 is extremely well crafted but I have just found that I do not like tripods with center columns. The center column is always the weakest part of a tripod so these days I am suspect of any tripod with a center column. I much prefer tripods that are taller without the need for a center column.
In the last few months, I recently purchased the Really Right Stuff TVC-24L tripod and the Arca-Swiss Core 75 Leveler Geared tripod head in an effort to level up my tripod game. Along with the new tripod gear I also wanted a way to quickly and easily change out the tripod head on my various tripods. To that end, I also picked up a few of the Arca-Swiss Quick link disks and receivers to add to my tripods and tripod heads. The end result of all this is that I now have quite a collection of tripods and tripod heads to choose from and which I can tailor for my assignments. The RRS TVC-24L fills the gap between my heaviest Gitzo and my lightweight Gitzo. I have a feeling that the new RRS tripod will become my main tripod for most assignments. And with the Arca-Swiss Quick Link system, I can now choose the tripod head and tailor that for each scenario as well. The upshot is that I now feel like I finally have a tripod system that will live in that goldilocks zone of being heavy enough to be rock solid but not too heavy where I wouldn’t take it along.
Shown above (from left to right) are the Gitzo GT5541LS tripod with the Really Right Stuff (RRS) BH-55 ball head, the RRS TVC-24L tripod with the Arca-Swiss Core 75 Leveler Classic tripod head, the Gitzo GT2541 tripod with the Acratech GP-s ball head, and on the far right the tiny Oben tripod with a RRS BH-30 ball head. Note that the Gitzo GT5541LS and the RRS TVC-24L also have the Arca-Swiss Quick Link system attached between the tripod and the tripod head for easy and quick tripod head attachment.
In terms of tripods and tripod heads that I would recommend, as you might imagine, I would recommend the gear that I have researched and purchased. I feel like Gitzo and Really Right Stuff (RRS) make the best tripod legs on the market. There are many brands of tripods out there and I am sure many of them can work for any variety of scenarios but I have worked with these two brands and their gear for decades now and they have been rock solid. I have gotten some discounts on Gitzo tripods many years ago but aside from that short window where I got a slight discount I have had to purchase pretty much all of this gear at full retail. For my recent tripod and tripod head purchase I paid full price. I do have some lower-end super lightweight tripods (and I’ll discuss those below) but they are for very specific use case scenarios.
As for tripod heads, as eluded to in the first paragraph, here again I have a plethora of RRS tripod heads (the BH-55, BH-30 and a RRS monopod head), an ancient Kirk BH-1 ball head (that has served me well for decades), a Wimberley head I have had for fifteen years or more and now the Arca-Swiss Core 75 Leveler Geared head. All of these are top-end, incredibly well made options. They have all been a pleasure to use. I tend to opt for heavier, more stable tripod heads than lighter weight options. The BH-30 for example almost never gets used unless I need the lightest weight option. I have just learned that if I am going to take a tripod then going with a slightly heavier setup pays off every time–in terms of image quality and in terms of ease of use. In my experience, the tripod set up is not the place to scrimp on weight unless you absolutely have to.
As a result of owning all these tripods, I thought I would post up a blog here on the ins and outs of various tripod setups and how I tailor each tripod to different scenarios. I have found that having a variety of tripods is very useful. Below are several scenarios that I have found myself in on assignments — and each of them forced me to use a different set up. I’ll go in order from lightest to heaviest tripod setups.
Mountaineering Expeditions
On an expedition, where you are carrying all or most of your gear yourself, every ounce counts. The more you carry the more it wears you down. In my experience, going as light as possible is critical–especially if you want to have energy left over to actually create images. On my last expedition, in the Himalayas, we had porters that would carry the bulk of our gear. On that trip, I had the Gitzo GT2541 with me along with an Acratech GP-s ball head. This setup weighs in at 1,843 grams (4.06 pounds). For this assignment, I took my FUJIFILM GFX100 along with a few lenses and that setup never left basecamp since I was there to shoot video with a smaller camera system.
In the image above, I use that tripod setup along with the GFX100 to capture some night scenes of basecamp and Cholatse in the background. If not for the porters I would have taken a much lighter tripod since we had to hike into basecamp for three days. For the above scenario the Gitzo and Acratech setup worked but I would say the large GFX medium format setup was on the edge of that tripods comfort zone. I like the Acratech ball head but it is a lightweight head and not my favorite among the tripod heads I own. It gets the jobs done. I do like that the ball of the tripod head is exposed because they are easy to clean and don’t get gummed up like some other tripod heads can in adverse conditions.
Shown above (from left to right) are the Gitzo GT2541 tripod with the Acratech GP-s ball head, and the tiny Oben tripod with a RRS BH-30 ball head.
On expeditions where I am carrying my own gear, I have an even lighter setup: a cheap Oben CT-2331 carbon fiber tripod and the RRS BH-30 ball head. The Oben tripod is an older model that they don’t make any more. When I purchased it back in 2014 it cost around $200. Along with the BH-30 ball head the Oben tripod setup weighs a total of 960 grams (2.12 pounds). I carried this setup on a photography tour that I led (with four intrepid adventurers) where we traversed the Patagonia Ice cap behind Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre in Argentina and Chile. We carried sixty to seventy-pound packs for ten days on that trip and all told we climbed over 15,000-feet in elevation gain. Hence, the weight of our gear (all of it) had a big impact on each of us. I took only one camera body and one lenses on that trip–a Nikon D810 and a Sigma 24-105 zoom. Hence, I kept the photo gear to an absolute minimum. The Oben tripod was so shaky that I rarely ever even extended the legs. Patagonia is also notoriously windy so having the tripod low to the ground helped the stability as well.
I will say that the RRS BH-30 tripod head is well crafted but not my favorite ball head. I purchased it because it was lightweight and well made. It cost significantly more than the tripod I put it on. It is not the nicest ball head to use as the lever that tightens the ball head hits the bottom of the Arca quick-release plate every time you turn it. But it did the job and was light enough for that scenario. I chose the cheap tripod because I knew it would get beaten up and I didn’t want to take a super expensive tripod on a such an arduous trip–plus those light tripods are all pretty shaky so I also didn’t want to spend a fortune on an ultra-lightweight tripod I probably would not use that often. It did the job and every once in a while I pull it out for an arduous assignment but it doesn’t go out with me that often these days.
Long Day Hikes
For those scenarios where I have to hike in quite a ways to photograph a landscape or create an adventure sports image there is always the conundrum of how much gear in total that I need to haul. If I and my crew are taking strobes then a tripod is going to be low on the priority list as we will have tons of lighting gear and lightstands to carry. If we do need a tripod in that scenario it will most likely be the Gitzo GT2541 and Acratech ball head (as discussed above). If I am only carrying a camera and three or four lenses then depending on the length of the hike I will usually take a heavier tripod kit–most likely the RRS TVC-24L and either the Arca-Swiss Core 75 Leveler tripod head or the RRS BH-55. Even though the heavier tripod and head are a lot of extra weight, it is worth it to have a solid setup to work with once I get to the location.
A good example of this scenario is a hike I did earlier this year in the Bisti Badlands where I hiked in to photograph the Bisti Wings (as shown above). While this wasn’t a massively long hike it was still six miles (9.7 km) round trip. On that hike, I had the lightweight Gitzo GT2541 setup with me since I also had a medium format camera and three lenses.
Multi-Day Landscape Photography
When I am photographing landscapes on my own or leading a photography workshop, I am normally hiking in a little ways into a location (a mile or so at most) and in those scenarios weight doesn’t really matter. I could take my heavyweight Gitzo or the RRS tripod and whichever tripod head seems appropriate. The bigger issue is usually how much space I have in my luggage and if the larger, heavier tripod will push me over the airline’s weight limit. If I know the location is windy I will usually opt for the heavier Gitzo tripod. If I have plenty of space in my luggage–or I am traveling by car–I will often take two tripods, one lighter and one heavier so I have options depending on the location for the day.
A good example of a trip like this is the Patagonia photography tour I co-led last year. On that trip, I took both my heavyweight Gitzo and the lighter Gitzo GT2541 as well. On most days I used the Gitzo GT5541LS and my Kirk BH-1 ball head and on longer hikes I took the lighter Gitzo setup. Justin Black (as shown above), who owns Visionary Wild and co-led that tour, had with him a single tripod, which was a RRS TVC-24L and a RRS BH-55 ball head. His RRS setup seemed like the perfect tripod setup for that scenario, which is why I just purchased that exact tripod.
Shown above (from left to right) are the Gitzo GT5541LS tripod with the Really Right Stuff (RRS) BH-55 ball head and the RRS TVC-24L tripod with the Arca-Swiss Core 75 Leveler Classic tripod head. Note that both of these tripods have the Arca-Swiss Quick Link system attached between the tripod and the tripod head for easy and quick tripod head attachment.
The two tripods shown above, the heavyweight Gitzo and the RRS TVC-24L are the two best tripods I own–and the ones I always want to be using regardless of the scenario. It is only a matter of weight and the distance I have to carry them that keeps me from taking them.
Assignments Close to the Car
For assignments where I know we will be close to the car then there is really no worries about weight. In these scenarios I will take the heavy Gitzo GT5541LS every time–usually with the RRS BH-55 ball head. If I need to set up remote cameras then I might have multiple tripods with me for that scenario. As shown below, when I created images for the launch of the FUJIFILM GFX100 back in 2019, I had with me the heavyweight Gitzo setup detailed above. With medium format cameras and the larger lenses a heavy weight tripod is just easier to deal with and much more stable–especially with the decently heavy FUJIFILM GF250mm f/4 lens shown on the tripod below. For that assignment I used my old Kirk BH-1 heavy-duty ball head. The BH-1 has been out of production for a while now but it is in the same league as the RRS BH-55 and has been a workhorse tripod head for decades.
In other scenarios, as shown above, if I am doing a video shoot or photographing the night sky then again I am typically taking the heavyweight setup. Especially for long exposures at night, a heavy rock-solid tripod is a must for the best image quality. Of note, in the video camera setup above I am using the heavyweight Gitzo GT5541LS with a leveling mount and a Manfrotto video fluid head. The leveling base is very useful for those times when you need to pan the camera and follow the action as it keeps the horizon from changing angles in the frame as you pan the camera.
Surfing Photography (from the beach)
Photographing surfing has its own unique category of gear when it comes to tripods–especially if I am using a big lens like a 400mm f/2.8, a 600mm f/4 or an 800mm f/5.6. Anytime I am using one of these giant lenses, I take my Wimberley WH-200 gimbal tripod head that allows the lens to essentially float on the tripod. The Wimberely is an amazing tripod head and it is super specialized for these long telephoto lenses. Once it is balanced (as shown below) you never really have to lock it down. With all of the locks loosened at a moments notice you can grab the camera, swivel the lens over to the action and follow it as needed without any friction at all.
I used to use my Kirk BH-1 ball head with these giant lenses and that was a lot of work to keep the ball head from tipping over while tracking the action. It only took one or two trips where I was photographing surfing all day from the beach before I purchased the Wimberely head. Luckily for surf trips you generally do not have that much in the checked bags in terms of clothing so you can carry a heavyweight tripod and the giant Wimberely head. For surf trips in particular, I often take my ancient aluminum Gitzo 1340 tripod as it is a solid base and has very long legs. Setting up a tripod on sand requires a very tall tripod so you can push the feet into the sand to stabilize the rig. Pushing the feet several inches into the sand takes away some of that height so the taller tripods are perfect–especially when you are 6′ 3″ (1.9 m) tall.
Shown above is my ancient Gitzo 1340 aluminum tripod with the Wimberley WH-200 gimbal head. Note that I also have a Gitzo leveling base on this tripod as well that allows me to level the Wimberley head quickly and easily.
Of note, I also use the Wimberley head when using lighter weight telephoto lenses (as shown in the image at the top of this blog post) as well since it is so easy to use. I used to own the Nikon 200-400mm f/4 and now own the much lighter Nikon Z 400mm f/4.5. The new 400mm f/4.5 is so light that I don’t use a tripod with it that often but when I add a 2x teleconverter the tripod really helps to smooth out the movement if I am photographing action. If am going to be using a long lens and won’t be moving around too much then I always take the Wimberely head and a heavy tripod.
In terms of versatility, the Wimberley head is not a great all around tripod head. It is very specifically made for long, heavy telephoto lenses. Hence, if I am on a trip and need to use one tripod with both long lenses (say for photographing surfing) and also need to capture landscape images with shorter lenses I will usually travel with two tripod heads–the Wimberely and my RRS BH-55 or the Arca-Swiss Core 75 Leveler.
Studio Portrait Sessions
In the studio, weight is of no concern. If I am doing a studio portrait I typically have hundreds of pounds of gear with me–and we usually roll that gear in on a giant cart (or even multiple carts). I also typically have an assistant with me when doing lighting. For portraiture it is not imperative that the camera is on a tripod, especially since the strobes will freeze any camera movement (no matter the shutter speed) but it is often nice to have the camera locked down if we are doing waist up portraits or headshots. With the camera on a tripod I can concentrate on the subject and often just have the camera set to track the face and eyes and don’t even look through the camera. This is an old-school technique where I can keep eye contact with the subject and then fire off frames as I see them. Often, I am also tethered in these scenarios with the art director or the client not far away so having the camera on a tripod is a safety consideration as well that helps to make sure the tethering cable doesn’t get pulled and the connections aren’t damaged.
As shown above, I often find having the camera on a tripod really helps when creating portraits. In this scenario, I was creating portraits of the Red Bull Air Force team members (in this scenario with the late Felix Baumgartner) and we would take five minutes to create a few portraits and then run out and continue with the action photography. I left the camera on the tripod so that it was ready to go anytime there was a few minutes in-between skydives to grab an athlete and do a few portraits. As you can see here, I also have my rock climbing harness on as well which was used to clip myself into a helicopter or a skydive plane and photograph the action out an open door.
Arca-Swiss Quick Link System
I have recently started using the Arca-Swiss Quick Link system for attaching my tripod heads to a few of my various tripods. I saw this system for the first time last year and I knew right away that it would be very useful for changing out the tripod head quickly and easily–as with the example of taking two tripod heads on surf trips. I have the Arca-Swiss Quick Link receiver base on both my Gitzo GT5541LS and also on my RRS TVC-24L. And I have the Quick Link disks (which slot into the Quick Link base) on most of my tripod heads. This setup makes it super quick and easy to switch out the tripod head from one tripod to another.
Shown above is the Really Right Stuff TVC-24L tripod with the Arca-Swiss Core 75 Leveler Classic tripod head. The red arrow points at the Arca-Swiss Quick Link system attached between the tripod and the tripod head for easy and quick tripod head attachment. To release the tripod head all you have to do is rotate the collar on the Quick-Link and the tripod head can be lifted out.
I don’t have this system on my lighter Gitzo GT2541 as the Acratech ball head is pretty much the only head I use with that tripod. For the heavier weight tripods, as shown above, it makes sense that I might swap between the RRS BH-55 (my main ball head), the Arca-Swiss Core 75 Leveler geared head, the Kirk BH-1, or the Wimberely head. These days I often travel with one beefy tripod, typically the RRS TVC-24L, and take a few different tripod heads with me so that I have options.
The Arca-Swiss Quick Link system is rock solid. When I first saw the system (used by a fellow photographer in Patagonia) I was initially a little worried about play in the system and that it would make the tripod head less stable. But given that the photographer using it had a lot of experience with that setup, and shot on a 150 MP Phase One, it became quickly obvious that Arca-Swiss (who have a sterling reputation) had dialed this in. I have found the Quick Link system to be expertly crafted and there is no play whatsoever once the locking collar is closed. As can be seen above, the base plate (far left) attaches to the tripod and the disk (middle) is what attaches to the bottom of the tripod head. To attach the tripod head to the base plate you simply drop in the disk on the bottom of the tripod head and then the rotating collar on the outside of the base locks the tripod head into place. This is so much easier than pulling out the allen wrenches and unscrewing everything to change out tripod heads. I realize these are quite expensive at $180 per set but when you have such expensive tripods and tripod heads the Quick Link system is a nice addition.
Also, one of the great things about the Arca-Swiss Quick Link system is that it allows me to carry the tripod without the tripod head attached to it when hiking into a location. A tripod strapped to the side of a backpack is always a little precarious. Sure, you can crank the straps down so it doesn’t fall off but with a heavy tripod head on the top, it is always throwing the pack off balance. Also, if the tripod head is sticking up you can very easily start whacking trees, rocks and anything else that you walk by, which is not great for the expensive tripod head. Hence, this system solves a lot of those issues allowing for the legs to be the only thing strapped to the outside of the pack and the tripod head to be carried in the backpack along with the cameras and lenses. Once you are at the location it is easy enough to snap the tripod head onto the tripod legs (just like putting a lens onto a camera) and you are ready to go.
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[Disclaimer: I am not an ambassador for Loft Gear but because of my relationship with Jeff Provenzano (a skydiver on the Red Bull Air Force team), I have received a pre-production sample to use and test out. As usual, here I will give my honest opinion about the product. I have had the Station 150 for about a month or more now and have used it on several occasions as a digital workstation while photographing portraits and having my camera tethered to a laptop on the Station 150. I also want to make it clear that I have not been paid to write a review or to post about this product on social media. It is an interesting and cool product and I wanted to help out some friends by promoting it.]
In the last few months my good friend Jeff Provenzano—one of the world’s best skydivers and a member of the Red Bull Air Force skydive team—connected me with Loft Gear to test out their new Station 150 rolling duffel that converts into a standing workstation desktop. I have seen Jeff traveling with prototypes of this product for the last few years while working with the Red Bull Air Force on various assignments. He has tested this product out for a long time now—and has been a major player in helping to perfect it as well. So it was great to connect with the folks at Loft Gear and get a pre-production bag myself to test out a few months ago.
The Loft Gear Station 150 is a rolling duffel that has extendable legs that turn this incredibly well-made duffel into a sturdy table-top workstation as shown in the images throughout this review. The duffel is one of the most durable, rubber-cladded pieces of luggage I have ever seen. This thing could literally be dragged behind a car for a bit and not have any holes in it. Very few duffels I have used are built to this quality standard—and I have gone through quite a few over the years. The way the zippers open up the duffel is also very unique. You can see everything inside the bag easily and you can also choose to open it fully or leave it partially closed to hold everything in the duffel (when the bar is snapped in). As can be seen in the images below, once it is zipped open the sides are rigid enough to stay upright so that gives some sense of the duffels build quality.
My duffel came with the hard plastic folding work space shelf that you see my camera and laptop sitting on in the images here. This work space platform is relatively tough and a little slippery for some items, like a laptop. I would either tape the laptop down with gaffer’s tape or use velcro on the bottom of the laptop to affix it to the workspace surface so it doesn’t slide around. Alternatively, you could add a neoprene pad on top of the plastic workspace surface to make it a little less slippery.
Underneath the workspace platform, there is also an area with pick’n pluck foam (as shown in the images at the end of this blog post) where you can safely store valuable and fragile items like a drone, cameras and lenses, etc. This area is about four inches deep so it will not accommodate an entire camera kit (unless yours is small) but it is nice to have some of this built into the duffel. I am not sure I would pack camera gear in this chamber and then check the duffel when flying, but when driving to a location and handling my own gear this could definitely accommodate a wide variety of gear.
The duffel as the name suggests has a volume of about 150 Liters, which is a large duffel. Without the foam and the work surface installed in the duffel it weighs 16.5 pounds (7.48 Kg), which is a little heavier than the duffels I normally fly with. With the foam and the work surface inside the duffel you are closing in on 20 pounds (9 kg). As a comparison, my wheeled 100 Liter Patagonia Duffels weigh around 10.5 Pounds (4.78 Kg) but they have much lighter material and tiny wheels in comparison to the Station 150. They are also 100 Liters instead of 150 liters. I will also note that one of my Patatgonia duffels got a hole in it the very first time I flew with it and now one of the wheels is cockeyed as well. I have been less than impressed with the Patagonia Duffels in terms of durability. The 160 liter North Face Rolling Thunder duffel weighs 11.69 pounds (5.3 Kg). Hence, the Station 150 is a four pounds more than the competitors but I would say it is also built a bit tougher—and it has legs.
Depending on how much you need to carry—and whether you fly first class or not the weight of the duffel itself may be an issue. With 50 lbs (22.7 Kg) as the normal weight restriction for economy flights here in the USA, that only leaves 32 to 34 pounds of gear that can be loaded into the Station 150 depending on if you take the work space table-top in the bag. For those flying first class this is a non-issue with the weight restrictions being 70 pounds (31.75 Kg) here in the USA. I normally take the Station 150 as my second duffel so that I can take as much soft gear (clothes, backpacks, etc.) in the lighter, less durable duffel and then add more fragile gear into the Station 150, like lighting gear, small lightstands, etc.
The Station 150 is 36 inches (91 cm) long and because of this long length it does not have an extendable handle to roll the duffel. Instead the Station 150 has incredibly robust padded webbing handles pretty much any and everywhere you would want them on the outside of the bag. I am just a hair under 6’ 3” inches (1.9 meters) tall and I don’t have any issues rolling this duffel along using the webbing handles. The webbing handles (as shown in the images) are very secure and allow for grabbing the bag in pretty much any scenario you might need to pick it up. The wheels on this duffel are the largest wheels I have ever had on a duffel. They are 5 inches (12.7 cm) in diameter and they roll effortlessly even when packed. The wheels on this duffel seem like the full off-road variety and they can be pulled through gravel or sand without any issues.
Moving on to the main feature of this duffel, the legs extend from the bottom side of the duffel and create a workspace surface that is 34 inches (86 cm) tall. They extend fairly easily and lock into place. To close the legs you simply press on the silver leg locks and they fold shut. Once standing the duffel can hold up to 50 pounds (22.7 Kg) of gear on the work surface. You can also keep the top zippers zipped up so that one panel (as shown above and below) is still up and snap in the protective mesh side wall so that nothing on the work surface falls out of the open duffel. This is a great feature that keeps everything in the “crib” if you have a lot of gear you need to get access to. The work surface itself also has two sides that can be folded up to get gear that is stored underneath the workspace. Batteries and other small tidbits can be stored in the side zipper pouches at the top of the bag (just above the Station 150 logo as shown below on the right).
The legs also provide a very sturdy and rigid bottom platform for the duffel when they are closed, which is great for checking items that you want to protect inside the bag. I have always been a little worried about putting lighting gear (softboxes, umbrellas and such) in the bottom of roller bags because I did not want them to get bent up. But with this bag you don’t have to worry about that at all. Often when I am packing for an assignment it is a decision of whether I take the custom made case for my lightstands and lighting gear or a well-made duffel. If the gear fits into it, then the Station 150 makes that a much easier decision.
One other feature of the Station 150 that I was not aware of until I saw the Loft gear marketing materials is that the duffel itself can be pulled down over the corners of the workspace table top (as shown below) to create a table top without any duffel side walls to contend with. All you have left is a clean table top and you can even hang stuff off the table top and sides with a carabiner. For those like myself that sometimes need to shoot tethered to a computer in the outdoors this makes for a really cool digital tech workstation. Typically in the outdoors the computer I am tethered to is on a massive cart that is not going too far from the van. Hence, having a duffel that can be carried or rolled into a location (not that far from the car) is a huge bonus. As can be seen above (at left) I set the Station 150 up in a riverbed where it would have been very difficult to get a digital tech cart.
Loft gear also sells interior pouches that can be used to organize gear inside the Loft Station. Mine came with a large interior pouch that sits on top of the table top and three smaller organizing pouches that can be packed inside as well. As can be seen above, the foam below the table top can be set up to carry just about anything you want that needs a little extra protection. With all of the extra features built-in this is much more than just a duffel. The Station 150 also makes for a great organizer and workstation in a hotel room. You can pop the legs open and have all of your clothes and gear at waist level without having to unpack anything.
As for the price, right now on Kickstarter the Station 150 with all of the extras sells for $600 USD. I am not sure what the normal price will be after the Kickstarter campaign has ended. I realize $600 USD sounds like a lot but it isn’t much more than some of the fancy duffels (without legs and a work surface) go for from companies like Osprey, The North Face and Eagle Creek. The Station 150 is available in three colors (red, black and gray).
The only downside for me is that the duffel weighs a bit more than a normal duffel, but with that weight come a lot of features that can’t be found anywhere else. In terms of durability, this duffel will most likely outlive me. I am pretty hard on duffels. But this thing looks rock solid. The legs on my duffel are already a bit scratched up but seem no worse for the wear. If this seems like a tool that you can use check it out on the Loftgear.com website. At the moment, the Station 150 is available for order via Kickstarter. My thanks to Loft Gear for providing me with a sample to test out and for creating a new product that is so out of the ordinary and unique.
As AI is definitely one of the topics du jour. I just got a bug in my head about the wild array of complex realities inherent in this new technology. I don’t mean to come off as a luddite here but with all the hype flying around, I wanted to add some commentary related to AI and how it affects my work as a creative. Buckle up, this is going to be a long one. Please note that no images in this blog post were created using AI. All of these images were created using a digital camera.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now at this point quite advanced and ubiquitous–and it will only continue to get better and more powerful. A few years ago, in early 2023, ChatGPT and other AI companies launched some impressive AI image generating software platforms, and now, a little over two years later those platforms have advanced in their capabilities significantly. In some cases, with the best AI image generators like Midjourney, it has become quite difficult to tell if an image was created using a camera or using AI image generators. As someone who makes a living creating photographs for clients all over the world, I thought I would weigh in on a few things regarding AI and its impacts.
To be clear, AI will have some very positive impacts on our society. I can see AI advancing our health care in many ways because it can scan data from around the world and put forth a more accurate medical diagnosis. At some point, It will also help to create very specific drugs tailored for each individual as never before possible. There are other areas of our world where it can and will have a big impact that will make life safer and easier as well. Self driving cars is a great example, which at some point once they are perfected will be much safer for everyone on the road. But, on the flip side, there are going to be (and already are) some major impacts that will affect millions of us in a negative way. Especially in the creative fields, AI will bring about a huge number of job losses by replacing writers, photographers, artists, models, actors, musicians and every type of job associated with those fields. It will certainly create joblessness in other fields as well, but exactly when and how that will come about is not fully known at this point. What is certain is that AI technology will bring about change (and has already started to) at a rate never before experienced–a rate that governments will be too slow to react to with effective legislation.
As someone who works with large corporations, I can understand the lure to bring down marketing expenses and save some money by using AI to create text, images and video content. Whenever the economy starts to slide the first thing most companies cut is marketing–and all of the associated budget that goes towards marketing. Even Adobe, whose product for the most part is built to help creatives produce their work, put out a marketing campaign last year (in 2024) saying “Skip the Photo Shoot.” The idea was that you can create it with AI, specifically Adobe’s new AI image generator named Firefly. That twitter post was quickly taken down once photographers and other creatives lashed out at Adobe, but the writing was literally on the wall–on social media. Regardless of the controversy with Adobe, every company would love to skip the photoshoot and get the imagery they need for nearly free or at a fraction of the cost of hiring a photographer, a crew and a model (or an athlete) to create those images the old fashioned way.
I am a commercial photographer that produces images for companies, mostly large international corporations, to advertise their products. Unlike most commercial photographers, it is rare that I am actually photographing a product. As an adventure photographer, I am typically photographing an athlete pushing their sport at the highest levels and then those images are used to attract eyeballs towards a companies products, which may or may not be visible in the images I produce. I consider myself lucky that I am able to photograph the things that I am passionate about while still making a decent living–because I can get higher assignment fees than are the norm in commercial photography (at least for right now).
The purpose of a corporation is to maximize profits, either for the owner or the shareholders. That is it. There is no law saying that any corporation needs to do good for the society. Of course, corporations do employ people–and in some cases huge numbers of people. There are a few companies that do try to better the world by giving back to charities and being thoughtful about how they produce their goods. The clothing company Patagonia is the first of those that comes to mind. But those that seriously consider doing good in the world are the rarity.
AI has the potential to create more wealth than any technology ever created–and concentrate that wealth for a small number of people. Because AI looks to generate so much wealth there is really no way it will be held back–and there is even less incentive to regulate it (at least here in the USA) even though this is certainly a field that needs to be regulated heavily for public safety. In the next few years we are going to start to see large-scale job losses as a result of AI replacing humans. That shift will maximize the profits of the shareholders. But sadly, at least here in the USA (and with the current administration) I do not imagine that our government will be able to institute a Universal Basic Income fast enough to really deal with all of these job losses.
As a small business, part of staying in business is reading the landscape and trying to predict what may be coming down the pipe in the next few years. That means staying tuned in to how the economy is going, where the industry may be headed and how I can produce work that sets me apart from my peers and makes me the one who gets the call. That is obviously a tall order and requires a bit of luck and some seriously hard work. For large businesses it is the same–CEOs of all the major companies are trying to read the tea leaves and predict what may happen in the near future. Hence, this blog post is my reading of those tea leaves–and some insight into how I think about all of this. What follows are some of my musings on AI and how it will and already has affected my world as a creative.
A Business created on Stolen Work
The fact that AI has been “trained” on stolen work is well known. Whether it is text, video or imagery, AI has learned from the available images, video and text that have been fed to it–mainly from the internet. I know of several companies that have been started by photographers and others that aim to protect your work by adding a code to the images before uploading them to the internet or to social media. This extra bit of code deflects the AI bots from scanning your work, but I am certain that with just a little bit of time the AI bots can be trained (or even train themselves) to get past this attempt to block them. At this point, the AI training has basically sifted through everything there is to study and there is a great need for new material to train the AI models and improve them further.
Last year, I and many others thought that companies would be hesitant to use AI generated imagery because the legal grounds it stood on may lead to a bunch of lawsuits. How wrong I was. Only a year or so later and it is a free-for-all out there. I see an incredible amount of AI imagery and video being used by giant multi-national corporations for massive ad campaigns. These large corporations don’t seem to care at all about the stolen nature of the imagery–or about being sued if the resulting AI images happen to look like an actual photographers work. The courts have taken so long to even take on the major lawsuits filed by Getty Images and others that the cat is already out of the bag. At this point, and in the near future, it will be very interesting to see if any lawsuit slows down the usage of AI images in giant ad campaigns.
Adding to the problem, the US President said in a recent speech, “You can’t be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book, or anything else that you’ve read or studied, you’re supposed to pay for. We appreciate that, but just can’t do it— because it’s not doable.” This is basically the get out of jail free card that removes any AI company from the consequences of stealing to build their large language models. Because of this the value of “copyright,” which is the bedrock of any creative field, just became much less likely to survive the AI expansion.
The True Cost of AI
What many people may not know about or have realized is that AI is an incredibly energy intensive endeavor. AI runs on giant computing power and needs huge server farms to work. According to a recent article in the MIT Technology Review, “The latest reports show that 4.4% of all the energy in the US now goes toward data centers.” They go on to say in their article entitled, We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard (May 20, 2025), that “Given the direction AI is headed—more personalized, able to reason and solve complex problems on our behalf, and everywhere we look—it’s likely that our AI footprint today is the smallest it will ever be. According to new projections published by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in December, by 2028 more than half of the electricity going to data centers will be used for AI. At that point, AI alone could consume as much electricity annually as 22% of all US households.”
In a World where carbon emissions continue seemingly unabated, more emissions for AI are undercutting any efforts to lower our carbon footprint. With so much money to be made from AI (albeit for a very small number of individuals) there is no stopping this technology. But, as described above, the true cost is that AI will make our climate issues much worse in the near future. In some reports, creating one generative AI image uses the same amount of energy as charging your mobile phone ten times. Hence, think carefully just how many images you need to generate using AI. There is a cost.
Now imagine, billions of people logging onto an AI and generating videos, images and text as never before–and the energy output required skyrockets. Of course, there is also an undeniable energy cost to me and my peers flying around the world to create images as well–that is in addition to the energy costs of creating the cameras I use and shipping them all over the World. I don’t know that there is anyway to calculate the amount of energy that entails, but that has already been happening for decades and decades. Hence, that is the baseline we are now adding to with generative AI.
In 2025, I have been continually surprised at what many of my friends and acquaintances have been using AI for. Many seem to be typing into ChatGPT very personal issues they are dealing with and are getting back incredible responses that only a room of therapists could have come up with after serious discussion. The responses seem almost more human than human in some cases–alarmingly so. Whether old or young, the number of people curious about AI and what it can do is staggering. I suppose that is part of the appeal–and that is what the companies building these machine are counting on to make back the trillion or more dollars they have already spent. Aside from the energy needed to run AI there are many other issues that are sure to pop us as usage spreads and humans depend more and more on it to help with day to day activities.
The Dangers of AI
Geoffrey Hinton, the Godfather of AI, recently did an interview with Steven Bartlett who produces the Diary of a CEO YouTube channel. In that interview, Geoffrey outlines the array of dangers that are already a serious threat to humans and society. This is one of the most fascinating interviews on the topic I have seen anywhere and I highly recommend checking it out. It is clear that Geoffrey Hinton is incredibly smart. He has so many one line zingers that I found myself rewinding the video dozens of times just to take in the full breadth of what he just said.
I won’t dive into the video, but lets just say he quit his job at Google, where he was earning millions each year, to warn the public about the dangers of AI. At the end of the video Steven asks him, what advice do you have for those looking for a profession in the near future? Geoffrey replies, “Become a plumber. I am not joking about that.” He also talks about how joblessness is going to be rampant and the governments of the World are not prepared for that.
I don’t want this article to be a total downer. AI is here to stay at this point and it is not going away. There is too much money to be made with it and there has already been an insane amount of money (more than a trillion dollars here in the USA) spent just to get this far. The hype is so thick out there that it is easy to go down the rabbit hole. On the flip side many (who are in the know) are debunking the hype saying that the gloomy future that has been predicted is still at least a decade or more away from where we are right now at the earliest. All this adds up to a giant question mark. We really don’t know how it is going to play out. But regardless of the outcome, as usual with humans, some will use this new tool for good and others for bad. Change is the only constant.
The Photography Industry in Shambles
So, why am I writing all of this? I don’t want to be the old dude crying foul in the dark–but the photography industry has entered a very strange place in the last few years since Open AI released ChatGPT in early 2023. It isn’t just the photography industry, all of the creative fields are feeling the effects of not only AI, but also the rampant shift to social media as the default and main avenue for advertising. The World went digital during the pandemic. The shift to online and social media advertising was massively accelerated because that advertising could reach us as we stayed home. Add into the mix low cost video production, and the reality that videos attract more eyeballs generally than still images, and it starts to make sense that the photography industry is weakened. The pie just keeps getting sliced into thinner and thinner pieces.
In light of this, it makes sense that companies would hire relatively low-cost “influencers” to spread the word about their new products. Why hire a professional to create images and content when you can send your product to 50 or 100 influencers and have them do the work for you–and you only have to pay each one a small fee for the review (or give away the product for free in exchange for the review). This is the new way of advertising in many industries. Trust in traditional advertising has never been lower. This is another factor in the thinking here as well. If you have an “influencer” that you follow and trust then you will likely trust what they say about product X when they post about it. I am not oblivious to this as I am sponsored by several major companies in the photography industry and in some ways have been an “influencer” myself with this blog and my Newsletter–as well as my social media posts.
Add in the recent chaos provided by the new Tariffs, and that just adds fuel to the fire creating an environment that is tough for all businesses. Many of the companies I have worked with have flat out said we are going to stop spending money for a while to see how all of this chaos (created by one person) shakes out. Some companies have essentially stopped importing products to the USA. I don’t blame them. Stack that chaos on top of AI advances, the new advertising paradigm, low cost video production, the sentiment that good enough is good enough, and well, here we are with the photography industry in shambles. The writing has never been more clearly on the wall that the game is up for most that want a career in this industry.
Young people understand what is going on. As a clear example, for the last several years, I have been teaching a weeklong class for Rocky Mountain School of Photography, which ran one of the last surviving year-long intensive photography programs aimed at preparing students to become professional photographers. Last summer I got an email saying they were shutting down the school because they could not get enough students to run the year-long course. Most of their students were fairly young. Many were just out of high school. Hence, that is a clear sign to me that the younger generation is well aware of what is going on and how the economy is shifting away from traditional media.
The photography industry isn’t the only creative field in turmoil. Hollywood and those that work in the feature film industry, are also feeling the pinch created by this perfect storm. Ad agencies may soon be a thing of the past. Those that did not shift to digital advertising a few years ago are now shedding employees like never before. Many of the art buyers and creative directors I know are now all freelance art buyers and freelance creative directors. The ground is shifting under our feet.
I realize that hope is not a plan, but my hope is that as an adventure photographer who works with real athletes–many of whom are the best in the World at what they do–that imagery of them pursuing their craft will always have some value. I don’t think Red Bull has much interest in fake AI images depicting what their athletes are doing. They want real images showing what these phenomenal athletes have achieved. Like the images above and below, real images of real humans at play in the world are part and parcel of our continued existence.
Amazingly, photography is having something of a renaissance these days as young photographers move beyond the iPhone cameras. Photography as a whole is more widely practiced and more prevalent than ever before. The cameras have gotten so good that it is relatively easy to create an image now — but with that said creating stellar, incredible images is just as hard as it ever was. Even the camera companies who have had a long slow decline since the birth of the iPhone are starting to see a resurgence in sales–even a slight upward trend in profits.
As I wrote in my recent blogpost, The Photography Onion, I believe that a smaller percentage of photographers will be able to continue making a full time living in this industry. Some genres will be much harder to sustain than others. If I was a headshot photographer then I would be terrified–as there are numerous apps that can take a very poor selfie and make 100 headshots of a person for every occasion. Other genres, like wedding photography, seem pretty safe–at least until drones can fly around with cameras and shoot the wedding remotely using automated AI bots. As always in this industry, it will be those that continue to evolve their work, and create new and exciting images (and content) with solid marketing that will thrive.
As a working pro, I am still making a living. I have been doing so for the last 30 years. There have always been good years and less than great years. As the industry continues to shift all of us have to crack on and be smart about what we produce, how we spend our money and our time–and keep an ear to ground so we can have some clue as to how the World is changing. While the USA may be circling the drain, here’s hoping the rest of the world can find peace, get back to normal, tune out the chaos, and work to make this a better world.
This might be the least visually exciting equipment review I have brought forth in some time. A new computer isn’t always an exciting upgrade but I needed this very badly. I just purchased the new Apple Mac Studio M4 Max to replace an aging MacBook Pro from mid 2020, and the difference in performance for processing my ultra high-resolution images is night and day. In mid 2020, in the heart of the lockdown during the pandemic my Apple MacBook Pro died on me and I needed a new computer right away. I knew at that point that the new Apple M-series chips were about to be announced (and indeed they were announced only two months later) but I couldn’t wait. My backup computer at the time was quite old so I ordered a souped up Intel MacBook Pro that cost around $4,000 USD at the time. And then a year later I ordered a new M1 MacBook Pro, which was considerably cheaper and much faster than the Intel MacBook Pro from the year prior.
The older Intel MacBook Pro has been my desktop computer (that never leaves the office) and the newer M1 MacBook Pro was and still is my on the road computer. As a side note here, I have been using Apple laptops as my main working computers for nearly 20 years now—ever since they stopped making affordable towers that were superior to their laptops. Once Apple stopped upgrading the towers in the late 2000s their laptops seemed like the best option, especially since here in the office I use an external Eizo CG319X monitor with the laptops. The Eizo monitor is far superior to any of Apple’s monitors and far more color accurate as well. For a full review of my Eizo ColorEdge monitor click here.
That 2020 Intel MacBook Pro seemed usable for the most part for a few years but with the introduction of the FUJIFILM GFX100 II—and it’s ability to create 102 MP images at 8 frames per second—the old Intel MacBook started to show its age. I am not exactly sure what changed that slowed the computer down but once I got the GFX100 II it became glacially slow to edit images. Perhaps it was the Mac OS software upgrades that were optimized for the new M1 and M2 chips but it got to the point (around the time I started working with the GFX100 II in July 2023) that I could barely edit images on the older laptop. Hence, I have been hobbling along the last year or so waiting for Apple to update the Mac Studio to the new M4 chip set. When I saw the announcement a few weeks ago I jumped on it.
To say that the new Apple Silicon chips are a massive leap forward is an understatement. When I got my now ancient M1 MacBook Pro it was shockingly fast compared to any other computer I had previously worked with. Even now, that four year old M1 MacBook Pro with relatively pedestrian specs is still a solid, fast computer. I know a huge part of that speed increase is a faster solid state hard drive and better integration of the graphics card all on the same chip, but regardless of how they did it Apple hit a home run with the new Apple Silicon chips.
The new Apple Mac Studio M4 Max is (as you would expect) ridiculously fast. I don’t know exactly how much faster it is than my older M1 but it doesn’t hesitate with anything I have thrown at it. As shown in Apple’s marketing the new M4 Max is supposedly 2.9X times faster than my old Intel MacBook Pro. It definitely feels much faster than that when processing giant 102 MP images. It can whiz through my Nikon Z9 and FUJIFILM GFX100 II image files in Lightroom like they were lowly 12 MP image files of yore. If I had to guess, I would say it is at least four times faster than my old M1 MacBook Pro but I have not done the actual testing to find out. I probably could have upgraded to the M2 Mac Studio last year but having been caught out in 2020 I didn’t want to sink a bunch of money into a computer knowing any day it was due for an upgrade—especially since they skipped the M3 upgrade with the Mac Studio (until recently). I tend to hold onto my computers for five to six years before I upgrade. Hence, it pays off to wait a bit.
One of the major issues with the older Intel Apple computers was heat management throttling the computers performance. My old Intel MacBook Pro basically had the fan running all the time unless it was asleep. The new Mac Studio is so quiet that the first few days I worked with it I thought it was turned off. The fan rarely if ever comes on and even then I can’t even hear it unless I put my ear right next to the computer.
I realize this review might sound like an advertisement for Apple, but they do build some pretty amazing computers. I hate spending money on computers, but in this digital age they are a necessity. Buying a new computer is all about time management for me. If a new computer can help me get work done in a shorter time then that time savings can be used for other things, like tracking down the next assignment. In terms of processing images, with the FUJIFILM GFX100 II those 102 MP images can balloon to 1.5 GB or larger once I have worked them up in Photoshop so having a faster computer can massively chop down the time it takes to save those image files much less work them up. In Lightroom, a slow computer also acts as a barrier when trying to adjust these huge image files. Specifically, when trying to adjust white balance or any of the sliders where I need to see the adjustment in the image immediately in real time to know where I need to set that slider, with my older Intel machine the computer would essentially lock up and not show me the changes smoothly as I was moving the slider. That is a key issue in working up images. Hence, the new faster desktop machine was pretty critical for my use case.
On top of working up these ultra high-resolution images the new cameras also present an issue that hasn’t really been that bad in the past. That issue is the frame rates. At twenty frames per second (fps) with my Nikon Z9 and eight fps with the GFX100 II, I am generating more images than I ever have and filling up hard drives as never before. It isn’t that I need to crank the frame rates up to maximum all the time, but when the action is happening so quickly (as with many of my recent Red Bull assignments) having the faster frame rates is the difference between getting the exact moment you are after or missing it completely. This effectively means that on some assignments I don’t come back with just a few thousand images but tens of thousands of images. On the Red bull Endless Skydive assignment last fall, I created over 135,000 images—mostly from remotely mounted GoPros running non-stop at 2 fps. On another Red Bull assignment in early 2025, I created 82,000 images. That large number of images creates another issue in terms of computing power. To go through that many images you first have to build the previews in Lightroom and then the computer needs to have the ability to go through them quickly as you go from one image to the next. Cutting down the time to build those previews could save hours. On the back end, exporting hundreds or even thousands of large image files also takes a lot of time and a faster computer here again saves a lot of time. That is one of the big reasons I needed to upgrade.
Having used laptops as my desktop computers for the last fifteen years it is very nice to have a dedicated desktop machine again with a plethora of ports built in. I have a lot of hard drives attached to my desktop computer—around 200 terabytes of RAID enclosures to be exact. I still use a CalDigit hub with the Mac Studio but it is great to have some extra Thunderbolt and USB-C ports on the computer itself. My Eizo CG319X monitor uses a DisplayPort connection for the best possible performance and no Apple computer has one of those built-in so I have to use the dock to connect my monitor.
The Mac Studio computers sit in the goldilocks zone of performance, size and price. I opted not to go for the higher-end M3 Ultra variant as the base price was twice as much for very little in performance gains (at least for my photo centric needs). The M4 Max starts out at $1,999 USD but with a few upgrades that can balloon quickly. I opted to go for the faster M4 Max chip with 16 CPU cores and 40 GPU cores. I also opted for 64 GB of RAM and bumped the memory up to 1 TB on the computer itself. These upgrades were mostly for future proofing the computer as they cannot be made later on given that everything is incorporated onto the chip itself. Even with all of the upgrades, the Mac Studio M4 Max was $1,300 cheaper than my now ancient and glacially slow Intel MacBook Pro that I purchased in 2020. And on top of that it is one of the fastest computers Apple has ever offered.
I am hoping that I can get more than five years out of this computer. My cameras are all such high-resolution monsters (either 47 MP or 102 MP) that I don’t really see the need for more resolution or a new camera any time soon. With my crazy intense assignments the only computer related items I will have to buy in the next few years are larger hard drives since I seem to create a terabyte or two of images on every assignment now. Luckily hard drives are getting larger and larger every few years. Amazingly, you can now buy 24 TB 3.5-inch SATA drives and there are rumors of 32 TB drives coming out later this year.
For photographers looking to upgrade, I can highly recommend the new M4 Max Mac Studio. It is more than powerful enough for just about any project I can imagine. For those that need more power for video post-processing the M4 Max is likely all you would need as well. If you work with 8K footage and just want a slightly faster computer then the M3 Ultra might be the better option but the price difference (once upgraded) is significant. Kudos to Apple for making a wicked-fast computer that fits the needs of so many creatives these days. Here’s hoping I can spend less time staring at my computer as well.
Check out the Apple Mac Studio options on the Apple website.
This article was originally published in the Spring 2025 issue of the Michael Clark Photography Newsletter. I have added to that original article here given the extra space available and insight since I wrote this article a few months ago.
Years ago, after the 2008 financial crisis, I gave a series of talks for ASMP (the American Society of Media Photographers) on “Staying Relevant in the Current Economy.“ As part of that presentation I would reference a graphic I had made (shown below) that talked about how in the future the number of working pro photographers that could make a full-time living would shrink drastically. I went on to explain that this would happen because so many of the markets where still photographers earn part of their money from would disappear. Some of those markets that have died off or vaporized in the last fifteen years include stock photography (working with stock photo agencies), editorial clients (i.e. magazines), and print advertising. Note that I gave this talk before social media really had a foot-hold in the advertising industry as it does today.
Sadly, my prediction was more accurate than even I knew at the time. I count myself lucky to still be working in the industry and to still have exciting and adventurous assignments with a variety of clients. But, the upshot is that social media (and the advent of cheap video production) is the real driver of this massive change in how we consume content—be it still images or video. What I didn’t say in that series of talks (given to my peers nearly 15 years ago) was that affordable video production would be the real driving force affecting still photography and the photo industry in general. Now, it is fairly obvious that most photographers need to have some element of video production as part of their services. The advertising industry has realized that motion content in general is more effective than still photography at arresting eyeballs while scrolling through thousands of social media posts. This is not always the case but it takes one hell of an image to be more eye-catching than the average video—even if that video isn’t all that well crafted.
The advent of social media also brought on a whole other way of advertising. In the last five to seven years it seems that the ad industry has fully moved over to social media–there is essentially very little print advertising in magazines or elsewhere. Hence, many companies have decided that it is better to hire a bunch of social media influencers and pay them a few hundred dollars each instead of hiring a pro photographer and paying them several thousand dollars or more. These days it is all about keeping the overhead low and no company really likes to spend money on marketing and advertising. If the economy gets rough, the marketing budget is the first thing that gets slashed.
Toss in the fact that magazines have effectively died off, AI imaging has come onto the scene, and the big stock agencies have driven down pricing massively and you start to get the picture (literally). The crazy tariffs implemented by the US are the latest issue affecting everyone but they have also hit the photo industry hard as well. These days, to stay alive as a pro photographer you have to be exceptional at your job and have the ability to solve very difficult problems for your clients. My prediction from 2010 has come true—and in a way I never would have imagined. Luckily, still images are powerful in ways that video just isn’t. The best still images have staying power and impact. I have to keep reminding myself of that as I chase the next assignment.
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