The BEST Mac For Photographers, Filmmakers, and Creative Professionals

This is my new Studio Max 2023 with an M2 Max chip and it is officially the

best

computer I have ever owned. I've been using it primarily for photo and video editing, as well as running my social media content creation agency and all that stuff. There are a lot of things I love about this computer and just a couple things I don't and today I want to delve into what my experience has been using the M2 Max Max Studio, what the computer does well and what it doesn't. very good and in this video I'm not going to go into benchmarks and comparisons because there are a lot of videos available for that, but rather I want to give you a real world review after using it for a few months. some examples of how I use it and how it works so you can get a better idea of ​​its capabilities, so if you're someone looking to pick up one of these or want to compare yours to mine, stick around, let's get into it, but Before To start, if you can do me the favor of hitting the like button and subscribing, I would really appreciate it if you're like me and someone who relies heavily on your computer for the work that you do, then I'm sure.

You've encountered a time when your computer has slowed you down. This is normal with technology because it moves so quickly, but it's something I've struggled with time and time again in the past. I've been jumping between Apple and Windows machines. All in search of a computer that is capable of handling my workflow and every time I have done so I have had to make a compromise with price, portability or performance. My previous solution to this problem was to switch to a custom PC that was finally capable. to handle everything I threw at photo and video editing without slowing down, however, it also had some drawbacks despite being very familiar with Windows and having used it since I was a small child.

I have to say I'm not a big fan. of the operating system and having a Macbook and an iPhone and not being able to communicate with my Windows computer just created some unexpected bottlenecks in my workflow, for example not being able to use Air Drop, which is a tool I use every days. or how about needing to format my hard drives differently for Apple and Windows, which is just annoying if you're someone who uses Windows and is curious about the specs? I was using an 8-core Ryzen 2700x processor with 32GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060, and my PC served me very, very well and is still a very capable computer; however, you can't edit in 4k without dropping frames, so when I looked at the price of a new graphics card it wasn't there.

I'm not convinced that was the right move, so enter the fourth month dilemma: do I get a new graphics card for $2,000 and continue to struggle without airdrop and hard drive formats or do I just choose Apple and, if I choose Apple, what computer I choose? Do I buy a Mac Mini and then upgrade in a few years or do I buy a MacBook Pro but I already have one and wow they are not cheap or do I choose Mac Studio it is more powerful than a MacBook Pro and Cheaper and considering I have a MacBook Pro 2017 in perfect condition, do I really need another laptop?

I decided to go with the Mac Studio M2 Max with 12-core CPU, 30-core GPU, 2 terb of internal storage, and 64GB of RAM, which gives me a lot more. value for a small compromise in price compared to the 4090, so stick around as I'll talk about why it shows 64GB and 2 SSD tabs. Let's get into the layout of Mac Studio. It amazes me how such a powerful computer can fit into such a small form factor, my PC alone is 10 times larger and probably 10 times less powerful than my Mac Studio, as you may already know the M2 Max Max Studio has two ports USB, four Thunderbolt 4 ports, 10 GB Ethernet and capacity for one HDMI port. of an 8K resolution display at 60HZ or a 4K resolution display at 240HZ and of course it also comes with a 3.5 headphone jack above the ports and below the computer where the fans are, the studio is extremely quiet, no matter what you do.

I am doing and I really like that about this computer and on the front we have two USBC ports and an SD card reader and I use all the rear ports, one of them is for my monitor, which also serves as a USB 3 hub and the other three are for external hard drives, as for the two USB 3 ports, those are for my LED lights and another for a USB 3 hub, as for the front ports, I like to have them available for when I need to connect more drives, since en It is not very aesthetic or practical to have cables hanging from the front all the time.

The base of the computer is made of a hard plastic ring which I have mixed thoughts about and will share some of them with you in a minute. that the computer is quite simple, it is elegant, beautiful, small and practical. Now let's move on to what you probably clicked on in this video about how the M2 Max Max studio works with video editing, so let's put it to the test. I usually shoot my videos with my Sony A7 3, which is capable of playing 8-bit 4K xavcs MP4 videos at 30 frames per second, improving things in Notch. I also ran a test with my Blackmagic pocket Cinema 4K using B to see how it performed and once again the timeline is buttery smooth. regardless of the effects or color grading applied to the clips and to take it a step further, I reached out to my friend, fellow filmmaker and YouTuber Julian Pierre, to get some samples of Force Point 6K BW footage from his Ursa mini pro G2 and , once again, the timeline.

It's buttery smooth regardless of any effects or color grading applied to the clips and you have no idea how much this means to me. Earlier this year I was lucky enough to work for Uber on a corporate video production in Mexico City at the time when I didn't have Mac Studio yet and was still using my PC. We shot over 2 tabs of video with Blackmagic Cinema cameras in 4k B raw and as you can guess my PC couldn't handle the footage efficiently, my Nvidia 2060 GPU was constantly running at 100% and the da Vinci resolution ended up crashing a bunch of times things got even worse when I started color correcting and applying effects to the audio so I had to find a solution and I did so by reducing the resolution of my timeline to 1080p by creating progress proxies and using a cache smart, but all of these things took away from my otherwise very efficient editing workflow.

Luckily, Jaz had just bought an M1 Pro MacBook Pro and was kind enough to lend it to me to render some of the files. Ridiculously fast, however, when I was using the Jazz M1 MacBook Pro, I ran into a few bottlenecks with its 16GB of RAM, which made it very difficult to multitask, so I had to close other apps while editing to avoiding Da Vinci resolved to fail and this is the main reason why I chose to go for the 64GB RAM upgrade on my PC. I was using 32GB of DTR 4, which really helped with multitasking, but by purchasing a Mac Studio I wanted to prepare for the future. with extra memory to ensure that Mac Studio serves me for a long time.

You might be thinking that Apple Silicone uses unified memory so you don't need as much RAM, but let me tell you if you run out of RAM as you go. Currently if you multitask on things you will dump that memory to your hard drive and SSDs have a limited lifespan especially with Apple drives as they are soldered into the drive you can't swap them out later so how much more memory it has. By using it, the lifespan of your computer will be shortened. That's why I got 64 GB of RAM and it will basically extend the life of my computer.

Now let's get back to practical, real-world use if you're creating content for YouTube or social media. You may be recording more compressed file formats like MP4, so let me show you some rendering times. It took my Mac Studio 17 minutes to export my last YouTube video which was 14 minutes of 4K MP4 video and that's with color grading effects titles and everything now when it comes to shorts and social media reels, It takes me less time to export them than to do anything else, compared to my MacBook Pro or PC, where it took me 15 to 45 seconds to export a 60-second reel.

Now it only takes me about 5 seconds to export videos, so I can basically export them from the air to my phone in a matter of seconds, so if you are someone who works with videos, this computer will definitely speed up your workflow and now move on to the photo editing. This is an area that I was also very excited about, especially with my background in photography. I'll start by sharing that before I moved to Mexico and began a media vigil abroad with my wife Jazz, I had a real estate marketing business in Vancouver, where I was filming up to seven properties a day, up to 7 days. week and that's a lot of media to handle my PC did pretty well but my Mac Studio does even better and faster.

I am impressed at how fast I can export photos on this computer, I recently did a real estate shoot here in Puerto Vataa and I recorded my export times so you see, it took me 1 minute and 25 seconds to export 167 photos in full resolution and that It is a combination of HDR and normal. photos, which is pretty fast in my opinion and would be even faster if you didn't include HDR photos in the mix. Plus, the brushes in both Photoshop and Lightroom work in real time, so I don't clog up any of my system resources, which is something I used to do on my PC for

photographers

working with hundreds or even thousands of photos. , this computer will really speed up your workflow because, as you know, time is money, baby, and the

best

part is that you can do other things while Exporting media, you can export photos at the same time as you export videos, at the same time you watch YouTube and send emails.

This is truly a multitasking machine and nothing seems to stop it now. One of the things I miss most about my PC. If the games are coming from a PC where I can run Battlefield Call of Duty and many other games, Map Studio doesn't have many games available and it's a shame because it's a very capable computer, but I understand that's how it was. It is not made for gaming and this lack of gaming capabilities is not related to the hardware but rather the software. The truth is that most of the games that exist are designed for consoles or PC, so the options available for Mac are very few; however, the new game porting toolkit will hopefully do so.

It opens up a new world of possibilities for gaming on Mac Studio and I'm really looking forward to what new games will eventually come out, so let's try some games. I went ahead and downloaded Combat Master from Steam to try out some Mac Studios gaming capabilities and I must say it was phenomenal, keep in mind that this is not the best game out there nor is it a resource intensive game like Call of Duty GTA or Battlefield, but it still worked in Ultra resolution on my ultra wide monitor if any of you are a Gamer and can help me play Battlefield on this computer I will be eternally grateful so as I said at the beginning of this video there are a couple of things that don't I like this computer, the first is the base.

The computer part is made of a hard plastic that slides every time I plug in an SD card or a hard drive and this is an important thing because if you're putting your computer on your desk and you're plugging things in, you don't want your computer falls. The second thing I don't love about this computer is the speakers. Ryan started in real estate in 2008 and only made $99,000 in his first year, although Instagram didn't show up, I honestly feel like they could have. Something like a MacBook Pro has been improved with spatial audio and it's hard for me to believe how certain companies can create these little speakers that sound phenomenal, but when it comes to the Mac Studio, a $4,000 or $5,000 computer, it just has the worst possible speakers.

The next thing I don't like about the computer is the number of ports. It only has four Thunderbolt ports four on the back and two on the front, as I mentioned, and that's not a lot of ports compared to the. on my PC I had eight for a desktop computer. I would like to see more ports on the computer because I am using all of them and since it is a desktop I generally have a lot more drives and peripherals connected, another thing I don't love about this computer is the fact that the RAM upgrades and storage are ridiculously expensive and you can't upgrade the computer in the future.

I paid an additional $500 for 64GB of RAM and $750 for an additional 2TB of storage. Last but not least, what I don't like and can't do anything about is the speed with which Apple releases new chips. It's December 2023 and the M3 chip is already available for MacBook Pros and is coming soon for Mac. Studios I'm now all for rapid innovation, but considering the price of Apple computers, it's a little discouraging to haveinvested in such an expensive computer and then the next generation comes out immediately, but that's life, I just think they dilute the hype of machines that I could only expect to last a little more than a few months, however, don't let fooled by materialistic shiny object syndrome, the M2 Max Max Studio is a very capable computer that will last you or me a long time.

For a long time, who is this computer for? In my opinion, Mac Studio is pretty overkill for most people, it's very powerful and very expensive, and chances are if you don't need it, just don't use it. to its full potential, in which case I feel there are cheaper, incredibly powerful options available to you, such as the Mac Mini or any of the new M2 or M3 chips, but if you're a commercial or wedding event photographer shooting high megapixels photos in massive quantities. I think this computer is for you or if you are a commercial videographer consisting of a YouTuber or you use film cameras for your videos I feel this computer is for you or if you are another type of

creative

professional or even a business owner who needs speed and power, then this computer will be very useful to you.

I recommend that you consider upgrading your RAM and storage when you buy it just for longevity, that concludes my review of the M2 Max Max studio for

creative

professionals

,

photographers

, videographers, social media marketers and business owners who need a machine to handle everything. If you found this video helpful, consider giving it a try. Like, subscribe to our channel and share your thoughts with me below. Do you have a Mac Studio? If so, what are you using it for and what is it like for me? I would really love to hear your opinion and I am sure I will share your experience.

You're going to help others in the comments section who are stuck in the same dilemma I had about whether they should buy Mac Studio or one of the other options available and with all that being said, thanks for watching and I will. see you in the next video