Frequently Asked Questions

Which computer do I need for photography?

Here are recommendations for your next computer, before or after a Thorsten Overgaard Workshop:

Get the fastest computer

I recommend getting the fastest MacBook Pro available. If you want to be mobile and want the most power, get the MacBook Pro 16" spec'ed out (with the most RAM, fasterst processor, largest disk and matte nano screen).

I wouldn't consider a 14" or a MacBook Air for "compactness" - because mostly I travel with a computer, but I don't walk around with it. I put it on a table in the hotel, take it down to a cafe, and the rest of the time it is home, connected to two external screen and office hard drives.

	Buy my Capture One Survival Kit for a step-by-step guide to professional workflow with Capture One Pro

Get the fastest photo editing software

As of 2026, Lightroom Classic and Capture One are about the same speed. You should choose the one you feel works best for you

No doubt, the Capture One Pro software is still the fastest software (used to be twice as fast as Lightroom, after Apple M4 processors and Adobe's upgrade of Lightroom Classic, Capture One is only 27% faster than Lightroom Classic for photo workflow of importing/exporting. On the actual editing work in the software, it's the same.

The reason is that Capture One does not depend so much on the computer power, whereas Lightroom Classic seems to "need" – and now have it with Apple MacBook M-processors.

Capture One preserve more of the original DNG/raw file, meaning better tonality and colors. It's so little you may not see it, but it does.

It's a learning curve to swithch from Lightroom to Capture One, but it can be worth it (buy my Capture One Survival Kit to learn the fastest workflow). I use both Lightroom and Capture One, and when I decided to learn also Capture One, it took me 5,000 pictures through the import and editong process before Captuer One "sat in the fingers" and I woucl work equally fast in any of them.

Capture One supports Leica cameras and lenses (also the old ones)

Capture One has adopted Leica cameras and lenses and offer updated refining profiles on all digital Leica cameras from Leica M8 (2006) and forward to present time models. Also, Capture One profiled all Leica lenses back from the 80's and up to the latest lenses.

Capture One now is included with a Leica camera

As of 2026, Leica Camera include a 3-month license for Capture One with all new cameras.

The kissing couple at Rue de la Sourdière in Paris. Edited in Capture One Pro using my own "BW 1980's Overgaard Style". Leica M10-P with Leica 50mm Summilux-M ASPH f/1.4 BC. © Thorsten Overgaard.

Speed comparison of editing photographs in Lightroom vs. Capture One Pro:

Lightroom Classic got slower and slower under Intel - it ended up requiring a lot of processing power on MacBook Intel. Slow, noisy processor colling, and made it impossible to work on other things while Lightroom was working. Capture One almost nothing in comparison.

Witht the Introduction of the MacBook Pro M1-processor, Adobe took advantage and optimized Lightroom Classic, and the speed improved dramatically. As can be seen here:

M4 MacBook Pro (2026)		LIGHTROOM Classic 15		Capture One Pro 2026 (Build 16)
Import of 346 DNG 24MP files from SD-card		1:02 min		1:10 min
Making 1:1 previews of 346 DNG files		0:32 min		0.00 min (previews done simultaneously on import)
Export of files (346 web-sized JPG's)		0.58 min		0:42 min
Total waiting time for import, preview and export of 346 pictures		2:32 min		1:52 Min
Delay in showing a full-size preview		0.0 Sec		0.0 Sec

Intel MacBook Pro (2019)		LIGHTROOM Classic 9 (2019)		Capture One Pro 21 (2019)
Import of 346 DNG 24MP files from SD-card		67 seconds		64 seconds
Making 1:1 previews of 346 DNG files		9:24 min		3:01 min
Export of files (346 web-sized JPG's)		2:06 min		2:24 min
Total waiting time for import, preview and export of 346 pictures		12:37 min		6:29 Min
Delay in showing a full-size preview		0.1 Sec		0.0 Sec

Using "Styles" or "Presets" to get there faster

I have made a series of my own Cature One Styles for fast editing in high quality. While using Presests in Lighrroom is fun, using Styles in Capture One is often the final edit, or close by. This saves a lot of time and adjustment. I have made he same series of Presets for Lightroom. A little handfull of things to make neat black and white and beautiful color photos. It's all I use. I work fast.

Capture One Pro comes with built-in Styles to make authentic grains as these ones.

Change computer and stay on top

Change computer every 18-36 months to stay in the loop with the fastest technology (things change so fast that a 3 year old computer tends to be really slow). If you change while the previous comptuer is till fairly new, the writeoff if you can sell it.

I haven't managed to sell any of my old computers. I give them to the family, and when I ran out of family needing new computers, I started giving them to strangers (randomly spotted and selected young people wih a talent for writing or photography). In my line of work, buying and using a $8,000 computer for two years and then get the next one, is ok, considering all the work I do on a computer.

This speed test shows how Lightroom Classic performs on different MacBook computers:

If you use Lightroom Classic, which many Leica users still does because it traditionally came with the Leica camera, you should be aware which Mac computer works the fastest. Leica cameras come with Capture One Pro as of 2025, and Capture One traditionally was much faster. But ... since Lightroom was optimized for Apple M1 processor (and the following M2, M3, M4, M5), the speed of Lightroom Classic and Capture One Pro have become equal (se the speed comparison above).

MacBook Pro 15" (Late 2013) 2.6 Ghz i7 Quad processor 1 TB hard drive NVIDIA 750M 2 GB 2 Thunderbolt 2 USB 3 SD-card reader $3,300 in 2013

MacBook Pro 15" (Mid 2015) 2.8 Ghz i7 Quad processor 1 TB hard drive AMD 2GB 2 Thunderbolt 2 USB 3 SD-card reader $3,100 in 2016 B&H Photo / Amazon

MacBook Pro 13" (Late 2016) 3.3 Ghz i7 Duo processor 1 TB hard drive 16GB RAM Iris Graphics 550 2GB 4 x USB-C/ Tunderbolt 3 $2,899 in 2017 B&H Photo

MacBook Pro 15" (Late 2016) 2.9 Ghz i7 Quad processor 2 TB hard drive 16GB RAM AMD Radeon Pro 460 GPU 4GB 4 x USB-C/ Tunderbolt 3 $4,299 in 2017 B&H Photo

MacBook Pro 16" (Late 2019) 2.4 Ghz i9 8-core processor 8 TB hard drive 64GB RAM AMD Radeon Pro 5500M GPU 8GB UHD Graphics 4 x USB-C/ Tunderbolt 3 $6,000 in 2019 B&H Photo

MacBook Pro 16" M4 Max (2024) 4.5 Ghz 16-core processor 8 TB hard drive 128GB RAM 3 x USB-C/ Tunderbolt 5 $7,199 in 2015 B&H Photo

Import into Lightroom 6  of 346 DNG files from SD-card

2:14 min (built-in SD reader)

1:54 min (built-in SD reader)

7:53 min (USB to USB-C dongle)

2:11 min (External USB-C reader)

1:07 min (External USB-C reader)

1:02 min (built-in SD reader)

Making 1:1 previews of 346 DNG files

21:32 min

11:48 min

17:08 min

13:40 min

9:24 min

0:32 min

Export of files ** (346 web-sized JPG's)

4:44 Min

3:12 Min

7:30 min

3:45 min

2:06 min

0.58 min

Total waiting time for import, preview and export of 346 pictures **

28:30 min

16:54 min

32:31 min

19:36 min

12:37 min

2:32 min

SSD hard drive/Flash Memory read/write/copy speed *

800MB/sec

2000MB/sec

1950MB/sec

1950MB/sec

2700MB/sec

6000MB/sec

Delay in showing a full-size preview in Develop Mode *

0.3 Sec

0.1 Sec

2.0 Sec

1,2 Sec

0.0 Sec

0.0 Sec

* = When you edit in Lightroom on a computer, the computer depend on the hard drive and not the processor/RAM to show previews immediately. ** = Export of files in other sizes than original uses the processor to resize the files.

Get a big Eizo screen

If you want to work on a large screen at home, I recommend getting one or two external screens that connects to your portable, rather than having a "large computer" at home and a "small computer" for travel. It's much easier to have just one computer and not having to sync two computers; and you can invest the money in one really fast computer.

I like Eizo ColorEdge screens for the image quality and 98% of Adobe RGB color space shown, as well as the mechanical quality. An dven better, they self-calibrate with a buil-in calibration device! They connect to the MacBook Pro via a USB Type-C -> DisplayPort cable, or to a Microsoft Surface Pro via an PM200 cable (Mini DisplayPort -> DisplayPort), and you can add two to the same MacBook Pro if you like, so as to get an even wider screen area.

Work simply on a laptop when on the road, and offload to external drives when back home. Here's my hotel room in Jakarta. Leica M 240 with Leica 50mm Noctilux. © Thorsten Overgaard

USB-C is not the same as Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 5

The plug for USB-C is the same as for Thunderbolt 3/5. The confusion on this is so great that the staff in the Apple Store doesn't always know. They will claim it is the same speed. It's not. Thunderbolt 3 is four times faster than USB-C, and that is important when buying a new hard drive: LaCie makes hard drives with USB-C (USB 3.1) connections and Thunderbolt 3 connections for this reason, but many portable drives have just USB-C connection. USB-C speed is rated as 10GB/sec and Thunderbolt 3 is rated as 40GB/sec. This is so little known, most will claim USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 is the same connection and speed (though it was specified in the 40 page document following the release of the MacBook Late 2016).

Thunderbolt 3 hard drives
Hard drives with USB-C are not the same as Thunderbolt 3. The LaCie 6TB, 8TB and 10TB d2 drives are the first ones with real Thunderbolt 3 cables and speeds.

Thunderbolt 5 hard drives
Hard drives , particular Solid State Drives, can work really fast and take advantage of rhunderbolkt 5. A SSD drive that supports Thunderbolt 5 can reach speeds of 6000MB/sec whereas a SSD drive that use USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 can go no faster than 3000 M/sec. '

My LaCie 10TB drives with one USB-C connection (top) and two Thunderbolt 3 connections. It's $500 for this model at BH Photo. The cables for USB-C (has a USB-symbol) and Thunderbolt 3 (has a thunder synbol and 3) are different.

Which external hard drives do I need for photography?

You need external hard drives for storage, and you usually need two so that one is your storage, the other is your backup. In other words, you always buy two, four, six or eight hard drives at a time.

Portable hard drives have a live span of 12-18 months before you want to replace them with a bigger one. You think they will last forever, but your need for storage grows faster than you think. The good news is that price of hard drive space drops with the same speed as your need more space.

Speed test and comparison of Thunderbolt, USB-C, SSD hard drives

MacBook Pro SSD internal read/write speed M1 - M5		2000 - 7000 MB/sec
MacBook Pro SSD internal read/write speed Intel		2000 - 2700 MB/sec
Thunderbolt 5 to external SSD that supports G80		6000 MB/sec
Thunderbolt 3 to external SSD		Up to 2800 MB/sec
USB-C to external SSD RAID		900 MB/sec
USB-C to external SSD		450 MB/sec
Thunderbolt 3 to external RAID		400 MB/sec
Thunderbolt 2 to external RAID		137 MB/sec
Thunderbolt 3 to external hard drive		117 MB/sec
USB-C to external hard drive		103 MB/sec
Thunderbolt 2 to external hard drive		80 MB/sec
USB-3 to external hard drive		75 MB/sec
USB-2 to external hard drive		40 MB/sec

As you can see, the hard drive determines the speed more than the connection.

My portable hard drives are currently 4TB LaCie Rugged (USB3) and 2TB Western Digital (USB3) and 2TB USB-C LaCie Porsche.

Make sure to avoid portable hard drives that require external power supply! Not much compactness in having a small drive that needs a power supply. A portable hard drive should be powered by the USB or Thunderbolt cable. 

Desktop hard drives are a little different in that they last for 3-5 years. Then you want to upgrade them to larger ones because you need more space and the connections becomes obsolete. FireWire 400 (invented 1995) and FireWire 800 (introduced 2009) have died out. Again, time works for you, the price of a top-of-the-line 120 GB hard drive in 2000 was $400 back then, and a 6,000 GB hard drive today costs $400 as well. 

This is how big (or small) a difference there is between FireWire 800, USB3, Thunderbolt 2 and Thunderbolt 3:

FireWire 800 hard drive

USB 3 hard drive

Thunderbolt 2 desktop hard drive LaCie 6TB

Thunderbolt 3 desktop hard drive LaCie 6TB LaCie 8TB LaCie 10TB BH Photo

Thunderbolt 3 RAID desktop hard drive LaCie 20TB LaCie 28TB LaCie 32TB LaCie 48TB BH Photo

Thunderbolt 5 SSD Portable or desktop 80G OWC Thunderblade X12 12TB - 96TB or OWC 1M2 80G 1TB - 8TB Amazon

Read/write/copy speed

71 MB/sec

75 MB/sec

137MB/sec

117MB/sec

460MB/sec

6000MB/sec

The lesson on FireWire, USB, Thunderbolt and the USB-C Port is that it's the size of the connections that change dramatically, not so much the speed. But the hype with each new type makes you buy new equipment, and that's the main feature.

The USB-C is genius in that it is one connections for power, drives, screens and all. But don't believe for a second it's faster.

What gives real speed is RAID hard drives. The LaCie RAID perform 460MB/sec writing speed, and a RAID SSD can do 1800 MB/sec.For RAID to be fastest, it is set to RAID 0 (writes the data in stripes across severeal hard drives).

Some of my hard drives: To the left is four LaCie RAID "DOCK" 28TB Thunderbolt 3 hard drives (460MB/sec) with SD-card reader and other memory card slots (hence the name "DOCK"). To the right are three 10TB LaCie Thunderbolt 3/USB-C hard drives (117MB/sec).
In front are is 4TB LaCie USB-C Rugged hard drive, and below it a 2TB Rugged USB-C hard drive. The black hard drive in the bottom center is a super-fast Glyph Technologies RAID SSD 4TB potable drive with USB-C (1800 MB/sec). Alle the portable drives on the table are powered from the computer alone, which is what you want for any hard drive you take with you on travel.

Speed comparison Solid State and Hard Drives (January 2026)

Here are the test speeds for how long it takes to copy 67GB of image files.

Having all the storage built into the MacBook is faster than using cables. The internal write speed in the MacBook Pro M4 is 7,000 MB/s (for 4TB and 8TB models, while the 1TB model has a write speed of 1,800 MB/s).

Solid State is 142 times faster than Cloud storage

As a side note, you could consider storing files in the cloud. However, transferring 67GB from the cloud to your device would require a fast and reliable internet connection. Even with a 500+ Mbps internet connection, downloading 67GB would take approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes, or longer. In comparison, the same task on a Thunderbolt 5 compatible SSD (OWC 8TB portable 1M2 80G) would take about 38 seconds.

Read my Solid State Dives review here.

Price comparison of hard drives (January 2026)

		USB 3		Thunder bolt 2		USB-C 1000 MB/sec		Thunder bolt 3 2800 MB/sec		Thunder bolt 5 6000 MB/sec
LaCie 5TB Rugged portable HD				$50 per 1 TB BH Photo
WD 2TB portable HD		$33 per 1 TB BH Photo / Amazon
LaCie 4 TB Rugged portable HD		$35 per 1 TB BH Photo / Amazon		$85 per 1 TB BH Photo / Amazon		$40 per 1 TB BH Photo
Glyph Technologies  RAID 4TB SSD or 8TB Portable drive								$185 per 1 TB BH Photo
OWC 8TB SSD portable 1M2 80G										$160 per 1 TB Amazon
OWC ThunderBlade X12 96TB SSD RAID 80G										$160 per 1 TB Amazon
G-Technology 2TB G-Drive Portable SSD						$165 per 1 TB BH Photo
SanDisk Extreme 4TB or 8TB  Portable SSD						$80 per 1 TB Amazon
LaCie Porsche 2TB LaCie Porsche 5TB						$46 per 1 TB $32 per 1 TB BH Photo
LaCie 10TB Desktop HD								$45 per 1 TB BH Photo
LaCie 20TB/28TB/32TB Dock RAID w/SD card reader								$45 per 1 TB BH Photo

The Microsoft Surface Pro computer where you can take off the keyboard and use the screen with a pencil, or a wheel you attach (magnetically) to the screen. They come as 15" with 1TB and i7 Quad-core processors. See MacRumors review of MacBook Pro vs Microsoft Surface.

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Black and White Photography
Editing Color Photographs
Special Effects
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How to do safe backup
Hardware setup
Screens and Calibration
Printing Workflow
Capture One on iPad
Capture One Live
Publishing
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