I need a pad man!

     Photography bloggers should really write about photography, right?

  So far in this very young blog I’ve been mostly complaining about the weather but now that there is some obvious color outdoors, I have some color to play with.  The daffy’s are in bloom, a beautiful line of tulip await me on a new strip of garden.  Migrant birds are headed this way in a hurry so I’m writing this on the new Windows tablet that I invested in to couple with my photography.  Actually, that’s a lie.  Rain began yesterday and is still coming down as I write.  Even the tablet thing is a lie; this is being written on my full size Window’s 7 laptop I use for business matters.  The truth is I did buy a Windows tablet to use for photography.  The problem is, it turns out that it’s not so great for what I wanted it to do.

     I don’t know when the trend toward tablets in photography began, but surely it began on the iPad.  I don’t have an iPad, have never had one, but I do have an iPod touch so I know about all the iPad apps and how cool (and sometimes fun) they are.  Not only are they cool, but some of them are really useful. allowing the shooter to use the tablet as a lightmeter, an iintervelometer, a DOF calculator, editor, et cetera.  So, I came to the conclusion that a tablet was an expenditure that I could justify.  Then the question became which operating system:  iOS (iPad), Android, or Windows?

     The iPad was the most obvious as I knew there were plenty of apps and I had already used some of them on my iPod.  However, I have an Android phone and knew that many if not most apps were also available on an Android pad and there were a lot of hardware choices available there.  Then there was the Windows option; I know the OS and I have used Windows Mobile devices since the days of Windows CE 1.1.  I have to say, though, that the OS on Windows tablets are a far cry from the systems the phones or PDA’s ran.  The tablet I bought was the Windows Surface 2 and its OS is Windows 8.1 (not the Window’s 8 RE that so many have experienced and hated).

     Let me give you a brief comparison with its main competitor, the iPad.  Physically, it’s a tall tablet (10”, width of 7”) and about twice the thickness of the latest iPad my wife has. If you buy the cover/keyboard which is sold separately, it doesn’t really need a case.  One of the uses for this bit of hardware is to show clients examples of my offerings or their own proofs displayed in various ways.  Once you get past the “Start Page”, it’s great for that. There are a couple apps good for that.  But not like for iOS or any android system.

 Since the Surface is really a computer in disguise, I can run the full version of Lightroom (which is lucky since the new Lightroom app is iPad only).  I’ve loaded Windows 2010 for work when I travel, and I’m debating about adding Quicken/Quick Books and other Windows applications.  Applications, not apps.  So I’m still a little cool on this pad of mine.  More about it later.