Contemplating a Printer

[Dr Croubie]

So i've been shooting for a few years, mostly sharing online and such, never printing big (only occasionally printing small, using my local photolab, which is also one of the last places around here that develops film).

As I've nearly gotten myself setup in the new house, I'm starting to contemplate buying a photo printer. Firstly, I've never had any printer before, let alone a proper photo one. The only one i've erer really used belonged to my parents, an HP Deskjet 550C back with their 386, cost them $1500 or something (they replaced it when it was cheaper to buy a new printer than replace the ink cartridges).

I've been reading up on various models, mostly today over at Imaging Resource. I never realised they could be *that* complicated (although I knew there'd be some sort of learning curve to them). For instance i'd never heard of the difference between Dye (Pixma Pro100) and Pigment (Pro1 and Pro10) inkjet (it's all inkjet to me), and I had read about Dye Sublimation years ago when it was first introduced but don't know much about how well it works lately.

So, first question, are DyeSub printers worth it? All I can find (on B&H) seem to be 4x6 and not much bigger. If anyone can recommend a good one to throw into the mix of options feel free.

Otherwise, my options are hovering around the good Epson and Canon models, namely (B&H Prices, aussie prices will probably be a lot more):

Pixma Pro1, $1000, Pigment Ink, 12x $35/tank (which looks huge compared to other cartridges).
Pixma Pro10, $700, Pigment Ink, 10x $15/cartridge.
Pixma Pro100, $410, Dye Ink, 8x $17/cartridge.
Stylus R3000, $790, Pigment Ink, 9x $32/cartridge.
Stylus R2880, $600, Pigment Ink, 8x $14/cartridge.
Stylus R2000, $590, Pigment Ink, 8x $22/cartridge.

So far I've only read the reviews on the Canon models, and the differences between the Pro1/10/100 models, especially with regards to matt vs gloss, saturation vs reality, black vs greys, 4 or 3 pL drops (although the epsons seem to go to 1.5pL), and the myriad of paper options available. Otherwise they mostly look very similar except the ink-tank system of the Pro1, and the Epsons have roll-feeders and the Canons don't. They all do 13" wide which I doubt i'll ever go past (photolabs with large-format are for billboards).
I suppose my main problem is that I don't know what i want to print, or more that I want to print anything and everything, colours and B&W, mattes and gloss, and (i presume expensively) experimenting with different papers.

So what i'm looking for from you guys is a bit of guidance, which of you have used what printers of the ones i've mentioned?
How do you like it for what type of printing?
Where does it shine, where does it fall over?
Specifically to the Pro1 (although i suppose to all of them), will the ink in the tubes dry up if it's left unused for a period of time? (I suppose I might print something at least once a month, although it could be anywhere between every day and 2 months if i'm busy taking photos rather than printing).
One thing when I scan my B&W films is that they always seem to be on the dark side, it takes a bit of pushing to bring back the shadow detail to my monitor. In some of those reviews they say that the Pro10 (i think) also makes stuff darker, has anyone got this model and seen the same thing? Sometimes I want to black-out the shadows, but sometimes I want my subtle details.
Any other general knowledge or advice for someone who's never printed anything much before?


(and for those who pay attention, I'm still running Linux. I've got DPP and GIMP working fine on it, but i've never run a printer. I'm sure i could get any model to print, but i'm not so sure about the proper drivers for configuration and all that, or about the ICC profiles for the paper. I suppose if I can't get it working then I can virtualise Windows on top for printing if I have to).

[eldarhau]

I have had the Pro-1 for a couple of months. Before buying I talked to all those I thought had valuable views and I had the chance to test it up against Epson in the shop (my images) before buying. In my view the Pro-1 was a clear winner. I have not noticed any problems with the ink, when the printer has been unused for a while (maybe not a full month though).
Especially blacks are very impressive, but it delivers everything else as well.

Happy hunting
Eldar

[Joel Eade]

I have not a side by side comparison but I bought a refurbed Epson 3880 Pro from Adorama (last summer) and I am very pleased. It is a pigment printer and it produces very nice results up to 17" wide and is easy to handle. It is very efficient in terms of ink usage and the wide variety of paper it can handle. I think I paid around $850 USD and it came with a full set of inks (which usually costs around $400 USD). I have had no problems with clogs due to inactivity but I have heard of this on just about all printers at times. Overall I am very happy with 3880. I run it from a MacBook Pro via CS5. If you can run photoshop you should be able to load ICC profiles there and print from there.

[Donfong]

I recommend a Epson 9800 Pro. Although it is out of date, it does use 8 colours, as well as it prints upto 360 dpi @ 44" wide. The ink is quite affordable if you use aftermarket brands, and even if you buy genuine epson. As all ink, aftermarket is about 1/2 price. Lastly, this printer is very affordable second hand these days, it's about $1000(+-500).

[Dr Croubie]

Hey guys, thanks for the responses so far. I haven't responded because I've been away for a few weeks, had a few friends visiting from NL and drove to Melbourne and back via the Great Ocean Road. Had a bit of time to think more about what I wanted (and where I was going to get it).
Firstly (as I experienced before looking for a scanner) B+H don't export Epson "due to export restrictions or manufacturer's requirements", but they don't export Canon printers either. Adorama don't seem to mind, and their prices are about comparable, but then you ask to move a 20kg package and it goes to $600 shipping. Same with Amazon. So unless I hold out until I get to Singapore in June, take absolutely no baggage, get the missus to do the same, and hope I don't go over baggage-allowance, it looks like I'm buying locally, Australian retail (shudder).
So the best prices to choose from are now:
R2000, $830 ; R2880, $1100 ; R3000, $1180 (all on special until March 31 at a local store).
Pro100, $750 ; Pro10 $950 ; Pro1, $1300.
Yes, Ouch. That's what we get for living in one of the only countries to escape recession in the last 10 years.

So I've been looking at the differences between the inksets and how they affect the quality of colours. Just to summarise:
Pro1: CCMMYRKKKKK+Chroma
Pro10: CCMMYRKKK+Chroma
Pro100: CCMMYKKK
R2000: CMYORKK+Gloss
R2880: CCMMYKKK
R3000: CCMMYKKKK

The one thing putting me off the Epsons is that they have "Photo Black" and "Matte Black", and have to waste 1-3ml of ink changing between them. Given, say on the R3000 it's a 25ml tank that costs $30-40, that's about $1.50 each time I want to change styles. I suppose I can live with it in the long run, after all I'm not in this for profit (but it probably means I'm going to waste a lot switching while I experiment with different styles). But just having more blacks is definitely a plus, seeing as I want to do some nice B+W printing. So that means R2000 is probably out, the R2880 and R3000 with 2 greys + Photo/Matte black are in, the Pro10 has only 1 Grey plus Photo/Matte Black, the Pro1 has 3 Greys plus Photo/Matte Black.

So i've been thinking more about what I'm shooting and what I want to print.
Digitally I've only got the 7D, I shoot mostly 'happy snaps' of family events etc, that will either never get printed, or only get printed for the memory: ie it doesn't matter how good or bad they look. I do also shoot HDR Landscapes (I love my Sigma 8-16), but here in Australia (at least the dry bits of it), colours are mostly Orange and Brown, bits of green occasionally. So I don't need the über-high saturation of the Dye Pro100 for that. Birds and stuff I like shooting here, but again they're not very saturated birds (unless I take a trip past Steve towards the rainforest in North Queensland). And events I do as well, there's lots of black and dark around, but again people so I don't want too high saturation, but mostly these will go online and not get printed.

Film ranges a bit. Black and white film I love, especialy for Street-shooting. Maybe I'll print these out one day for an exhibition? I do also like doing B+W architecture. On my recent trip I took a whole lot of Velvia for my Mamiya 645AF + 45/2.8 and my Bessa L with 21/4. But I did also take a few rolls of Efke B+W film for the 645, and I've taken (I hope) some really decent B+W Landscapey shots (we'll see when I get them back from the Dev tomorrow). So shooting Velvia does command a bit of high saturation in the printing, and I'd really like to print good B+W shots.

I especially like the look of B+W printed on the thick textured fibrous paper, so it has to stand up to that. As for colour, I suppose I'm not much one for 'glossy' photos, even back in the day of one-hour photos when I was a kid I'd always get the matte. Having read the erst of the reviews over (and over), i'm forming a few opinions about the various models. Pro100 being dye, is best for Saturation. Pro10 vs Pro1, I suppose if i'm spending that much I may as well get the Pro1 (although I'll have to revisit this and find other reviews) and the Pro1 just has more grey levels. On the Epson side, i'm not looking at the R2000 and I haven't found a review yet on the R2880. But at The Imaging Resource they really really like the R3000, it seems to beat the Pro1 and Pro10 for saturated colour shots, and also beats them for B+W especially in the shadow detail. That's kind of important to me, a lot of films I scan turn out very dark in the low-mid shadows (whether it's the scanner, film type, or just underexposed I haven't figured out yet) and I have to PP them up to look good. I don't want to do all that effort just to muddy them back to black when I print.

Anyway, i've got more thoughts to get down, but i'm horrendously late for work. Any more thoughts from you guys will be much appreciated (as well as suggestions of cheap shops in Australia or cheap shipping from OS would help)

[Dr Croubie]

My you are covering a lot of ground with your questions.

Well stop being so helpful and i'll stop asking more questions

Anyway, I've been reading more reviews and googling between Pro1 and R3000.
Firstly on the prices, a friend of mine here suggested bongous.com, a package-forwarding place to get around B+H export restrictions. Still the shipping is ridiculous, a Pro-1 gets $450 shipping plus $1000 makes it $1450, the R3000 iso $800 + $250 which ends up at $1050 (not much less than local-bought $1180). Or there's Henry's in Canada, who don't update shipping on their website and just say $29.95 for international. I'm almost tempted to buy from them and pay the $30, worst case is that they come back to me and say I gotta pay more, if it's too much I just cancel it.

So i've checked a lot more reviews and availability/cost paper and ink and all that. A few that compare these two directly have traced the gamuts, and give or take margin of error they're practically identical.
For print quality they're both very very good, slight edge to the R3000, especially in B+W. Only on really glossy paper does the Pro1 have an edge with the Gloss Optimiser (but I'm not one for gloss anyway). Textured paper is one style I like, and I'd like to try Canvas, so more plusses for the Pigment Pro-1/10 & R3000. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the R3000 can take slightly thicker board than the Pro-1 (which I'll have to verify, i've read so much lately that i could be confused). Not that i'll ever print the thickest available, but more options are alwasy better.

Meanwhile, I got my films back from the developer on Wed and have been madly scanning every night after work. I think I'm going to lean more heavily on B+W quality for this printer, I've got a specific project in mind for which I take photos every month or two, poets at a regular gig in a pub, I plan to print the whole lot out and exhibit them at the pub itself (one day). Here's an example that I've just scanned, haven't done any level curves or sharpening yet, but it gives an idea of what I'm going for:

(side note: I've always used BW400CN for pushing to 800, as I was told it was better that way. This one was TMax400 pushed and looks a whole lot better, maybe because of the film type, maybe because I used an Orange filter on it too (and the lighting was Orange from one side, Green from the other), or maybe it just worked well with my FL55/1.2 wide-open (and I could get 1/100s). Either way, even before i wet-scan and edit it properly, I love this shot. As for my scanner, all I can do is adjust Blackpoint, Whitepoint (which I set to just before clipping), then Gamma until it looks good, which it rarely does, so in GIMP I do some curves on it to bring out the shadows and more contrast.)

As for the other specs, cost-per-page seems to be about the same for the two (comparing from the same review sites of course). So the only difference is down to Roll-feed + Ink-swapping-wasting vs not + not. The more I think about it, there's no way to tell what's going to be the better or the cheaper in the long run. After my initial "let's see what this baby can do" phase, I'm probably going to print more in 'blocks' of similar styles, like a whole lot of B+W at once and later a whole lot of glossy colour. So I'm probably going to take the Roll over the Non-swapping-inks. (and besides, even if it costs me $2 each time I change matt-gloss or back, that's 100 changes with the Pro1 costing $200 more, and that's a few years of use at least). Roll paper I've found at B+H, lots in 13" wide like Epson paper and Moab and Ilford, more than enough to play around with smaller cut-sheets and then decide on a Roll for a specific project.


So yeah, definitely leaning the way of the Epson R3000 right now. Thanks for the great answers and things to look out for, most helpful. Any more suggestions from anybody before I take the $1000 plunge?