I'm looking to bring all my printing in house this year for a bunch of reasons:
-Save dramatically on album costs (20-25% if I do the prints & assembly). Printer would pay for itself in roughly a year.
-Improved customer service (1hour turnaround for emergency prints vs days with labs)
-Adding value to my packages by stressing that prints are fine art quality vs lab
-learning another aspect of digital photography.
The maximum size I'm looking for is a 17 inch printer, I don't really offer anything larger.
I've been scouring the internet (LL, Outback, photo.net, DWF) and am still cant decide which printer to get. I even attended the local pro shop's 'Meet the Epson Rep' but it didn't help.
As far as I can tell I've got 4 options available to me:
Epson 4000 (used)
Epson 4880
Epson 3800
Canon ipf5100
Epson 4000
Another photographer who I respect and trust has offered to sell me a used Epson 4000 along with the Imageprint RIP.
Pro's
Price-cheaper than everything, even the 3800. Gets me in the door.
Both black inks- Not sure how much switching I'll do, but pissing away $70 worth of ink with the 4800 is going to upset me even if I only do it once.
Imageprint RIP- From what I've been able to find out, this program is worth it even for the new printers.
Con's
No warranty. This is going to be a high volume production printer, so if it breaks I need it fixed ASAP.
Used- already wear and tear on printer, even if only a little.
No K3 inks- This can result in bronzing, gloss differential and B&W that aren't neutral. To a certain extent, all of these problems can be overcome with a combination of the Imageprint RIP, new papers (lustre & bartra) and the fact that I'm not much of a pigment peeper.
Epson 3800
Pro's
Cost- Initial outlay is reasonable
Inks- Has both K3 and both blacks on board, no waste in switching.
User friendly- Almost plug n' play....the biggest printer I've ever used is a R300, so this does matter.
Image quality- supposedly great.
Con's
Small ink tanks- the volume of printing I plan on doing, this will get costly.
No Roll Paper- Same thing, the bulk of my printing is going to be small odd sized prints for matted albums. With roll paper, I can nest these for optimum paper usage.
Build quaility- Seem's to be aimed at the advanced amateur. Not sure how long it will hold up.
Epson 4880
Pro's
-Build quality
-Ink cartridge size- 220ml equals savings
-Current print head and ink technology
-Roll paper support
-Ability to lease
-Warranty
Con's
-Ink swapping. Still not sure how much this affects me, but it's a big concern.
-Obsolescence. At the Epson seminar today, the guy was showing the 11800 model which has dual print heads and both inks. From what I've read, most people consider this a prototype of what the future, smaller Epson's are going to look like. Rumor's of new printers at Photokina are out there.
- Price. The second most expensive.
Canon ipf5100
The dark horse of the bunch.
Pro's
Both inks on board.
Current print technology.
New technology.
Warranty available.
Lease available.
Con's
Price. For some reason this printer cost's almost double ($2300 vs $1400) in Canada what it goes for in the US. This is pissing me off on principle alone. I'm not willing to take my chances with importing a US model.
Support. Terribly lacking. The fact that this printer has it's own Wiki is scary. The onsite repair is apparently a joke compared to Epson's.
Newbie Factor. From what I've read, this printer isn't the most user friendly (lack of profiles, odd menu's)
PS plugin. You get great results using this plugin, but from what I can tell, you can only print one image at a time, no support for nesting.
Conclusion
No idea.
Honestly, I'm flipping from model to model by the hour.
I'd really appreciate any fresh input, also if you disagree with any of my points.
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Hi Scott,
If you were at Vistek in Toronto to meet Andrew Patrick - I was there too.
You've done quite a neat inventory of what you'vce read about these models, so your research is about 75% done I would say. The remaining issues are judgmental and economics.
First, from what I've see, all these printers produce very high quality prints. Output differences between printers from the same image on the same kind of paper are a quibble. Speaks well for the technologies and the state of colour management.
What's left is ease of use, machine size, your needs and economy. You didn't say how much you are printing or how muich media switching you may wish to do. There is a trade-off between the price of the printer and the cost of the ink - at least in the Epson line. You'll pay more for a 4880 than a 3800, but the 4880 gives you roll feed and the ability to use 220ml tanks (compared with no roll feed and 80ml tanks for the 3800); hence the 4880 results in a much lower cost per ml of ink - and some say for paper, rolls work out cheaper per print than sheets. However, the 4880 has an ink-swapping penalty which the 3800 largely does not. So IF you think you will be switching between matte and non-matte, the 3800 is economic freedom by comparison. Andrew Patrick did say you can use Photo Black ink on matte paper (not the other way around), but there will be a slight quality hit.
If you buy a used 4000 which comes equipped with ImagePrint you will avoid the metamerism and bronzing issues associated with B&W prints from that printer - this was one of the very key reasons for using a RIP with that particular model. You should check whether the ImagePrint license would be transferable. If I were doing this and I wanted that 4000, I would check out its operating condition and extent of use carefully before buying. It is a cloggy kind of printer. If you were to find it gets clogged to the extent that power cleaning cycles, which use a lot of ink, don't help much, you will need to carry it to Mondrian-Hall at Dufferin and Steeles, where they will charge you roughly 325 dollars to replace the cleaning station (pump, cap and wiper assembly). All told, I would probably shy away from a 4000. It is cloggy in my experience and it is already third generation back in terms of Epson technology.
I wouldn't pay a premium "made-in-Canada" price for a Canon printer - period. But the newer models appear to have dealt with the IPF5000 issues. I have no first hand experience with them.
I'm using an Epson 3800 since the end of last October and I like it - great print quality, reliable, quiet, easy to use, small foot-print, ink switching only uses about 5 ml round-trip, excellent documentation and very good support from Epson. Their Canadian pricing is reasonable. Note that serving a market 10% the size of the US market is going to result in higher unit cost no matter what - the only issue is how much, and with Epson it's not bad.
For the Epson printers, I find them using about .65ml of ink per 54 sq.in. of coverage (i.e. a 6*9 inch image size). This does not include ink usage for cleaning the print heads. It varies from machine to machine and is not measurable in the 3800 - Epson changed the firmware so this data no longer shows for that printer.
In sum, you need to sharpen your pencil on the math and work out the economics of the various options relative to the usage you would make of them - that will point you to the correct choice.
