The next generation Canon!

[NickOsborne]

I'm about to upgrade.

Currently an Epson 7600... a fine printer... one of the best and original giclée printer available to the masses.


So my choices are...

9900... new but with obvious flaws. Cleaning, software, banding, lack of support and admission of faults... but the best prints I may every see.

3200... expensive, rock solid, longevity of prints, but end of life...

8100... Interface. smaller colour gamut, rock solid construction. but end of life...


I've used Canon cameras for the past 20 years... and it they have served me well as a  commercial photographer. Beautiful 'L' series  lenses, robust bodies, reliability and service.
 
...and I love that Canon have seriously entered the photographic printing game!


But what next....

The 8100 is more than two year old and must be due for an update.

So lets see a serious challenge to the hp and epson... reliability, gamut, service, usability, speed. and the best prints i've ever seen!!!! I reckon I have 8300 reasons to buy the next generation Canon wide format printer....

So what do you want?  

[neile]

A cut sheet feed mechanism that doesn't use pizza wheels to feed, and therefore doesn't leave pinwheel prick marks all over my blacks when printing on thick paper.

If I had that, I'd be in heaven. Oh, and drop the price to $99

Neil

[John Hollenberg]

There is a thread on the Canon Wiki about the next generation of Canon printers:

http://canonipf.wikispaces.com/message/view/FAQ/19433293

with some stating they have seen the new models and guestimated release dates ranging from May to October.  More info here:

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201002010304.html

[NickOsborne]

That sound pretty good to me! I'm in Australia and I will be happy to wait for the 8300.

[Mussi_Spectraflow]

I'm about to upgrade.

Currently an Epson 7600... a fine printer... one of the best and original giclée printer available to the masses.


So my choices are...

9900... new but with obvious flaws. Cleaning, software, banding, lack of support and admission of faults... but the best prints I may every see.

3200... expensive, rock solid, longevity of prints, but end of life...

8100... Interface. smaller colour gamut, rock solid construction. but end of life...


I've used Canon cameras for the past 20 years... and it they have served me well as a  commercial photographer. Beautiful 'L' series  lenses, robust bodies, reliability and service.
 
...and I love that Canon have seriously entered the photographic printing game!


But what next....

The 8100 is more than two year old and must be due for an update.

So lets see a serious challenge to the hp and epson... reliability, gamut, service, usability, speed. and the best prints i've ever seen!!!! I reckon I have 8300 reasons to buy the next generation Canon wide format printer....

So what do you want?  

How are you going to use the printer?

Don't have much experience with the canon's, but I wouldn't try to correlate the quality of the camera's with the quality of the printers. Don't mean that to be either positive or negative.

Regarding the Epson vs HP. I might break sown the features a bit differently.

Z3200 -
You said "expensive, rock solid, longevity of prints, but end of life..."

Expensive - Compared to the 9900 it's a lot cheaper.
Rock Solid - I would say that's it pretty "average"
Longevity - Yup! Pretty much best thing out there.
I would also add that it's probably the slowest of the bunch. Produces what I personally feel to be the best RC prints. Has fairly inconvenient paper loading. Is designed to operate mostly maintenance free.


9900 -
You said "Cleaning, software, banding, lack of support and admission of faults"
There are certainly some issues, but I have several of these printers operating in high end environments and have worked flawlessly for some time. My "goto" printer for most of my work. Banding is not universal. Support should come from your dealer first and foremost, if it needs to go up the ladder epson can be very responsive and helpful assuming you talk to the right person.

I would add that it is very fast and has a low cost to operate. It is still plagued by nozzle clogs. Heavy duty cutter is great for canvas and heavy FA papers.

For more info I have some reviews up on our website.  http://www.spectraflow.com/index.php?optio...4&Itemid=67

As far as waiting, here is the rule. If you wait you're guaranteed a newer product, since there is always a newer product six months away. Sure there are better and worse times, but you have to balance waiting against the time you're going to waste waiting for the next thing. Personally I think for the most part you can't go wrong with any of the current offerings. Sure they all have there +'s and -'s, but all of them are going to produce very nice prints assuming you take the time to learn how to use the print and work with it's quirks.

[EricWHiss]

Nick,
You didn't mention what you print and what types of paper you print on but...

I had a 7600 and a 4000 and upgraded to the HP z3200.  I did get great prints with both epsons, but I felt I had to really pull them out of them.    The HP z3200 has been effortless.       I have now printed the same images I did with my 7600 with the Z3200 and am just floored by how much better the z3200 prints are.  I used to use the epson premium luster and semi-matte papers for colorful floral work and even on just the every day satin that came with the HP I was getting significantly better gamut and detail.  The calibration and profiling features are fantastic time and money savers.  I have profiled and used up about 75 large sheets of older paper from breathing color and brite cube that I had laying around with great results and it was so easy.  Before the HP I wouldn't have though it worth while to spend the money and time to have the needed profiles made for these papers.   I have not had this long enough to write about clogs or probs but I certainly have had none so far.  The HP is also very economical with the inks - I'm seeing a trend of just under 1ml per ft2 of paper total for all 12 inks using a mixture of papers and GE full page - if you buy ink in the two packs then the cost is about 0.40/ft2 for ink including what ever is used in the maintenance etc.

The newer epsons should have better color than the 7600's but if they still have clogs then I can't see how they could be more frugal with ink the HP.  The 7600 guzzled ink compared to the HP.  And the epsons had a way of wasting paper too. What I hated most was that it often would go in crocked and fold up or mark an edge of the paper even when I was careful or throw a load error and make you do it over again even when being really careful.  Sometimes the epson 4000 would do this from the sheet feeder on its own too.  They'd stop in the middle of a print and ruin the job way too often for ink outages, random connection glitches. The inks would go from half full reported to empty in a few prints and I never could predict the use. Where did all the ink go?  The ink waste tanks were always full.   I felt I could never count on either of them.  If you did a search here on the forums you'd see that I hated the epsons for their ink and paper waste and frustrating fickle quality.  I swore I would never ever buy another epson (though never is a long time).   I upgraded recently to the HP Z3200 and took advantage of their great rebate program - not sure if its still ongoing or not but worth a check because after the rebate and free netbook which I sold the cost was less than half of what I paid for the 7600 like 6 years ago.

I'd agree with Julian writes about the paper loading. It is slower than I like for cut sheets, but it never screws up and always works.

I'd give the HP very high marks overall. I'd suggest you consider them.

[NickOsborne]

Just some quick notes.

The HP price in Australia is approx. $2000 more expensive than the Canon 8100 and the Epson 9900.

What I print is my own photograph work on a variety of paper but at the moment using only Photo Black (so limiting the papers). I'm also involved with book publishing and design so the printer is used for proofing (only using Acrobat... but I am looking at rip solutions) and POS material.

From what I have read and researched I want the printed to be reliable for production of deadline material. This makes me lean towards the Canon and HP (only because of the problems I have read in this forum)

Yes the Canon 8300 is no where near release in Australia, but from my research it seams like it's going to be a major upgrade in terms of construction and colour gamut.

Epson though have announced a 3 year on site warranty which at the moment looks very attractive.

So it's still a dilemma to me but things are becoming clearer and I will be making my choice very soon.

Cheers

Nick

[NickOsborne]

For more info I have some reviews up on our website.  http://www.spectraflow.com/index.php?optio...4&Itemid=67

Thanks for that info Julian. Great review and website.

Nick

[Scott Martin]

The latest printers from all three brands have very similar and large color gamuts. I think it's getting to the point where, instead of saying which one is larger, we should talk more about the characteristics of each gamut. Their advantages and disadvantages. For example some inksets increase gamut in the lighter tones and others have more saturation in dark saturated colors. Personally I find more benefit in these darker saturated colors than the lighter ones. This kind of analysis might lead one to conclude that one solution is better suited for their work, not becuase it's gamut is larger, but because the characteristics of the gamut are better optimized for a certain type of imagery.

[abiggs]

We also need to look at usability of these printers. For example, one printer may be better at handling cut sheets, one may be better at cutting heavy or thick media, one may be fast, etc etc.

I own all three of the 44" printers on the market (1 from HP, Canon and Epson) and they are all good for different reasons and purposes.