Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: keithcooper on October 10, 2019, 05:22:16 pm
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I noticed the new updated Canon PRO-x100 range of printers and wondered if anyone had any info suggesting more than just the workflow/usability changes mentioned in the Canon (UK) press info I've got at http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pro-2100-4100-6100-printers/
The PRO-2100 specs are at:
https://www.canon.co.uk/business-printers-and-faxes/imageprograf-pro-2100/
The new layout/print software may well be useful for PRO-x000 users too?
Have I missed it or have these printers been announced elsewhere too?
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They made a video too.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wod-rkwMCjQ
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They made a video too.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wod-rkwMCjQ
At 0:53 he forget to lock the holder stopper lever. The printer will most probably complain with a "cannot determine paper width" error! :)
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Just been chatting with Canon and I was right in that the real 'message' for this new range is improvements in productivity, so lots about paper handling/loading and generally making the printers easier to use.
Same head/inks so print quality is likely to be the same...
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Ink Longevity still the worst of the three companies.if its the same inkset
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Yep, that’s what needs fixing.
Ink Longevity still the worst of the three companies.if its the same inkset
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I am disappointed if they did not address the ink longevity in the new version of this printer.
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I am disappointed if they did not address the ink longevity in the new version of this printer.
My thought is that they talked to lots of people using the printer and that ink longevity rated well down the list of requirements - that's not to downplay its importance to some here, but people here are not the main market for these printers. I'm minded to think that even for photographers (a small segment of the market) not all find it an issue at all (I'm one of that group BTW).
New inks were always unlikely for the first refresh of the PRO-x000 range - many of the improvements seen in the PRO-x100 range are related to some of the more CAD/Graphics models that appeared after the initial PRO-x000
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I did speak to Canon about ink longevity. They seemed to know it was a issue. It sounded like they were going to do something about it, but i guess not.
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I did speak to Canon about ink longevity. They seemed to know it was a issue. It sounded like they were going to do something about it, but i guess not.
I'm sure it is being looked at but is in many ways a much more complex issue (read $$$) to change than paper feeding and 'mechanicals', especially when some of that work has been done for other models.
Not until the PRO-x200 (or whatever comes in a few years)?
Look for example at the new Epson P7500/9500 (or P7570/9570 in some countries), many of the new features are aimed at speed and productivity. Sure I noted the loss of black switching, but in some ways that 'just' comes from adapting the bigger P10000/P20000 heads.
Anyway, looking forward to giving both the new Canon and Epson printers a good tryout ;-)
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I will wait for a better inkset and hope my IPF8400 lasts.
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It’s pushing a lot of people back to the new Epsons, which is where I will go when my Canon wears out, unfortunately, or the new HP that’s also really fast with a great gamut and great longevity.
I don’t buy that Canon doesn’t care about all the serious art photographers business., which globally is big, or the painting canvas reproduction business. The signage ad area is dominated but dye sub and uv curable systems.
They worked really hard to achieve a big market share in photo and develop those second iteration Lucia inks which are great. They tried to hide the test results of the third iteration by not publishing them when in the past they published the Wilhelm tests when the printers were released. Once Wilhelm published the Canson paper tests with lucia pro inks and Aardenburg published information, we finally found out what was going on. And it took a couple of years. They will be behind for probably several more years now. It’s too bad for a solid hardware that took so long to mature.
John
I will wait for a better inkset and hope my IPF8400 lasts.
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I am not convinced the new HP has great gamut.
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The color rendition in prints from my Canon Pro 1000 are better than what I was getting from my Epson 3880. With regard to print permanency, I'm not sure what the folks posting are using as reference sets. Aardenburg has common data for Moab Entrada Rag for both the Epson 3880 (yes, it's an older ink set with a weak yellow) and the Canon Pro-1000 (Mark owns both of these printers and I know that Entrada Rag is one of his go to papers). Go look at the I* color and tone data for both papers at the 100 megalux time point. The Canon data are a bit better than that for the Epson printer. Obviously, it would be good to have data for the newer Epson ink set but someone will have to step up and fund that research.
For most print applications either Canon or Epson (I've not owned a HP printer and am in no position to comment) you can have confidence that you are producing good prints. I have an office installation that was put up in late 2008 and when I visited the site a couple of years ago the prints still looked very good. Prints were subject to 14-16 hours a day of fairly harsh office lighting. They were all framed using normal plexi. As long as one uses pigment ink sets things should have good display properties over extended periods of time.
Alan
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You could be right. It all depends on what you need and want in regard to longevity I guess. I have no problems with the gamut of the Z3200 and I don’t really need the addition of orange and violet in the new Epsons. I don’t do a lot of super saturation work. I would much rather have an extra light light gray. Canon lost ground in the green gamut when they added the gloss enhancer which doesn’t appear to be as good as the hp or their greens.
I wish we had an independent source that evaluated all three brands in all respects on the same media. But hell, Epson and Canon are releasing so many models now that it would be hard for anyone to keep up.
I am not convinced the new HP has great gamut.
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My thought is that they talked to lots of people using the printer and that ink longevity rated well down the list of requirements - that's not to downplay its importance to some here, but people here are not the main market for these printers. I'm minded to think that even for photographers (a small segment of the market) not all find it an issue at all (I'm one of that group BTW).
New inks were always unlikely for the first refresh of the PRO-x000 range - many of the improvements seen in the PRO-x100 range are related to some of the more CAD/Graphics models that appeared after the initial PRO-x000
It's not a matter of worrying about whether the prints will fade in 100 years, that estimate is based on "ideal" conditions. It's about how long those "100 year" prints will actually last in less than perfect conditions such as in a professional office with lots of fluorescent lights and big south facing windows.
I don't want my 100 year prints to fade in 5-10 years under those harsh conditions which is why I want the longest lasting inks I can get.
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Exactly. A lot of the work I do goes up in long term public display, often under skylights and bright fluorescents or close to large windows. Uv glass certainly helps but for large prints few people I know, even wealthy ones, want to pay that price which can be huge.
Intensity of two to three times the optimum can zap certain hues quickly. I’d much rather use an inkset that has 10% less saturation in some hues but twice the longevity. But I also realize that we live in a disposable society where some people just don’t care beyond the life of an exhibition or may keep their work in dark storage 90% of the time. Even the worst are a hell of a lot better than C prints which people continue to use.
It took Epson a long time but they should be commended for re-engineering their yellow. I wish I had the courage to try it in my older Epsons. If they have the clogging and ink waste under control now ( IF ) they are going to take back some of that market share from Canon.
John
It's not a matter of worrying about whether the prints will fade in 100 years, that estimate is based on "ideal" conditions. It's about how long those "100 year" prints will actually last in less than perfect conditions such as in a professional office with lots of fluorescent lights and big south facing windows.
I don't want my 100 year prints to fade in 5-10 years under those harsh conditions which is why I want the longest lasting inks I can get.
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Compare the new Canon Ink to the older inkset. In my mind the newer printers should stay the same or improve in ink longevity. At least for those that care about this. Why go backwards. They should of kept the same inkset, forget the gloss enhancer.
http://wilhelm-research.com/Canson/WIR_Canson_Fine_Art_and_Photo_Papers_2019-08-22.pdf
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Remember Canon never published any data about their fade characteristics apart from a short scary posting on their website that showed bad results that they quickly took down. If Canson hadn’t posted those comparisons on the various Canson media we wouldn’t have seen them.
Compare the new Canon Ink to the older inkset. In my mind the newer printers should stay the same or improve in ink longevity. At least for those that care about this. Why go backwards. They should of kept the same inkset, forget the gloss enhancer.
http://wilhelm-research.com/Canson/WIR_Canson_Fine_Art_and_Photo_Papers_2019-08-22.pdf
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Compare the new Canon Ink to the older inkset. In my mind the newer printers should stay the same or improve in ink longevity. At least for those that care about this. Why go backwards. They should of kept the same inkset, forget the gloss enhancer.
http://wilhelm-research.com/Canson/WIR_Canson_Fine_Art_and_Photo_Papers_2019-08-22.pdf
I hadn't seen that. Thanks for the link.
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Compare the new Canon Ink to the older inkset. In my mind the newer printers should stay the same or improve in ink longevity. At least for those that care about this. Why go backwards. They should of kept the same inkset, forget the gloss enhancer.
http://wilhelm-research.com/Canson/WIR_Canson_Fine_Art_and_Photo_Papers_2019-08-22.pdf
Under the worst case scenario for Canon which has the 'weakest' ink set according to this Wilhelm study, a framed under glass image will last long enough with a range of 40-80 years depending on the paper choice. In office installations do you really think your images will be on the wall for a longer period than that? Also, for larger prints wouldn't canvas with protective coating be the choice. there is no longevity data in this set for that. If permanency greater than that is desired go and get an HP wide format printer.
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Well his question was , why would they go backwards? I agree, they shouldn’t and were sneaky about not letting people know about it until a lot of folks bought the printers and found out a year or two later they had gone backwards.
As for big prints, no most people don’t want canvas, though I personally think it is something to seriously consider for avoiding framing cost if nothing more.
Fact is if people don’t make an issue of these things they say “people don’t care” which usually is wrong.
Under the worst case scenario for Canon which has the 'weakest' ink set according to this Wilhelm study, a framed under glass image will last long enough with a range of 40-80 years depending on the paper choice. In office installations do you really think your images will be on the wall for a longer period than that? Also, for larger prints wouldn't canvas with protective coating be the choice. there is no longevity data in this set for that. If permanency greater than that is desired go and get an HP wide format printer.
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Well his question was , why would they go backwards? I agree, they shouldn’t and were sneaky about not letting people know about it until a lot of folks bought the printers and found out a year or two later they had gone backwards.
As for big prints, no most people don’t want canvas, though I personally think it is something to seriously consider for avoiding framing cost if nothing more.
Fact is if people don’t make an issue of these things they say “people don’t care” which usually is wrong.
I moved to a Canon Pro 1000 after my 3880 suffered a black ink switch failure. The cost of parts and a new ink set were not worth the DIY repair job. As I noted in a previous post, my Canon prints look better than the Epson ones and the paper feed mechanism and build quality are far better than the Epson P800. I spent a lot of time going back and forth in terms of which printer to get and for my needs the Canon won out. It looks like an even better decision now that the firmware is updated and I can print larger than 17x25 if I need to.
If I were going to buy a wide format printer, it would be an HP.
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That’s really cool. It seems like in the desktop realm Canon has made a much more durable and professional printer . My client has an Epson P800 and we’ve been playing with his lately. He turns it on once a month and the nozzles are always clear. The color output is really good and the neutral QTR bw on both matte and gloss fiber is really good ( a lot of that goes to Roy Harrington because he has really nailed the generic curves for that machine.) But I agree, the construction is rinky dink, even compared to my 3880, and I wouldn’t expect it to last very long, who knows. For a desktop unit I’d probably buy the Canon too. What I love about Canon is the robustness of their construction and clean nozzles and the big ones the ability to easily replace heads.
Maybe because I’m getting older, or because I’m not a big volume printmaker, but I really respect it when machines last. I’m still using my IPf 8300 a lot and I tend to restore printers rather than replacing them often.
John
I moved to a Canon Pro 1000 after my 3880 suffered a black ink switch failure. The cost of parts and a new ink set were not worth the DIY repair job. As I noted in a previous post, my Canon prints look better than the Epson ones and the paper feed mechanism and build quality are far better than the Epson P800. I spent a lot of time going back and forth in terms of which printer to get and for my needs the Canon won out. It looks like an even better decision now that the firmware is updated and I can print larger than 17x25 if I need to.
If I were going to buy a wide format printer, it would be an HP.
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I tested the HP Z9 with three HP labs that printed my test prints. Not one of the labs could match the gamut from my Canon IPF8400. Even the lab in Barcelona. Maybe I could do better than the labs HP to match the gamut in my prints or maybe its because the HP uses less inks that the gamut is not as good.
I sell my large format prints in fine art galleries and have sold to over a 100 corporate clients. I would say the demand for canvas prints from my clients is 5% or less.
I still say if I was Canon why cut ink longevity. I think the photographer that produces prints for sale or for their own homes should care. Canon should care.
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If you tried three labs that’s not good. Which colors are they having trouble with and what was the test image like, subtle hues or saturated or both? I usually test with the Atkinson chart or something like that.
I have extreme doubts about monochrome after they removed the light gray. That’s bad news anyway you want to look at it. This is the reason I restored my z3100 to back up my z3200.
You would think people who print daily with them would be describing more direct comparisons between the z9
and the Canons and Epsons but I have heard almost nobody talking about the z9. I just read HP is laying off many thousands from their printer division. Not a good sign for us
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-03/hp-inc-to-cut-as-much-as-16-of-workforce-amid-print-unit-woes
I tested the HP Z9 with three HP labs that printed my test prints. Not one of the labs could match the gamut from my Canon IPF8400. Even the lab in Barcelona. Maybe I could do better than the labs HP to match the gamut in my prints or maybe its because the HP uses less inks that the gamut is not as good.
I sell my large format prints in fine art galleries and have sold to over a 100 corporate clients. I would say the demand for canvas prints from my clients is 5% or less.
I still say if I was Canon why cut ink longevity. I think the photographer that produces prints for sale or for their own homes should care. Canon should care.
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It was the saturation of colours and the reds and yellows which were not as good. If my ipf8400 goes down I will have to decide between the HP and the Epson. I am not sure I want to deal with the clogging on the Epson. Maybe it has improved with their new series of printers.