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Author Topic: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer?  (Read 24757 times)

shadowblade

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer?
« Reply #40 on: March 14, 2016, 11:49:34 am »

Either way, I'm really hoping the Canon Lucia Pro matches or exceeds Vivera in longevity. It's not such a big leap. Then there would be a printer that's reliable and won't clog and will have near-guaranteed ongoing support - Canon's unlikely to suddenly pull the rug out from under photographers, since they also make cameras.

Or, of course, for HP to show some renewed interest in wide-gamut photo printers...
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deanwork

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer?
« Reply #41 on: March 14, 2016, 01:41:43 pm »

With that new inkset Canon did just that, pull the rug out from under photographers. They are giving the photo world right back to Epson.





Either way, I'm really hoping the Canon Lucia Pro matches or exceeds Vivera in longevity. It's not such a big leap. Then there would be a printer that's reliable and won't clog and will have near-guaranteed ongoing support - Canon's unlikely to suddenly pull the rug out from under photographers, since they also make cameras.

Or, of course, for HP to show some renewed interest in wide-gamut photo printers...
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deanwork

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer?
« Reply #42 on: March 14, 2016, 01:51:45 pm »

I do print piezography carbon K7. All my  own work is done on it and most of the best bw for my clients as well. Personally I like the print color, to me it makes the prints richer than neutral prints. A lot of people are scared of warm prints for some reason.

 I guess it would be possible to set up toning by using the new  Epson pigments in combination with piezography because at least in the past the inks were totally compatible, in an Epson printer. Epson says there is no way you can put third party inks in these new printers, but they have said that many times before and people always hacked em. I would never put HP inks in an Epson printer or vice versa. Yea you might play around with it in a desktop unit but you could easily destroy a big printer it seems to me. HP and Canon inks are designed to be heated and projected in a different way.

The advantage of diluting the HP inks is that they are already neutral so it's a no brainer with metamerism control by only using one hue for everything. I still don't know if the new Epson grays are still greenish brown.




Certainly event and sports photographers probably couldn't care less. But those shooting landscapes and fine art prints probably do, and, the bigger and more expensive the print, the more it matters. Trouble is, that's only a small segment of the photography market.

Why not run Piezography Carbon, with a few coloured inks for toning?

Really, carbon, gold or platinum nanoparticles are the way to go if you want non-fading prints. Carbon doesn't fade. Gold and platinum barely corrode. By adjusting the size of pigment particles, you can achieve any possible colour, all using the same pigment. I believe there is a company which has produced inks based on that (not on a commercial scale), but can't find their website at the moment.
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shadowblade

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer?
« Reply #43 on: March 14, 2016, 01:58:45 pm »

I do print piezography carbon K7. All my  own work is done on it and most of the best bw for my clients as well. Personally I like the print color, to me it makes the prints richer than neutral prints. A lot of people are scared of warm prints for some reason.

I know - I've used your services for a few black-and-white jobs before. I like the warm tone for many subjects - ancient ruins and 'warm' landscapes in particular - but prefer a more neutral-to-cool black for ultra-modern, steel-and-glass urban scenes, and for night landscapes.

Quote
I guess it would be possible to set up toning by using the new  Epson pigments in combination with piezography because at least in the past the inks were totally compatible, in an Epson printer. Epson says there is no way you can put third party inks in these new printers, but they have said that many times before and people always hacked em. I would never put HP inks in an Epson printer or vice versa. Yea you might play around with it in a desktop unit but you could easily destroy a big printer it seems to me. HP and Canon inks are designed to be heated and projected in a different way.

I believe Paul Roark has been mixing MIS Eboni inks and HP Vivera inks in Epson printers with a lot of success.

I've even seen an Epson 3880 in a lab printing out sheets of liver cells. Those things can print with almost anything.
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shadowblade

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer?
« Reply #44 on: March 14, 2016, 02:04:10 pm »

With that new inkset Canon did just that, pull the rug out from under photographers. They are giving the photo world right back to Epson.

I'm not so sure about that. I highly doubt the 45-60 year claims for this inkset were done using the same criteria as the 100+ year claims for previous inksets, or the 200-year claims for the new Epson inkset.

After all, 45 years until 'perceptible' change (Aardenburg criteria) is very different to 45 years until 30% density loss (Wilhelm criteria), and 45 years in a dimly-lit, 120-lux room is very different from 45 years in a brightly-lit room (500-2000 lux).

With different criteria, it's like measuring one set of temperatures in Celcius and another in Fahrenheit, then saying that the 100F object is hotter than the 60C object because the number's bigger.

I don't think we can really say which inkset performs best without some formal test results.
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deanwork

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer?
« Reply #45 on: March 14, 2016, 04:40:05 pm »

I know one thing, I don't believe a word of any  "in house" testing figures.  Over the last 15 years I've been burned many times buy such self-serving data. They would have to prove they are totally objective, and how are they going to do that. It sounds like more of a pr screw-up than anything.

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shadowblade

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer?
« Reply #46 on: March 14, 2016, 11:26:02 pm »

I know one thing, I don't believe a word of any  "in house" testing figures.  Over the last 15 years I've been burned many times buy such self-serving data. They would have to prove they are totally objective, and how are they going to do that. It sounds like more of a pr screw-up than anything.

Pretty much. And we've seen it cut both ways - some in-house figures significantly underestimated their performance, while others grossly overestimated it. Hopefully Aardenburg Imaging can get the funding it needs to perform some independent tests.

I would like to see these new inksets tested side-by-side on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308gsm, with no laminate or other coating, possibly with a known quantity (e.g. Ultrachrome K3, Ultrachrome HDR or Lucia EX) as a control.

We already have a lot of information on the relative permanence of papers – those with good longevity tend to have better readings with every inkset than papers with poor longevity. For example, Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Pearl 320mg tends to have better longevity than Epson Hot Press Natural, and that holds true with every inkset. It’s not as if Paper A might outperform Paper B with Lucia EX, but Paper B outperforms Paper A with Ultrachrome K3 – where one paper outperforms another, it tends to outperform it regardless of which inkset is tested. So, we can already rank papers as to which ones have better permanence and choose our media based on that.

We can also rank inksets by permanence. As a general rule, HP Vivera > Lucia EX (although this is very close on many papers) > Ultrachrome HDR (although this gets a lot better with a RIP to minimise the use of yellow ink) > Ultrachrome K3. This ranking tends to hold true regardless of what paper the inks are tested on.

What we don’t know is where these new inksets fit into the hierarchy. Do the new Epson inksets outlast Lucia EX? Does Canon’s new Lucia Pro inkset outlast Vivera (showing that Canon’s new permanence claims are much more conservative than previous ones), or have they gone backwards?

So, we need to test all the new inksets on the same paper to get a relative ranking – preferably a well-established, well-known paper that has a lot of data from other inksets so that we can make a good comparison. Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308gsm fits the bill perfectly – it’s one of the most commonly-used high-end papers, there is a lot of data available for it (practically every pigment inkset tested on Aardenburg has been tested on it) and it’s a consistent product which has been around for a long time (so there shouldn’t be too much variation between batches or changes to the formula). With a set of data from the new inksets on it, we would be able to see where the new inks fit into the longevity hierarchy and choose an inkset based on that, no matter what medium we decide to print on. (i.e. if Canon Lucia Pro outperforms Lucia EX on Photo Rag 308, it should also outperform Lucia EX on every other paper).
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Mark Lindquist

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer? (Updated)
« Reply #47 on: March 16, 2016, 02:41:07 pm »

I have been in touch with the HP DesignJet Worldwide Strategic Marketing Manager in Barcelona, and he has told me that HP will be continuing to manufacture the HP Z3200ps Series (no info on how long) and that in any event, HP will continue to supply inks at least 5 years after the printers are discontinued.

So that question is answered.  I am not at liberty to divulge any more information than that, but at least we know how long they are committed, at a minimum, to supplying inks after the product is no longer being manufactured.  I assume this goes for support as well .

-Mark
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kevinmcdnyc

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer? (Updated)
« Reply #48 on: March 16, 2016, 03:21:32 pm »

I am not at liberty to divulge any more information than that, but at least we know how long they are committed, at a minimum, to supplying inks after the product is no longer being manufactured.  I assume this goes for support as well .

-Mark

So by not divulging more information, could they be working on a next-gen printer?
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Mark Lindquist

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer?
« Reply #49 on: March 16, 2016, 04:15:56 pm »

No Comment.
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Geraldo Garcia

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer? (Updated)
« Reply #50 on: March 16, 2016, 04:25:11 pm »

(...)and he has told me that HP will be continuing to manufacture the HP Z3200ps Series (no info on how long) and that in any event, HP will continue to supply inks at least 5 years after the printers are discontinued.

The problem I see is the volume of production and distribution. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to find inks and heads for the Z3200. Here in Brazil HP has the biggest market share if you put the fine art and signage markets together but not even that makes our life easier.
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Geraldo Garcia

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer?
« Reply #51 on: March 16, 2016, 04:27:53 pm »

No Comment.

That [lack of]comment of yours is music to my ears!  ;D
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kevinmcdnyc

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer?
« Reply #52 on: March 16, 2016, 05:24:50 pm »

No Comment.

Well I hope they pick up the pace. My Z3100 is on its last legs.
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Mark Lindquist

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer? (Updated)
« Reply #53 on: March 16, 2016, 07:06:34 pm »

The problem I see is the volume of production and distribution. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to find inks and heads for the Z3200. Here in Brazil HP has the biggest market share if you put the fine art and signage markets together but not even that makes our life easier.

We're expecting a visit to our studios next month, so I may (not for sure) be able to tell you more about what's going on.

I can say that the Barcelona team is, apparently, alive and well, however.

Stay tuned, right?

-Mark
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Mark Lindquist
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Mark Lindquist

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer?
« Reply #54 on: March 16, 2016, 07:12:01 pm »

Well I hope they pick up the pace. My Z3100 is on its last legs.

Well, given that the Z3100 is and has long been discontinued, there are still tons of parts available for it, and inks, and printheads.

Beyond that, well there's always

CRAIGSLIST NYC- Z3100

Better move fast if you want a 24" Z3100.  An incredible deal it looks like.

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Mark Lindquist
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shadowblade

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer? (Updated)
« Reply #55 on: March 16, 2016, 08:26:42 pm »

We're expecting a visit to our studios next month, so I may (not for sure) be able to tell you more about what's going on.

I can say that the Barcelona team is, apparently, alive and well, however.

Stay tuned, right?

-Mark

Will wait for the update. The Barcelona team was the one responsible for the Z3100/Z3200, yeah?

That said, HP's management has changed several times over the years - who knows what they're thinking. Although some sort of announcement - any sort - would be good, since the added certainty would be great news for their products.
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Mark Lindquist

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer? (Updated)
« Reply #56 on: March 16, 2016, 10:04:31 pm »

Will wait for the update. The Barcelona team was the one responsible for the Z3100/Z3200, yeah?

Yeah.

That said, HP's management has changed several times over the years

Yeah

Who knows what they're thinking.

Yeah

Although some sort of announcement - any sort - would be good, since the added certainty would be great news for their products.

Yeah

 :)
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kevinmcdnyc

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer?
« Reply #57 on: March 16, 2016, 10:11:54 pm »

Yes, please do keep us posted, Mark.  My Z3100 fan has started screaming. I don't know that I'm up for soldering in my NYC apartment. I'm finally considering switching over to the Epson P7000 or the Canon Pro 2000.
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Mark Lindquist

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer?
« Reply #58 on: March 16, 2016, 11:05:18 pm »

If you can spend $150.00 you can get a replacement power supply

HERE

An OEM power supply that has a new fan in it.  Pretty easy to unplug and take out the old and put back the new.

Don't forget about the micro drip technology - no clogs, the ability to make profiles instantly, and the awesome inkset.  The learning curve is steep on new equipment compared to having mastered the Z3100.

$150 and a few hours and you're back in the saddle. 

Mark
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Ernst Dinkla

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Re: Will HP make a next-gen Z Series Printer? (Updated)
« Reply #59 on: March 17, 2016, 04:50:38 am »

Will wait for the update. The Barcelona team was the one responsible for the Z3100/Z3200, yeah?


Johan Lammens still works there, in the past he was usually the representative of the engineering department at the Z presentations. I think he also was the main developer of the profiling software we have in Color Center. Flemish of origin, polite and someone with the right answers on difficult questions. Will be higher in the ranks now I guess.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

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January 2016 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plots



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