Which printer to buy?

[OutdoorsLover]

Hi all,

I'm very sorry if this is a repetitive topic!

I'm a very long time photographer of weddings and portraits, and always sent those images off to my lab(s) to have those images printed professionally. Over the past several years, I've started doing more B&W, travel, landscape, documentary, street and astro photography, but never printing my images. I'd like to remedy that by printing my images at home. To that end however, I have no idea which printer to buy. I believe that I'd only like to print smaller images along the lines of 4x5, 4x6 or 5x7, but realistically I'm sure that I'll want much larger images too. Several months ago, I called the good folks at B&H, and they recommended the Epson P700 & P900 printers, as well as the Canon Pixima Pro-100 and Pro-300. I'm definitely concerned with the cost to print, as well as how often I'll actually print. And from what I've heard, not printing with some of these printers can cause issues with the inks. 🙄

I'd welcome any thoughts, suggestions, opinions or conversation regarding this, so please chime in!

Cheers!

[mearussi]

Hi all,

I'm very sorry if this is a repetitive topic!

I'm a very long time photographer of weddings and portraits, and always sent those images off to my lab(s) to have those images printed professionally. Over the past several years, I've started doing more B&W, travel, landscape, documentary, street and astro photography, but never printing my images. I'd like to remedy that by printing my images at home. To that end however, I have no idea which printer to buy. I believe that I'd only like to print smaller images along the lines of 4x5, 4x6 or 5x7, but realistically I'm sure that I'll want much larger images too. Several months ago, I called the good folks at B&H, and they recommended the Epson P700 & P900 printers, as well as the Canon Pixima Pro-100 and Pro-300. I'm definitely concerned with the cost to print, as well as how often I'll actually print. And from what I've heard, not printing with some of these printers can cause issues with the inks. 🙄

I'd welcome any thoughts, suggestions, opinions or conversation regarding this, so please chime in!

Cheers!

The cost of ink is going to be high unless you eventually (after your warranty has expired) switch to fast fading 3r party ink, which is fine as long as you don't sell anything printed with it.

Since you don't need large sizes and you don't print often a 13" dye based printer would work best for you, as dye doesn't clog near as much as pigment does. I would recommend the new 13" dye Canon Pro 200 as the best printer for you to start out with. You can even sell prints from it using the OEM ink as it has a display life of around 40 years (pigments are 100+ years).

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1602503-REG/canon_4280c002_pixma_pro_200.html

If later you decide either that 13" is too small or that you'd like greater display life then you can go from there. Also if you do print you'll need a way to calibrate your monitor, if you don't have one already. 

[Paul_Roark]

If you have room for it and can find a good used one, grab an Epson 7800. 

I use the same B&W inkset for both my 7800 and 9800.  See https://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/7800-Glossy-Carbon-Variable-Tone-2016.pdf

The odd ink order I use is due to printing on Arches, which requires 2 MK positions.  Printing with QuadToneRip, however, makes ink order irrelevant.

Good luck,

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

[kers]

HP printers print a dead neutral and beautiful BW, unlike some other brands and the inks are fade resistant up to 300 years ( they extrapolated).
Anyway if you buy a 24 inch printer ink costs are less but the space it takes is larger...

[budjames]

I've only owned Epson color printers for the past 20 years. I recently replaced my five year old Epson P800 with the new P900. Print quality with the P800 is excellent, but the P900 raises the bar a bit, however, the main reason for me upgrading was the ability to print matte or photo black ink without wasting ink and time.
Since getting the P900 about a month ago, I have enjoyed printing on my old stock of Hahnemuehle fine art fiber papers which previously just sat on a shelf.
The gloss overcoat available on the P900 makes for very deep blacks on glossy paper.
I print my own greeting and holiday cards. I have stock of luster, glossy and matte paper cards from Red River papers. Printing these on the P900 yields excellent results and the ability to use these various paper finishes without wasting ink or time encourages experimentation and enhances productivity. Highly recommended.

Regards,
Bud James

Please check out my fine art and travel photography at www.budjames.photography or on Instagram at www.instagram.com/budjamesphoto

[Ken Bennett]

I've had a series of Epson printers, currently the P800, and I've been very happy with them. Printing is not inexpensive, but making your own prints provides a level of control you can't get from a lab. In terms of size, you may be surprised at how often you want to make a 16x20 inch print - I know I was.

If the prints are important to you, get a good pigment printer and make good prints. It's certainly a lot cheaper than, say, owning a motorboat, or playing golf.

[Skids]

Sorry for being a little late to this thread but as I have just been through a GAS cycle with printers I thought I would add my own thoughts and understanding.  Please note I'm not offering any science or proof.

I have owned a number of "photo" printers over the past (gulp) decades.  I started with A4 then migrated to A3+.  Colour output has always been satisfactory but early printers produced very poor black and whites if they used colour mixing.  Dye inks produce a wider range of brighter colours and it is reported they are less resistant to fading than pigment inks.  However, its worth remembering that in the past colour photographic prints, which were dye inks, were generally rated for twenty five years so modern dyes are an improvement  Personally I take any claims for light fastness with a pinch of salt as it most likely depends on far more on just light or lux hours as paper type and atmosphere all play their part in causing the image of Aunt Molly to disappear.  Having made that point I use pigment inks because at the moment it seems simpler to get good black and whites with them.

The next hard question to answer is how many prints will you be producing and also at what size?  It is tempting to look at the photo printers with large ink capacities such as the Canon Pro-1000  the Epson P900 or the P5000.  These machines store their ink in large (ish) static tanks and the ink is plumbed to the printer head through thin tubes.  While all printers use ink to clean the print heads these printers also have to move ink to keep the feed lines free of air bubbles.  This accounts for user reports of between 20% to 50% of the expensive ink being pumped through to the waste tank.  Again I have no proof of this but when I used an external continuous ink system on a canon S9000 I frequently had to use a syringe to draw ink through the tubes to remove airlocks.  All the subject printers are reported to need frequent use but what that means is subject to debate.

My present printing solution is Canon Pro-10s, this has 14 ml cartridges which I refill with ink harvested from larger Canon cartridges.   This works well for me but I am not producing many prints i.e. less than ten A4 prints and less than 4 A3 per month.  Even without refilling I suspect that it would be almost as cheap to run as the remote tank printers given my low print output.

I like Canon because they have never required ink wasting head purges to swap between matte and photo black, their print heads are user replaceable and the output looks good to my eye.  However, Epson are necessary if you want to produce panoramic prints or use a roll feed.  There are many reports of head clogging on the web but Epson have probably sold more printers so are more exposed to adverse comments from users.  I use to run an Epson 1500W (1430 in the US) fitted with MIS Eboni inks, six carbon blacks, for many years until the head died due to end user neglect.

For small prints some of the Eco tank printers get good reports for photo printing : cheap as chips to run but with a smaller colour space than the dedicated photo printers.

Not sure if any of the above is of any use but it is a complex subject.

best wishes
Simon