Anybody know what's next for the Canon iPF line?

[Dan Wells]

I've been printing with iPFs very happily since the 5000 first came out (first a 5000, now a 6100). Great printers, great reliability (never seen a clogged iPF), great price-performance. The only disadvantage to them that I've found is that you pretty much have to roll your own profiles for a lot of papers - they are (for whatever reason) less popular than the Epsons, and fewer paper manufacturers include iPF profiles in their standard offerings (the 5000 may not have had the unit-to-unit consistency to make canned profiles as practical, but the 6100 with its built-in calibration routines DOES). I wonder whether Canon plans to stay in the fine-art printer market, and, if so, what their next move will be? The 6100 is an easy match for an Epson x880 class printer, with some better gamut in certain places - oh, those Canon blues (with a dedicated blue ink in addition to two cyans, while all Epsons use variations on cyan). Will they release a printer in the 14-15 ink range (keeping all 12 existing inks, adding orange and who knows what else - light yellow? gloss optimizer? a third gray - various  odd inksets have used black plus THREE grays?)? Will they improve the yellow, red and two magenta inks to get warm tones as good as (or better than) the Epson 7900 and 9900 while keeping their existing mastery of cool tones? From what little I've seen of the newest Epsons (x900 series), the current iPFx100 is at least a match for them in the cool tones (blues and greens), while the (much newer) Epsons pull a bit ahead in the reds and yellows. I'd love to see what Canon does next, as I may be in the market for a printer in the 44-inch class in the next year, and would be strongly inclined to another Canon, especially if I got even more image quality along with my additional carriage width...


                                           -Dan

[hsmeets]

Here another happy iPF camper, running a 5100 now for (almost) 2 years.

I have little to complain: no clogs that spoiled a print, frugal with ink, no mechanical issues with paper feed system, no pizza wheel dents or what so ever, no driver/software issues.

From an output/print perspective I have also little to complain about, as always everything could be improved, but on a realistic note: I see no real, obvious weaknesses in the output (not with my type of images).

Based on above experience with this printer I will not be surprised when we will not see an new generation before 2011.

Canon exiting this market would be a real loss, especially as choice of 17" would be limited to a 3880/4880 epson only.....

[Ernst Dinkla]

Based on above experience with this printer I will not be surprised when we will not see an new generation before 2011.

Canon exiting this market would be a real loss, especially as choice of 17" would be limited to a 3880/4880 epson only.....

Canon bought Océ recently. like HP it wants to cover a much wider market for printing and abandoning photography, art printing, is unlikely in that perspective and unlikely considering the other Canon activities.

Speed of the Canon printers is no issue. Inks can be improved to widen the gamut even more. Some hardware aspects on the widest models should get attention. And there's no integrated profile creation aboard like it is on the HP Z3200 (and in a way  for the Epson 9900). I doubt Canon goes that route as its marketing doesn't like to support the use of third party media, similar to Epson policy. An educated guess: improvements on the existing models possible in this Drupa, Photokina, year but no revolutionary steps. That doesn't mean you will be able to use new inks on an old model. No manufacturer does that.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

Try: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wide_Inkjet_Printers

[Dan Wells]

Some improvements in the existing warm inks (yellow, two magentas, red) might bring the gamut closer to the Epson x900 in that area, and possibly with an unofficial upgrade to new inks in an old printer (which is true of the new neutral inks in the x100 printers - you CAN run the PFI-103 grays in an iPF5000 after carefully draining the lines - the resulting printer has almost the gamut of a 5100, but has to be custom profiled, because it is neither quite a 5000 nor quite a 5100). If they add an orange ink, they'll almost certainly get a gamut improvement to AT LEAST what the x900s have, but with no possibility of upgrading inks. Since nobody ever makes a printer with an odd number of ink channels, the 14th channel would probably be either yet another gray (creating an ideal black and white printer) or a gloss optimizer (the iPFx100s are already excellent on semigloss and fiber-gloss papers, but people who use high-gloss papers have reported some gloss differential). I could certainly also see Canon adding a true profiling capability - the calibration in the x100 series means that they already have some type of sensor in them (although almost certainly not a true spectrophotometer). Another welcome, but I think unlikely, upgrade would be multiple cartridge capacities in the 24 inch and smaller printers. Canon makes a lot of their money off of the 130ml cartridges, which are much more expensive than Epson cartridges, and this may allow them to sell the printers cheaper than the competition. If they offered 330ml cartridges similar to those used by the 8100 and 9100, that might cut the ink costs by 30% or so, but they would probably try to make it up on the printers.

 

                              -Dan

[JeffKohn]

I've been running a 5000 (with 5100 inks) and quite like the printer. Saturated shadow tones are not quite as good as what I got from Epson on matte papers, but in other respects the ipf is as good or better. I've been sorely tempted by the current deals/rebates on the 6100.

I wonder how profitable  this model line has been for Canon, considering the deep discounting these printers have received compared to their competition. I have to think if they were selling well such discounts wouldn't be necessary.

I would be surprised if additional ink channels were added. More likely I think would be tweaks to the existing ink formulations, as well as addressing other aspects of operation. Personally I hope they don't go to an integrated profiling solution, since it just adds cost and limits flexibility. I already have a profiling solution I'm happy with.

[Dan Wells]

I suspect them of two things cost-wise... One is the overpriced cartridges with no discounts (everybody sells the Canon inks for $75-$80, while the Epsons are cheaper and more varied) - they are selling the printers close to cost, while making money on ink. The second is that they are trying to break into Epson's market - graphic arts shops (and, to a lesser extent, photographers) will buy what they know unless the competition is much cheaper.

                         -Dan

[jmolaver]

Have had a 9000 in production for about two years now, and just installed a 8100 as well.  Incredible printers, keep them filled with ink and they will literally run 24 hours a day without a hiccup. On top of that the color gamut is, IMHO, without equal in the aqueous pigment market.

I will say we have had a problem with our pinch rollers breaking, but now I'm quite good at disassembling iPFs and replacing pinch rollers.

Also with the most recent firmware update (1.37 IIRC), if you let the maintenance tank get all the way full you can no longer reset it in service mode. "Feminine Pads" > OEM maintenance tanks.  

I've been running a 5000 (with 5100 inks) and quite like the printer.

Stupid question (that could probably be answered by opening some ink boxes), but are the x100 inks "keyed" the same as the x000 inks in the back? Any tips for doing the swap, I'm intrigued as to how this worked out as I really prefer this new inkset.

[Pete Berry]

Stupid question (that could probably be answered by opening some ink boxes), but are the x100 inks "keyed" the same as the x000 inks in the back? Any tips for doing the swap, I'm intrigued as to how this worked out as I really prefer this new inkset.

Only the four gray scale inks are different, and are keyed differently, but can be easily modified by removing the appropriate blocking "fingers" in the slots. Check out this thread in the Canon large format wiki - certainly the best info source around:

http://canonipf.wikispaces.com/message/view/FAQ/2730092

Pete

[jmolaver]

Only the four gray scale inks are different, and are keyed differently, but can be easily modified by removing the appropriate blocking "fingers" in the slots. Check out this thread in the Canon large format wiki - certainly the best info source around:

http://canonipf.wikispaces.com/message/view/FAQ/2730092

Pete

Thanks for the link, I was hoping I'd find something telling me I wouldn't have to do use the "move printer" function and blow through all the other inks, but oh well..  Rather that then order another PF-03....

[JeffKohn]

Thanks for the link, I was hoping I'd find something telling me I wouldn't have to do use the "move printer" function and blow through all the other inks, but oh well..  Rather that then order another PF-03....

Yeah, that's the procedure I followed. The 5000 that I bought still had the original starter cartridges in it, and most of the cartridges were getting close to empty so I didn't really waste that much ink (especially considering I got the printer for next to nothing).