Need advice on Best 13" Printer, Cannon, Epson

[David Hughes]

For me, an Epson R2400 plus a Continuous Ink system has worked well for ages. As long as the whole thing is properly calibrated, I have no problems and some great results.

Dave

[David Hughes]

For me, an Epson R2400 plus a Continuous Ink system has worked well for ages. As long as the whole thing is properly calibrated, I have no problems and some great results.

Dave

[Norm_Cabana]

I'm not trying to hijack this thread, but of the folks who have advocated one printer over another, have you even USED the other printers?

I have owned the Canon BJC-8500, Epson 860, Epson 1280, Canon S9000, Canon i960 and Canon i9900. I have not owned or used any HP printer. I have heard several good things about some of the HP printers, specifically the DJ-130, but I have also heard that to get good prints you need to use HP papers. That's a non-starter for me.

In my experience and in my work environment (I'm an event photographer that works out of a 20 ft. enclosed trailer and produce my products at the event,) the Epsons were junk after one year and I haven't heard anything about the newer models that convince me that they have improved. You can't imagine the embarassment of having a customer watch their photo being printed and the black ink stops printing or the red starts splotching on the paper. Their confidence in your work disappears VERY quickly. You can imagine that they aren't shy about relating this problem to others at the event. I won't put my money into equipment that lets me down like that.

The Canons, on the other hand, simply keep going and going with no clogs, no feed problems, no issues what so ever. I know that there are issues with ipf5000 and Canon has addressed that with the ipf5100. I haven't heard of any issues with either the Pro 9000 or Pro 9500. The Pro 9000 uses dye inks while the 9500 uses pigment inks. I have two i9900s, one three years old and the other is two years old. The oldest printer proved it's ruggedness when I forgot to secure the printer to it's shelf in my trailer and it bounced off the shelf, which is 5 ft off the floor, and flew across the trailer hitting the trailer door (and denting it) and ended up on top of some jacks on the floor. When I found the printer, I hooked it up to my computer and ran a test. Looked good! I ran some test prints. Looked even better! That printer is still in operation producing photos as I write this.

I used to use Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper before I found Moab Paper Kokopelli 260 gloss. Moab is a better paper even though it is cheaper than Epson and you can get it in 50 sheet packs for the sizes I use. Epson only sells 20 sheet packs.

This is my experience, your results may vary.

[Ed Gerson]

Norm, you make some good points. Several months ago I hooked up an old Canon print that hadn't been used is over six years and it printed a text document no problem. From your point of view, I've got to give you the nod. Any hardware that holds up year after year really is the whole point of purchasing it in the first place. I simply gave up on Epson because for some reason. Apple and Epson were very helpful if you needed one to point their finger at the other! I had an older Epson printer, gone to a latest and greatest Epson 2000 (don't get me started about metamerism), Epson did a direct exchange at no charge to the 1280, which was a nice machine. But it was allergic to O

[Ed Gerson]

...But it was allergic to OSX. Guess I sneezed online for a reason.

I'm not so sure that people are bragging about one printer so much as they are happy with their combination of printer and inks. In your case, equipment stamina is a deal breaker because you can force the process to see what the latest bad boy printers can do. Producing under pressure is a real skill, my hat's off to you.

Whatever printer works, works. I had three Epson printers, then an HP. Two years ago I'd had enough of endless color/density problems and began sending my images to a professional lab for photographic prints. Professional labs have lots more software than I do, and that's a real issue.

The primary motivation for not using inkjet was neither ink usage or paper costs. I'd had enough tech support no-show to last a lifetime, endless no-work drivers, Apple pointing a finger at Epson, Epson point a finger at Apple.

I may be returning to inkjets for unique projects, but for the most part if you can't tell the difference between an inkjet and a three/four dollar photographic print why are you printing inkjet to save money? The time factor and useless tech support I ran into negated any advantages of inkjetting for me. To be sure things may have changed in two years. I agree with your approach, see if that printer has the stamina to do the job.

[jeffcallen]

I've recently switched from Epson to Canon.... I used to use an R1800, or a borrowed 2200, now I use and love my Canon 9500. Why? Mostly that it just works, my ratio of time spent printing to time spent tweeking has changed greatly, due to the Canon. For what I do, I really do need the print to just come out perfect the first time, not after explaining to a customer why there's a line here or a splotch there...

My R1800 was great when it worked too, but it tended to think it was out of paper when it wasn't, so I had to turn it off, remove the paper, turn it back on, sometimes re-insert the ink cartridges until it "remembered' it wasn't out of paper.. not a great way to run a business, and Epson didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with the printer...

[Carl Brady]

Carl Brady

Norm, I read your post with grea interest, and am even more interesest now that Adorama has the Canon PIXMA Pro9000 for $299.95 this week. Is it required that I use only Canon paper with the Canon printer? What other buying advise do any of you have for me? It is great to be able to read of the experiences that you have all had with the various printers! I have also had perplexing problems with printers "thinking" they were out of paper with a full load in the tray.