Inexpensive but decent 8x10 digital negative printer

walter23 · Feb 16, 2010

I asked this elsewhere, but maybe it's better suited to this forum (digital negatives). I'm looking to make 8x10s, and I need a decent but hopefully inexpensive printer to do so. How's the R800? I saw a used one for not too much money. Otherwise I'd like to hear other suggestions.

I don't want the physical size of the larger printers, and they're $1000+ anyway; would rather spend my money making prints (and from what I understand, ink costs assure that I will do that without much trouble ). So an 8x10 model would be ideal. It's my preferred print size in almost all cases.

pschwart · Feb 16, 2010

walter23 said:
I asked this elsewhere, but maybe it's better suited to this forum (digital negatives). I'm looking to make 8x10s, and I need a decent but hopefully inexpensive printer to do so. How's the R800? I saw a used one for not too much money. Otherwise I'd like to hear other suggestions.

I don't want the physical size of the larger printers, and they're $1000+ anyway; would rather spend my money making prints (and from what I understand, ink costs assure that I will do that without much trouble ). So an 8x10 model would be ideal. It's my preferred print size in almost all cases.

I printed digital negatives on an R800 for a couple of years. The negatives were excellent quality.

walter23 · Feb 16, 2010

pschwart said:
I printed digital negatives on an R800 for a couple of years. The negatives were excellent quality.

Thanks; did you have to do any modifications (special inksets like Piezography), remove feed rollers, special drivers (QTR?), etc, or did they just work fine using standard ink?

What kind of transparency material?

Thanks for the help. I'm seriously considering picking up this used R800 but I want to make sure it's the right choice for me.

pschwart · Feb 16, 2010

walter23 said:
Thanks; did you have to do any modifications (special inksets like Piezography), remove feed rollers, special drivers (QTR?), etc, or did they just work fine using standard ink?

What kind of transparency material?

Thanks for the help. I'm seriously considering picking up this used R800 but I want to make sure it's the right choice for me.

Just print composite black using the native inks and the Epson driver. Pictorico, Inkpress, and Arista all print with no banding or pizza wheel marks. Other files like Photo Warehouse and Canon TCF will show pizza wheels so avoid these.
My experience with removing the pizza wheels was that film no longer fed correctly and would jam the printer. I now print my negs on an R1800 which is essentially the wide carriage version of the R800.

walter23 · Feb 16, 2010

Great, thanks for the input. I'll probably pick up the R800 then. I guess there aren't problems with ink availability despite it being discontinued, right?

pschwart · Feb 16, 2010

walter23 said:
Great, thanks for the input. I'll probably pick up the R800 then. I guess there aren't problems with ink availability despite it being discontinued, right?

I haven't encountered any problem. The R800 and R1800 use the same ink. I generally get mine online from Atlex.

John Lockhart · Feb 17, 2010

I have had good luck with the R1800 as well for digital negs using the standard Epson inks and InkPress transparency film. I haven't any problems finding ink at local photo stores in Raleigh, NC and it's simple to order.

juanito · Feb 17, 2010

I use a cheap epson stylus photo r290 for my digital negatives.
It works great.

walter23 · Feb 17, 2010

juanito said:
I use a cheap epson stylus photo r290 for my digital negatives.
It works great.

So you can pretty much get away with one of those <$100 cheapo inkjet printers?

pschwart · Feb 17, 2010

walter23 said:
So you can pretty much get away with one of those <$100 cheapo inkjet printers?

A4 printers (8-1/2x11) are *all* cheapo, apparently made for scrapbooking and such. I wish someone made a production-quality small format printer, but I have never seen one. It is often cheaper to just buy another printer and get the ink for free, rather than buy a new set of cartridges. At one point I had 3 R200's because the ink was more expensive than the printer. Cheap printers can deliver a high-quality image, but calibration, build quality, paper handling,
and ink handling are pretty poor.

juanito · Feb 23, 2010

walter23 said:
So you can pretty much get away with one of those <$100 cheapo inkjet printers?

IMO yes.

Inexpensive but decent 8x10 digital negative printer

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency