Ink Jet Printer Recommendation B&W Up tp 16x20

robertarthur · Oct 28, 2015

I am switching over from silver based photography to digital.

I was hoping for a suggestion for a printer for me to start with for my digital studio/workspace.

My photographic background:
I consider myself a black and white fine art amateur photographer. Since jr. high school and all the way through college I took photography courses. By the time I graduated I was printing my own color prints. That was back in 1979.
Since then I continued to take workshops for large format, all in black and white from exposing the image to printing it in my own darkroom. 99% of my images have thus far been limited to physical and social landscape, again all black and white.

I don't plan on printing anything larger than a 16x20. I shoot for myself and do not contemplate having shows or selling my work. Photography is for me what yoga or meditation is for others.

I am enrolled in a digital photography night class at Pasadena Art Center here in Pasadena, California and through my initial course, I must say I may be open to printing color as well but again my preference and interest is in black and white.

I probably will not print a large amount of prints (I have a full time job). I am not interested in changing ink cartridges/tanks based on the different papers being used. Head clogging is a concern as it may be a month or two between times that I print. I will be printing on fine art paper, I am assuming, again I am just putting my toes into the water here.

Thank you in advance.

Bob

StoneNYC · Oct 29, 2015

Epson brand pro printers tend to be more compatible and prefers by many, the canon's can be nice but I'm unsure how large they go. The Epson used ones would probably be a good place to start looking.

Something like this...

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1191313-REG

Or this...

http://www.amazon.com/Epson-Stylus-Inkjet-Printer-CA61201-VM/dp/B002PLQ7LI

Both are good starting points, the Epson one I linked is the intro one, they get fancier.

However as I said, there's a used market, but if you want that wide you have to spend some money.

Good luck!

~Stone

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

robertarthur · Oct 29, 2015

Great, thanks so much. I will look into each of those.

RalphLambrecht · Oct 31, 2015

robertarthur said:
I am switching over from silver based photography to digital.

I was hoping for a suggestion for a printer for me to start with for my digital studio/workspace.

My photographic background:
I consider myself a black and white fine art amateur photographer. Since jr. high school and all the way through college I took photography courses. By the time I graduated I was printing my own color prints. That was back in 1979.
Since then I continued to take workshops for large format, all in black and white from exposing the image to printing it in my own darkroom. 99% of my images have thus far been limited to physical and social landscape, again all black and white.

I don't plan on printing anything larger than a 16x20. I shoot for myself and do not contemplate having shows or selling my work. Photography is for me what yoga or meditation is for others.

I am enrolled in a digital photography night class at Pasadena Art Center here in Pasadena, California and through my initial course, I must say I may be open to printing color as well but again my preference and interest is in black and white.

I probably will not print a large amount of prints (I have a full time job). I am not interested in changing ink cartridges/tanks based on the different papers being used. Head clogging is a concern as it may be a month or two between times that I print. I will be printing on fine art paper, I am assuming, again I am just putting my toes into the water here.

Thank you in advance.

Bob

I was in a very similar situation 2 years ago and never regreted to go with an Epson 3880.I cut my paper from 17"rolls and print B&W up to 1620The K3 OEM inks give very smooth and neutral gray tones.It made me miss my darkroom less.

robertarthur · Nov 12, 2015

Well I went with an Epson 4900. A very nice guy down south in San Clemente, CA was moving and he did not want to ship/move it to Florida. It had been sitting awhile and he could not get it working so he basically let me have it if I would come down and pick it up. I did not know if it was going to work or not. He indicated it had only about 1,000 prints through it so I figured if I could get it working it would be a great deal. I just heard from the technician I left it with that it is up and running. The jets were very clogged (they were able to unclog them all) and one pump needed to be replaced. Total for parts and labor was under $500.00.

Now I just have to remember to run some test prints every week to keep the heads clear.

RalphLambrecht · Nov 13, 2015

robertarthur said:
I am switching over from silver based photography to digital.

I was hoping for a suggestion for a printer for me to start with for my digital studio/workspace.

My photographic background:
I consider myself a black and white fine art amateur photographer. Since jr. high school and all the way through college I took photography courses. By the time I graduated I was printing my own color prints. That was back in 1979.
Since then I continued to take workshops for large format, all in black and white from exposing the image to printing it in my own darkroom. 99% of my images have thus far been limited to physical and social landscape, again all black and white.

I don't plan on printing anything larger than a 16x20. I shoot for myself and do not contemplate having shows or selling my work. Photography is for me what yoga or meditation is for others.

I am enrolled in a digital photography night class at Pasadena Art Center here in Pasadena, California and through my initial course, I must say I may be open to printing color as well but again my preference and interest is in black and white.

I probably will not print a large amount of prints (I have a full time job). I am not interested in changing ink cartridges/tanks based on the different papers being used. Head clogging is a concern as it may be a month or two between times that I print. I will be printing on fine art paper, I am assuming, again I am just putting my toes into the water here.

Thank you in advance.

Bob

I can highly recommend an Epson Stylus Pro 3880 with K3 inks. I was impressed with its neutral grays and you can print on paper from 17"wide rolls

dismalhiker · Nov 21, 2015

Agree with Epson 3880 suggestion

robertarthur said:
I am switching over from silver based photography to digital. ...my preference and interest is in black and white.

I probably will not print a large amount of prints (I have a full time job). I am not interested in changing ink cartridges/tanks based on the different papers being used. Head clogging is a concern as it may be a month or two between times that I print. I will be printing on fine art paper, I am assuming, again I am just putting my toes into the water here.

I have had an Epson 3880 for 5 years and it has never had a head clog, even though I have left it for up to 3 months without printing. The 3880 has a reputation for being less prone to clogging than other Epson printers.

Also, if you are primarily interested in black and white, Piezography inks are definitely worth considering. I was skeptical until I tried it, but using Piezography inks produces shadow detail that is far more subtle than I could achieve with Epson Advanced B&W or any other digital approach. With the new Piezo ink sets you can also print digital negatives quite easily, which leaves open the door to do contact printing (e.g. platinum/palladium) on nice printmaking papers (if you decide to keep doing some of the more traditional stuff).

-john

L Gebhardt · Nov 23, 2015

dismalhiker said:
I have had an Epson 3880 for 5 years and it has never had a head clog, even though I have left it for up to 3 months without printing. The 3880 has a reputation for being less prone to clogging than other Epson printers.

Also, if you are primarily interested in black and white, Piezography inks are definitely worth considering. I was skeptical until I tried it, but using Piezography inks produces shadow detail that is far more subtle than I could achieve with Epson Advanced B&W or any other digital approach. With the new Piezo ink sets you can also print digital negatives quite easily, which leaves open the door to do contact printing (e.g. platinum/palladium) on nice printmaking papers (if you decide to keep doing some of the more traditional stuff).

-john

I've had the 3880 for about the same. And I just fired it up after a period of no use. The photo black ink was empty, but the control panel indicted half full. Bought some new ink and it still had issues, and is now drooling ink on the page. Seems there is a leak in the mechanism that switches the black inks. From a few searches it seems I might be able to fix it for about $200 in parts. I'll also need two new ink carts, so I haven't decided if it's worth gambling $300 on trying to fix it.

So try not to let yours sit for long periods of time.

L Gebhardt · Apr 15, 2016

I was able to fix the 3880 by buying a new ink delivery system from ebay. I think it was about $150 for the part and two hours of labor, but my memory might be off a bit. I bought a few replacement inks and printed enough to mostly drain the remaining inks. It worked flawlessly. I had bought the P800 in the mean time, so I converted the 3880 to being a black and white printer. It's still working flawlessly. So if you have the same issues I would strongly consider fixing the printer (assuming the head is still good).

RalphLambrecht · Apr 16, 2016

robertarthur said:
I am switching over from silver based photography to digital.

I was hoping for a suggestion for a printer for me to start with for my digital studio/workspace.

My photographic background:
I consider myself a black and white fine art amateur photographer. Since jr. high school and all the way through college I took photography courses. By the time I graduated I was printing my own color prints. That was back in 1979.
Since then I continued to take workshops for large format, all in black and white from exposing the image to printing it in my own darkroom. 99% of my images have thus far been limited to physical and social landscape, again all black and white.

I don't plan on printing anything larger than a 16x20. I shoot for myself and do not contemplate having shows or selling my work. Photography is for me what yoga or meditation is for others.

I am enrolled in a digital photography night class at Pasadena Art Center here in Pasadena, California and
through my initial course, I must say I may be open to printing color as well but again my preference and interest is in black and white.

I probably will not print a large amount of prints (I have a full time job). I am not interested in changing ink cartridges/tanks based on the different papers being used. Head clogging is a concern as it may be a month or two between times that I print. I will be printing on fine art paper, I am assuming, again I am just putting my toes into the water here.

Thank you in advance.

Bob

Two years ago,I was where you are now,forced out of my darkroom by a move.After much research.I invested into an Epson Stylus Pro 3880 and use it with the inks it came with,After calibration monitor and printer with the Color Munki Photo.I print up to 17x22 and don't miss the wet darkroom too much anymore.The prints I get are as good or better than my darkroom prints.

RalphLambrecht · Apr 16, 2016

L Gebhardt said:
I've had the 3880 for about the same. And I just fired it up after a period of no use. The photo black ink was empty, but the control panel indicted half full. Bought some new ink and it still had issues, and is now drooling ink on the page. Seems there is a leak in the mechanism that switches the black inks. From a few searches it seems I might be able to fix it for about $200 in parts. I'll also need two new ink carts, so I haven't decided if it's worth gambling $300 on trying to fix it.

So try not to let yours sit for long periods of time.

I try to make at least one print per week and that worked for me so far.

robertarthur · May 10, 2017

Thanks to All

I am happy to report that the printer has worked flawlessly over this past year. I am not as disciplined about printing a test sheet once a week as I as at first but I have not had any issues thus far.

Thanks again for all the replies.

RalphLambrecht · Sep 3, 2017

robertarthur said:
I am switching over from silver based photography to digital.

I was hoping for a suggestion for a printer for me to start with for my digital studio/workspace.

My photographic background:
I consider myself a black and white fine art amateur photographer. Since jr. high school and all the way through college I took photography courses. By the time I graduated I was printing my own color prints. That was back in 1979.
Since then I continued to take workshops for large format, all in black and white from exposing the image to printing it in my own darkroom. 99% of my images have thus far been limited to physical and social landscape, again all black and white.

I don't plan on printing anything larger than a 16x20. I shoot for myself and do not contemplate having shows or selling my work. Photography is for me what yoga or meditation is for others.

I am enrolled in a digital photography night class at Pasadena Art Center here in Pasadena, California and through my initial course, I must say I may be open to printing color as well but again my preference and interest is in black and white.

I probably will not print a large amount of prints (I have a full time job). I am not interested in changing ink cartridges/tanks based on the different papers being used. Head clogging is a concern as it may be a month or two between times that I print. I will be printing on fine art paper, I am assuming, again I am just putting my toes into the water here.

Thank you in advance.

Bob

five years ago, I was in the very same situation; after some research, I went for an Epson Stylus Pro3880, which can print up to 17"wide and creates beautiful B&W work with its original K3 inks.Then, I calibrated my monitor and printer with the ColorMunki Photo;neverlooked back or regretted the purchase.the prints are as good or better than what I produced in the darkroom before.TWithin two months, I was able to produce gallery-quality prints.

RalphLambrecht · Sep 5, 2017

robertarthur said:
Well I went with an Epson 4900. A very nice guy down south in San Clemente, CA was moving and he did not want to ship/move it to Florida. It had been sitting awhile and he could not get it working so he basically let me have it if I would come down and pick it up. I did not know if it was going to work or not. He indicated it had only about 1,000 prints through it so I figured if I could get it working it would be a great deal. I just heard from the technician I left it with that it is up and running. The jets were very clogged (they were able to unclog them all) and one pump needed to be replaced. Total for parts and labor was under $500.00.

Now I just have to remember to run some test prints every week to keep the heads clear.

that's what I do; try to run a print at least once a weeks far(two years)the head never clogged up.

Ink Jet Printer Recommendation B&W Up tp 16x20

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