Printer Recommendations in the $2000 range?

While my preferred form of "image capture" (yuck, I really hate that term) is film it's about time to move to digital output. Espescially with a Nikon 9000D now coming to replace the 5000D as I add Medium Format to my shooting.

So I'm looking for printer recommendations - with a budget of around $2000.

Your suggestions and comments are appreciated.

I just got an Epson 7800 that I really like for that general ballpark amount, after counting rebates and some fortuitous 'other factors'. The big decision for you is whether you are okay with a 17" maximum width printer or you want to jump up to a 24" or wider. There seems to be a big jump in the price point across all lines for that extra 7" of width.

HP has some great printers out now. Your should check them out. I only know Epson. Their 3800, 4800 and 7800 are excellent.

Canon and Epson both make excellent 17" wide printers. My personal preference would be the Canon ipf 5000 which can be found as low as 1300 with the roll feed unit (www.shadesofpaper.com ). To me, i tonly has advantages over the 7800 but the 7800 is more proven technology.

HP has no new offering in the 17" size but if you want/need a 24" printer the Z3100 is a hands down winner with its built-in profiling capability.

I agree with Ted, if it fits your budget, the HP Z3100 is going to be the best choice at the moment. If Epson had put both matte and photo black at the same time into the 7800, I would change that recommendation, but they didn't. I've read too many things about the ipf5000 to consider it.

I use the ipf 5000 and have nothing but joy! There were some early, mostly miss use issues published, but it appears they were on a large part due to a degree of weak documentation on Canon's part. The image quality is superb on many different media and it handles the black ink without the troubles and waste . HP's printer is also very nice consideration with good value...

Miles

Ted Harris said:

HP has no new offering in the 17" size but if you want/need a 24" printer the Z3100 is a hands down winner with its built-in profiling capability.

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Has anyone here actually used the printers with the built-in profiling capability, because from what I'm hearing now is that it just re-calibrates itself if needed and doesn't actually make paper/ink profiles. I think they used slightly mis-leading wording when promoting their printers, much like the flatbed scanner makers do I suppose.

I have an epson 7800 and can't speak highly enough of it, pk and mk black would have been lovely, I am toying with the phatte black RIP from Dead Link Removed, just have to decide if I am going to be doing enough Photo Black printing to warrant the expense.

The bottom line with any of these printers, if size (width of paper) is not an issue, is how economical the ink sets are and boy do the large 220 ml cartridges make a big difference over the old A3+ printers. I think we only use the 2100 (2200 in the states) for letters and the odd web page print.

hope I haven't rambled on too much

I've used printers with built in profiling (colorspan via RIP) and ones that built profiles when asked, but didn't necessarily save them for future use (HP Designjet 5000, internal). I have found that each ink, or paper change requires a new profile (even if it is the same inkset or the same paper type/brand) and no profile is anything more than a starting point. Sometimes a profile will get you what you want the first time, but many more times than not the print will need to be tweaked.

I am referring to final prints or backlits not digital negs.

JD, are you currently making your own profiles, and if so what hardware/software are you using? I've used one Hahnemuhle paper that had a 5 year batch difference, and there was so little difference in the profiles that I put it down to measurement error or rounding errors in the software. Measured with an i1 pro, ECi2002 CMYK target, Printopen 4. That was all one batch of ink and simply on print run to another on the same day.

Yes some paper does "drift" a lot from batch to batch, but the really good stuff should be very consistant.

Now ink batch to ink batch may be another story altogether. Even Epson inks are only good for about a 3% difference. That's normally less than 3 DeltaE and so not normally visible.

Greg_E said:

JD, are you currently making your own profiles, and if so what hardware/software are you using? I've used one Hahnemuhle paper that had a 5 year batch difference, and there was so little difference in the profiles that I put it down to measurement error or rounding errors in the software. Measured with an i1 pro, ECi2002 CMYK target, Printopen 4. That was all one batch of ink and simply on print run to another on the same day.

Yes some paper does "drift" a lot from batch to batch, but the really good stuff should be very consistant.

Now ink batch to ink batch may be another story altogether. Even Epson inks are only good for about a 3% difference. That's normally less than 3 DeltaE and so not normally visible.

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Greg,
I'm without an inkjet at present. I agree that the paper is less of an issue, but calibration is/was so easy that I always recalibrated when switching rolls or ink(s). I've always used the software/rip that was matched to the printer.

My workflow has been:

1. calibrate when needed
2. For each Image: print a thumb and a mag test
3. adjust colour, density, contrast as needed
4. repeat until happy

This generally required no more than 2 or 3 cycles and often was right on in the first go. My experience has made me wonder about the usefullness of the prefab profiles sold and shared online.

Seamus A Ryan said:

Has anyone here actually used the printers with the built-in profiling capability, because from what I'm hearing now is that it just re-calibrates itself if needed and doesn't actually make paper/ink profiles. I think they used slightly mis-leading wording when promoting their printers, much like the flatbed scanner makers do I suppose.

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The HP B9180 has a very simple closed loop colorimeter that does exactly what you describe (remember this is a $500-$600 medium format printer). The Z3100 series printers do have a full blown paper profiling capability with a spectrophotometer builtin that is the equivalent of the Isis (according to X-Rite) which is a higher end stand alone profiling device.

I'd get an inexpensive printer and if you really want nice output goto a high end lab. Overall, I think the cost would be a lot less, assuming you don't do a lot of printing like me.

Regards, Art.