A little printer advice/opinion?

GetBusyLiving

GetBusyLiving

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Caroline
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I have an Epson R3000 A3+ printer (that they don't make anymore) and the cartridges that I have had for the last two years (or more) have finally run out. I really don't use the printer all that much but when I do, the printouts are astonishing, so much better than looking at the pictures on a monitor, even on a big screen. The cost of the ink cartridges, and there are nine of them, comes to over £200 in total to replace and I have been thinking 'do I need an A3+ printer at all?' so started looking at A4 printers instead—this hasn't really helped. A decent A4 printer costs over three hundred quid, then I'll still have to buy cartridges at some point—but perhaps they'll be a lot cheaper?—so the cost of replacing the R3000 cartridges is not looking so bad.

The other thing is that my R3000 has a very large footprint but TBH, the A4 photo printers are not all that much smaller, and are often taller too. I have thought to not have a photo printer at all and just send any I want printed away to a professional lab, but I know I'll never get round to doing that.

Assuming you were happy with either A4 or A3 pictures and bearing in mind the purchase price of a new one and the cost of ink for the old one, what would you do? Opinions?
 
My view is that if the printer is still working OK, and you are happy with it, then sticking with what you have is probably better, cheaper, and less impactful on the planet.

I suspect that the cost of running an A4 printer is unlikely to be significant to that of running an A3 printer. OK, some may have fewer cartridges, but are you not likely to see that in the finished print?

Finally, I would probably find it frustrating to have printed a really nice A4 print - right composition and correct paper - and not to be be able to scale it up to A3.

I'd buy the ink. Good luck with your decision.
 
I have read of good things about the R3000 on the DPReview forum and also the lament of 'no more ink cartridges available'.

Having said that, all I can say is that for my purposes the Epson ET-8550 is excellent. The Eco -Tank inks are very budget worthy :)

If you wish I could print one of your images on A4 and post it to you for a 'Coffee Donation' the TP Forum


Edit ~ ooops! please ignore the above......looking on the Epson store the R3000 carts are still there.....................perhaps it is the R2880 I was reading about :exit:
 
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When you look at the cost of cartridges, you have to look at how big they are. Work out a price per ml.

For example, my old SP4800 had 8 carts at £70 each (all second hand as it's an old printer). However they were 220ml carts meaning it cost 32p/ml. By comparison, my P-800 takes 9 x 50ml carts at (approx) £50 each. This works out to 60p/ml.
The Canon Pixma Pro-200 (random example I plucked out of the air) has 14ml carts and needs 8 of them at approx £17 each which ends up costing £1.21/ml. This gets worse the smaller the cartridges get.

I guess the overall message is not to look at ink cost/cart when comparing printers. Look at the cost per ml. You'll often find that whilst they may be expensive, you get more ink which means you are buying them less often.

I'm almost certain someone will chime in about using 3rd party inks which are cheaper (but not for me), and the Eco tank gets good reviews. But it's always worth checking out that "pence per ml" number.
 
I hate inkjet printers - having had various ones over the years, including a couple of A2+ models.

I have now gone to an "office" B&W laser printer and a Canon Selphy dye sub printer for 6x4 prints at home - which are much less hassle than doing them on an inkjet printer. To the point that my wife and kids will happily do their own prints, rather than getting me to do them. I get any bigger prints done at my local pro lab.
 
Should you decide to look into printers consider the Epson eco-tank range.
Expensive to buy, cheap as chips to run. I've got an A3 version (8550 I think, which was about £750 new with a proper full set of cartridges) my only replacement set of OEM ink cartridges still isn't empty, cost around £80 I think and they last me about 18 - 20 months and print quality is good enough to be highly praised in my local camera club.
 
Thank you everybody. I have decided—after due consideration of your replies, and the fact that at some point in the indeterminate future, I'm going to have to fork out more money for an external waste tank and a reset key (which I always believed should be free from Epson)—to bin the printer, but not buy a new [photo] one and instead send anything I want off to a professional print company. If I used the printer a bit more, it might be worth it but a sudden flurry only every few months (and the ten minute wait while the printer preens itself) makes me think it's not worth the trouble.

So, a recommendation of a good print company would be appreciated.
 
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I use the Esom XP-970 now after many years of having the 960 version, it eventually gave up after 10+ years. The 970 still has the same footprint size .
just bought a spare set of 6 carts for around £90

P1001426.jpg
 
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GetBusyLiving said:
Thank you everybody. I have decided—after due consideration of your replies, and the fact that at some point in the indeterminate future, I'm going to have to fork out more money for an external waste tank and a reset key (which I always believed should be free from Epson)—to bin the printer, but not buy a new [photo] one and instead send anything I want off to a professional print company. If I used the printer a bit more, it might be worth it but a sudden flurry only every few months (and the ten minute wait while the printer preens itself) makes me think it's not worth the trouble.

So, a recommendation of a good print company would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
DS Colour Labs for cheapo prints.
Loxley for fine art. There was another company I used to use but it was so long ago I can't remember :)
I'm sure others will recommend more.

A sensible decision re: printing. Printing at home is only financially viable if you do it a lot, and/or on fine art papers. I quite like fiddling around with print settings and experimenting with different papers, so whilst it doesn't make financial sense for me, it's part of my hobby. Considering the work I do, most of my cameras aren't sensible financial decisions, but it's my hobby, and I enjoy it, so why not :)
 
GetBusyLiving said:
So, a recommendation of a good print company would be appreciated.
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DSCL are widely used by forum members here and usually good quality and a good price - though I'd rather not pay the postage cost on a single print or two. I use them for what's known as 'C-type' prints and been very pleased. In theory most labs will use similar machinery so there shouldn't really be that much variation.

If you want inkjets (sometimes called 'giclees') there's a great range of papers and all sorts of labs, and the results may be more 'archival', though costing much more. I've used Printspace, Point 101 and Loxley that I can remember, but there are loads others. For mono work using trad wet chemistry from digital files, Harman are good.

Image file prep is key, as ever. Contrast often needs adjustment to suit a particular paper, soft proofing being a good road to start down. I'm tempted to say choose a lab and stick with it, that way you can settle into their system. Try a few prints to test the waters ...

At this point this thread should really be in the Print & Presentation forum ...
 
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I have said before elsewhere before I use the printer not just for photos but for document copies as well.
 
Another vote for DSCL as a good "cheap" printer. For bigger prints I use my local pro lab, One Vision Imaging, in Coventry, as I can pick the prints up from them to avoid the risks with postage.
 
My thoughts. When I bought my last printer I did plenty of research. Definitely wanted to print my own stuff. Definitely wanted a quality A4 printer. Definitely wanted to spend less than £200.

Satisfied myself that prints from an A4 printer would not be good enough. Ended up with an A3 printer from Canon. Way over budget. Fantastic quality results. Very happy.

Buy new cartridges..
 
I use an Epson A3 printer and it does cost a lot to run but I am keen to produce my own prints and can get better quality B&W prints than a commercial service. I used to print more myself and now down to around 40 A3 prints per year. You must decide for yourself but why not give a commercial printer a try ( Simlab ).

Dave
 
GetBusyLiving said:
Thank you everybody. I have decided—after due consideration of your replies, and the fact that at some point in the indeterminate future, I'm going to have to fork out more money for an external waste tank and a reset key (which I always believed should be free from Epson)—to bin the printer, but not buy a new [photo] one and instead send anything I want off to a professional print company. If I used the printer a bit more, it might be worth it but a sudden flurry only every few months (and the ten minute wait while the printer preens itself) makes me think it's not worth the trouble.

So, a recommendation of a good print company would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
I have found @Tradecanvasprint excellent, great service, fast turnaround, high quality prints.

Professional Photo Printing | Fine Art and Photographic Printing

Professional Photo Printing. High quality Fine Art and Photographic Printing service. Custom sizes available. Same Day Dispatch.
www.tradecanvasprint.co.uk www.tradecanvasprint.co.uk
 
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:plus1:

A very good company indeed for both the quality of the prints and equally for their IMO outstanding customer service.
 
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