Printers and printing for film shooters

ChrisR

ChrisR

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Note: this post is from a film shooter's point of view, see below...

It's only a few months since I printed my first photo, and after getting some decent paper I was amazed at what I could get! The printer was a Canon Pixma MG5250, bought mainly for general purpose printing, but with the possibility of photographic printing in mind.

I no longer have access to that printer, so I'm planning to buy a new one. I'm expecting to rint quite a few more photos than before, and more of these will be black and white. I've pretty much decided to outsource any A3 printing, since I suspect that for low A3 volumes (ie using the printer mostly for A4), the higher cost of printers and ink will be too great (although I did note that A3 printer cartridges seem to be higher capacity). I'm sure someone will tell me if I got this bit wrong!

So that leaves me trying to choose a new A4 printer. I can stick with the same sort of 5-ink Canon (or its Epson equivalent), or go for a 6-ink one at around twice the price. Is it worth it?

This is all from a film shooter's point of view, currently 35mm. So most film is scanned at medium resolution, 2000-2400 dpi, 6-9 mp images (I guess I'd need to re-scan at >=3600 dpi for A3 printing). Never scary high mp counts like some of the digerati. More than the usual proportion of black and white, though.

Whatcha think?
 
Chris, I've also tried to find an A4 printer that will produce good Black and White...I've given up.

A4 printers simply don't have the required number of Black inks to do an acceptable job. I'm afraid it's A3 and up.
I'm not in a position to invest for the limited amount I want to print.
My Canon IP4600 does a great job on colour though.
 
I agree the budget printers are not great but they are good enough for home printing and framing, up to now I used an Epson SX115 which recently conked and I replaced it with a £28 Canon basic Pixma just for a giggle and to be honest I am realy impressed, for the price its very good on lexmark photo paper.
 
I found it was cheaper to farm all of my non darkroom printing out to a lab as I couldn't be doing with farting about with inks, papers and calibration on a separate printer to my desktop one. I'd rather let the people who know what they're doing have a crack at it :D
 
robhooley167 said:
I found it was cheaper to farm all of my non darkroom printing out to a lab as I couldn't be doing with farting about with inks, papers and calibration on a separate printer to my desktop one. I'd rather let the people who know what they're doing have a crack at it :D
Click to expand...

I agree I just cannot afford it to be honest also I print and frame quite a lot me and the missus have a very large room in our house converted into an office/chill out room and the walls are covered in frams and prints of our adventures :D
 
robhooley167 said:
I found it was cheaper to farm all of my non darkroom printing out to a lab as I couldn't be doing with farting about with inks, papers and calibration on a separate printer to my desktop one. I'd rather let the people who know what they're doing have a crack at it :D
Click to expand...

This - I shudder reading about 6 inks, calibration profiles, 62 types of black, all that nonsense.
 
If you can stretch to it, an Epson 3800 (second) is one of the best you can have. It is good for black and white on its own but there are special modification kits that can turn it in an excelent bw only printer.
 
WHS ^

6 inks, calibration profiles, 62 types of black, all that nonsense.

sounds far more complicated than a straight wet print...:)
 
Its actually really easy to get good results, provided you follow a few pretty simple steps. Things sound way more complicated than they are, as with everything slightly technical.

I can't recommend an A4 printer, but the Epson Ultrachrome inks are amazing, especially on good glossy paper for colour. For black and white I tend to print on a matt art type of paper, simply because it fits my aesthetic for black and white, which is pretty low contrast anyway, although glossy prints do look great

For the home user who isn't an expert wet printer I would suggest that you can get a really pleasing print much more easily with digital than wet, and in 99% of cases you wouldn't be able to tell a truly expert wet print from a comparably expertly produced digital print.

If you wanted to print only black and white there are also some good alternate inksets that are only mono, with a cool and warm tone alternative that are even better than full colour based mono, but you have to be really on top of your game to get the extra out

The benefits of a digital printing system are also that you can make digital negs if you really want to do some alt process prints, most of which don't require an actual darkroom, so are wierdly more accessible to the home user
 
OK, thanks folks. I'm getting general strong support for out-sourcing the quality (and A3+) stuff to professionals.

cristianr said:
If you can stretch to it, an Epson 3800 (second) is one of the best you can have. It is good for black and white on its own but there are special modification kits that can turn it in an excelent bw only printer.
Click to expand...

I had a quick look at fleabay Sold listings, and only one under £200, so that's out I'm afraid!

Steve_Smith said:
Get an enlarger instead!!
Click to expand...

Hey, not a totally bad idea... but not in the short term... and it still won't help me print train tickets etc!

raathistle said:
Its actually really easy to get good results, provided you follow a few pretty simple steps. Things sound way more complicated than they are, as with everything slightly technical.

I can't recommend an A4 printer, but the Epson Ultrachrome inks are amazing, especially on good glossy paper for colour. For black and white I tend to print on a matt art type of paper, simply because it fits my aesthetic for black and white, which is pretty low contrast anyway, although glossy prints do look great

For the home user who isn't an expert wet printer I would suggest that you can get a really pleasing print much more easily with digital than wet, and in 99% of cases you wouldn't be able to tell a truly expert wet print from a comparably expertly produced digital print.

If you wanted to print only black and white there are also some good alternate inksets that are only mono, with a cool and warm tone alternative that are even better than full colour based mono, but you have to be really on top of your game to get the extra out

The benefits of a digital printing system are also that you can make digital negs if you really want to do some alt process prints, most of which don't require an actual darkroom, so are wierdly more accessible to the home user
Click to expand...

Chris, thanks for this. Presumably the Epson "Claria Premium" inks aren't the same as Ultrachrome? Again, this implies to me that printers using Ultrachrome inks are the more expensive ones.

So, is anyone convinced that relatively low cost 6-ink printers (adding a grey) are significantly better for black and white than 5-ink systems?
 
I use an Epson 3800. Compared to the A4 version using the same ink set, the cartridges are three times the price, but hold six times the quantity of ink - so a saving. The 3800 is a compact A2 printer; move up to the more expensive and larger (but still A2) 4000 and you get 50% more ink for the same price.

The big thing about home printing for me is that I can have as wide a choice of paper as I want, and select a paper according to the look and feel that I want. Papers (even with nominally the same surface and tint) can vary widely in the end result, just as nominally identical grade 3 glossy papers from the various manufacturers are not really the same either.

The Ultrachrome inks are the better ones. Given the way photographers in the 19th century were searching for archival prints, I really think that if they had been able to use the Epson Ultrachrome inks, silver printing wouldn't have been looked at.
 
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