Which photo printer?

bobiscuit

bobiscuit

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I'm looking for a printer to use at events where it will need to print 6x4 photos at a rate of approx 1 per minute for 3 hours.

So it should be able to handle that without a meltdown.

And shouldn't be too expensive - £100 to £150 if possible.

Print quality isn't as important as reliability - Any photo printer will print good enough quality for my needs, but if I have to waste my time constantly tinkering with it then it's useless!

What should I be looking at?
 
A dye sublimation printer is best for events, and there are plenty who will back me up on this.

A decent dye sub will print a full bleed print in approx 8 seconds, dry.

However it will cost you more than £150.

Or you could hire one.
 
A Dye Sub is definately the best thing to have. For your budget the Kodak printers give a superb quality print on Kodak paper. And, the ink is dirt cheap.
 
Print time is a wee bit slow mind, and it's sheet feed I think.

I do know of a few guys using them, and one guy who pays less than that . But to be honest with you if you want to go into event work properley you really shoudl look at a roll feed machine. Such printers are available under the folowing brands - DNP, Kodak, Fuji, HiTi, Citizen and Mitsubishi.
 
In what way is a dye sub better?

I've had a look on google and it looks like print quality is better, but apart from that I'm not sure...?

Really reliability is the number 1 thing for me. If it's cheap enough to buy 2 then that's best so I can have a backup. Image quality isn't so important for what I'm doing.
 
Quick, dry, efficeint, no cartridges to worry about, laminate coated ,so effectively waterproof.
 
I have Mitsubishi dye sub printers from the 9550 up to the latest 707. The 9000's series are very good and built to last. I have had problems with the 707 double decker, but they seem to have been overcome at the moment. So if you are looking for a Mitsubishi printer one of the 9810's would be your best bet.

Although I have no personal experience fo them, I am led to believe that the DNPs are also excellent machines.

I am sure Mike Weeks will post here at some point and can give you the benefit of his knowledge of the DNPs. Otherwise give Mark at Photomart a call.
 
bobiscuit said:
Print quality isn't as important as reliability - Any photo printer will print good enough quality for my needs,

What should I be looking at?
Click to expand...

Print Quality!

I can't believe that anybody that wants to sell their work has no interest in print quality.

If you want something that is reliable and to print at that rate with no user input then it is a dye sub.

Mike
 
I'm gonna need it about once a month, so hiring doesn't make sense when the hire cost is about 15% of the new price!

Print quality isn't important because these are free prints that people will stuff into their pockets. And the photo content is just snapshot quality.

Those Canon Selphy printers look almost ideal... And cheap enough that I can buy another one as a backup.
But I don't like the fact you can only buy the cartridges packaged with paper, and only from Canon. In theory it's £35 for 108 prints - which is fine, but does anyone know how trustworthy the numbers are? Will I really get 108 prints from the cartridge?
 
Well I guess you better get a Selphy. :)

Still think a proper dye sub would be a more sound investment though.
 
Yes I agree in the long run a dye-sub would surely be better.
 
Well the Selphy is dye sub, what I meant was a roll feed dye sub. :)
 
bobiscuit said:
I'm gonna need it about once a month, so hiring doesn't make sense when the hire cost is about 15% of the new price!

Print quality isn't important because these are free prints that people will stuff into their pockets. And the photo content is just snapshot quality.

Those Canon Selphy printers look almost ideal... And cheap enough that I can buy another one as a backup.
But I don't like the fact you can only buy the cartridges packaged with paper, and only from Canon. In theory it's £35 for 108 prints - which is fine, but does anyone know how trustworthy the numbers are? Will I really get 108 prints from the cartridge?
Click to expand...

In my experience the Selphy delivers the number of prints they provide paper for. It's not just 4x6 paper, it has extra on both ends that is perforated and you tear off after printing so it's a dedicated package of ink and paper.
 
bobiscuit said:
In theory it's £35 for 108 prints - which is fine, but does anyone know how trustworthy the numbers are? Will I really get 108 prints from the cartridge?
Click to expand...

In practice that is less than £12 from my DNP DS40 - might not sound much but once a month means you will save about £275 a year.

Mike
 
Roll feed Dye Sub Printers print full bleed , no need for perforations ( time wasted on doing this), and is cut ready to mount.
 
bobiscuit said:
I'm gonna need it about once a month, so hiring doesn't make sense when the hire cost is about 15% of the new price!

Print quality isn't important because these are free prints that people will stuff into their pockets. And the photo content is just snapshot quality.

Those Canon Selphy printers look almost ideal... And cheap enough that I can buy another one as a backup.
But I don't like the fact you can only buy the cartridges packaged with paper, and only from Canon. In theory it's £35 for 108 prints - which is fine, but does anyone know how trustworthy the numbers are? Will I really get 108 prints from the cartridge?
Click to expand...

I use a Canon Selphy printer for the Honeymoon Album I give to clients on their wedding day.

They are awesome little printers, great print quality and extremely reliable.

I actually have 3 of them now as I originally bought 2 (one to use and one as a backup) but then because I used the same one all the time I thought that after 4 years and thousands of prints it must surely be on its way out, so when I saw one for sale in JL for £35 I bought another.

The original CP710 that I have been using just keeps on chugging though, it makes a few more noises than it used to when printing the first few sheets but print quality hasn't diminished at all.

Print speed isn't a massive factor for my use so there's no no point in me buying a massive roll fed dye sub printer like the events guys, just not worth the extra expense, weight and bulk for my use.

Regards paper and print rolls, as already mentioned they are specific to this type of printer and give a nice edge to edge print once the end tabs have been broken off. If you shop around for the roll/paper stocks you can get them for less than £35, I pad less than £30 per pack of 108 for the last lot I ordered from Amazon. My local Jessops also has a habit of marking their stocks up wrong so I have had some nice bonus buys of stocks from them.

As well as our honeymoon album we also do a few prints for strut mounts at weddings which goes down well, one below was before we start using branded strut mounts.
hothorpe-hall-wedding-photos-BP129-065.jpg
 
On the issue of weight - the DNP DS40 weighs in at 14kgs
 
How long are you planning to be doing this for? how many occasions?

180 prints on the selphy will cost you £58.32 on a DNP DS40 your looking at £24.84

12 runs over the year the difference in costs for the prints alone is £476 ok I know your not going to be saving yourself the cost of the DS40 in 12 months but you can put the S40 to work and you can put different sizes in there take on more events etc and a few events will pay for the printer and your 3 packs of paper you will need for the 12 months of giving free 6x4's away.

Selphy print costs at £35 per 108 prints for 12 months printing 180 per month is £700
DS40 print costs at £82.80 per 800 prints for 12 months printing 180 per month is £223.56

You can probably pick up a 2nd hand DS40 for about £800 and it may come with some media.
 
You will be lucky to get a second hand DNP DS40 to be honest.

No harm in looking though.
 
If anyone is doing a search of second hand dye subs on ebay and teh lkike , please be carefu; Do not for the Mitsubishi CP8000 - you cannot get media for it now. Also keep clear of the HiTi P710L for similar reasons. Or the Olmec OP600.
 
Nick, it's fine - I know a guy on the South Bank who uses 2 Selphys, he picks them up fo r£20 from somewhere- used and recon'd.

If teh Selphy works for you that is cool, but for anyone wanting speed and efficiency , a roll feed is the way.

:)
 
Thought I would update this...

I went with the Selphy CP800 (well, two of them).
Approx 27p per print which is OK, and so far no meltdowns even under heavy use :).
And the portability is great - really suits what I'm using them for!

1 minute per print is a bit slow, but not too bad. If things get desperate I'll just hook them both up together.

The worst thing is having to change the paper every 18 prints. It's a real PITA, but I think it's worth it for the portability.
 
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