Digital BW, The Print

Hello, I went through the same thing with choosing a new printer. I did side by side tests with all 3 of the printers you mentioned. I ended up choosing the epson 3800 for several reasons. First the Epson switches from photo to matt in easily. Hardly any ink loss at all as far as I can tell. I did side by side prints from the same file on all 3 printers and the Epson definitely had better reds then the canon. Also the size of the Epson was very good. The 3 printers do almost the same thing in the end but I did feel that the Epson had a slightly more vibrant result. I am still working on the first set of inks even after the first charging. At the price the 3800 was a great deal. I did have a problem tho. The first 3800 that I had made funny noises and upon close inspection of the prints I had banding in the shadow areas. I notified Epson and they told me to take the unit back to the store and it was replaced with no questions. The  only thing that I can complain about is the 3800 has a chintzy magnet holding the front door closed and after avery short time this little piece of metal comes off because it is attached with awful glue that cant hold anything in place especially metal to plastic. To solve this problem I took the piece of metal and heated it really hot and it melted into the plastic where it attached and it has not come off since. I really like the 3800 so far. It does magnificent B&W prints on any paper. The color prints are vibr
ant and very smooth. The fiber based glossy papers are great with this printer. There is almost no bronzing but if you look hard enough and turn the prints sideways just the right way you can barely make out that problem. Over all the printer works great. It is also fairly fast. I had another Epson printer for 8 years with no problem and I feel that the 3800 will behave the same way. Also Epson has great support which is very important to me. As I said I did side by side testing and the Epson definitely won when it came to vibrancy and better reds. As far as B&W printing the Epson is amazing. Any questions please feel free to ask. Steve


-----Original Message-----
From: danielstaver <daniel@petraflux.com>
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, Jul 6, 2009 5:30 pm
Subject: [Digital BW] Canon IPF 5100 vs Epson 3800 vs Epson 4800


























    

            
            


      
      
I'm going to upgrade to an A2 printer within a month or two, and I'm going to get one of these three printers. Incredibly, I can get all three for exactly the same price - A used 4800 in very good condition, a brand new 3800 or a brand new Canon IPF 5100 that's on a super promotion from a photo store because they want to get rid of it.



Why would I even consider a 3800 when I can get a 4800 for the same price? If it wasn't for the costly and time consuming=2
0black ink swap I'd just get the 4800 now and not even consider anything else. I've printed on matte papers for many years now, but recently I've really wanted to explore the new fibre based glossy papers and possibly switch to that. But I see a period of time coming where I will want to print on both just to experiment so this is really a huge turn off when it comes to the 4800.



Another thing the 3800 seems to do better is handling small papers and borderless printing on sheet papers. The 4800 and 5100 can only print borderless on rolls and the smallest sheet size possible is 8x10 I think. Neither is a very big deal for me, as this appears to be a limitation of all big professional grade printers.



The Canon seems attractive. It's HUGE though. Even bigger than the 4800. I think I can fit it in, and even got permission from my wife to put it in our bedroom/office, so I'm not going to let that be a decisive factor. The limited print head warranty is more worrying. It has about one year warranty and is treated as a consumable. Buying new print heads (there's two of them) will cost me around $1200, nearly doubling the price of the printer. With the volume I print I expect the heads to last much longer than that, but still...



Other than that I hear many good things about the Canon printer. It never clogs, doesn't have microbanding problems, handles papers very well, has a motorized roll feed, prints much faster than either of the Epsons, uses less ink, an
d is self linearizing.



I've found the Canon wiki which goes into much more detail:

http://canonipf.wikispaces.com/



Does any of you have experience with the Canon printer? I'm very familiar with Epson printers so I know what I'm dealing with there, but the Canon printer is new for me. In particular I'm interested to know more about BW print quality on both matte and glossy papers compared to Epson. After all, that is what I will print most, and I simply don't trust reviewers who don't primarily shoot BW who says the printer makes very good BW prints.



How is gloss differential and bronzing? How is the dmax on various papers (both matte and glossy)?



If anyone would be willing to send me some sample prints from the Canon, or even print out a few of my own images for me I'd be happy to pay you for the trouble.



Thanks!





 

    
  

    
    


    
    
    
    


    


    
    
    
    
    


 





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