Canon or Epson- Who's on top of the printer pile

[iCe]

As near as I can tell, Epson is still the king of printers (17" to 24" range). One big plus to going Canon was that they were more conservative with ink during color changes which of course is less dinero per print. Is that still the case?

[johnastovall]

I think it's Epson. Looking to upgrade soon to a 3800. I think more about the quality of the print than the cost of the ink.

[iCe]

I don't think it's unreasonable to want both 1st rate print quality and minimal waste.

Do you build your own printer profile?

[johnastovall]

No I use paper makers and have a couple of custom ones for the R1800 from Dry Creek.

[Pascal]

Curious on opinions on this myself.

I am still using my Canon i9900 which has worked fine for all these years. Looking to eventually upgrade to another Canon or maybe an Epson soon enough.

[swanny338]

I have an epson 3800 that I use for just about everything. I love the print's it produces especially after calibrating and making custom profiles for every paper. A big plus to me is the built in Black and White rip that works quite well.

I make custom profiles and then print test targets with my custom profiles and the manufacturer profiles and decide which one works out better for different purposes.
By doing this you can tell which profile prints to the limit of white and black. Usually it is the custom profile. Though I will say epson's velvet fine art profile was spot on for my printer.

[billbunton]

Much as I dislike HP as a company, I'm still very pleased with my 24" Z3100 (now superseded by the Z3200). Reasonably light on ink use, NEVER clogs (keep it turned on and it runs cleaning cycles every six hours or so that use an extremely small amount of ink). Has a spectro built in that it uses to build profiles and recalibrate itself.

Of course, if you're looking at the 17" end of the range that doesn't help much :-), though they do have a 17" printer that uses the same inks.

[jeffkohn]

Epson's printer lineup is a bit fractured at the moment. At the 17" size you have the 3800, which is a relative bargain but crippled by the lack of rollpaper support and a max page length of 37". If you want to print panos, pass this one by. Then there's the 4880, which is great if you don't mind flushing $75 worth of ink down the toilet every time you switch from matte-black to photo-black.

At 24", the 7880 has the same black-swap issue as the 4880. Then there's the 7900, which is their newest model with a new 12-ink system. Early reports are that this printer is phenominal, even better than the x880 series and they've addressed the black-swap issue (well, only a few ml is wasted, just like on the 3800). The down-side? Epson has decided to market this printer to the proofing market more than photographers, and has priced it at $4K. Hopefully that will come down over time though. There's currently no 17" version of the x900 series, and no clear indication at this time if there will be (some have speculated that it would require a complete overhaul of the 4880 chassis to fit the extra inks, which Epson may not want to do).

On the Canon side, the ipf series is quite good, and a real bargain. The 5100 sells for about $1300, and that includes a motorized roll feed and vacuum-sealed platten. (It was actually on sale for $800 a few weeks ago at Atlex.com, keep your eye out and it may happen again). The 6100 sells for just under $2K, which is half the price of the 7900. I think the 6100 was also on sale recently.

Compared to the Epsons, the ipf's are more frugal with ink when printing and also use less of it on cleaning cycles (and are much less prone to clogging). For color prints the Epson's with K3 inks and Canon's are pretty close. The Epson gamut is slightly bigger in some areas, slightly smaller in others. The new inks in the 7900 are supposed to be even better than the K3 though. I actually prefer the monochrome mode on Canon to Epson's ABW; the Epson black/gray inks are quite warm and so require more color ink to be mixed in for neutral results.

I make my own profiles using an Eye One spectro. If you're going to be using stock profiles the Epson may have a slight edge. Epson's premium profiles for their own papers are supposed to be excellent. If you'll be printing on 3rd party papers (Hahnemuhle, etc), most of them will provide profiles for both Epson and Canon LF printers. But if you have a specific paper in mind it's worth checking to make sure they have the profile you need.

I've owned an Epson 2400 for a couple years now, and have been using an ipf5000 (with 5100 inks) for several months as well. If you have any more specific questions let me know.

[jeffkohn]

[oops, duplicate post. what happened to the delete option?]

[jeffkohn]

Originally Posted by billbunton

Of course, if you're looking at the 17" end of the range that doesn't help much :-), though they do have a 17" printer that uses the same inks.

Actually HP does not make a 17" pigment printer (z-series). There's an older 18" model with dye inks, but it's not at all the same. Lots of people been waiting for a 17" Z-model, but I guess HP doesn't feel they can make one at a competitive price point due to the built-in spectro.

The Z's have a fine reputation. Their real strength seems to be gloss printing with their gloss optimizer, though some have complained about some gamut problems on matte papers in the reds/oranges. The only thing I don't like about the Z's is that you're paying for a spectrophotometer that you might not want or need. I already have a spectro, I don't want to pay for another one that can only be used with one printer even if it is convenient. On the other hand, if someone doesn't already have a spectro this could be an attractive option.

[rexster]

I've had a Canon iPF5000 for going on two years. Have not had one single clog or down time. The roll paper units were flaky when they first came out, but I was a lucky one, never have had one problem with the roll paper feature.
Last year I went wider with the iPF6100. What a beast! Never has had a clog or malfunction. Printed panoramas so far of about 14 feet long with not a bobble. Beautiful colors, can print either matte inks or glossy inks with no downtime like most of the Epsons.


Rex

[billbunton]

Originally Posted by jeffkohn

Actually HP does not make a 17" pigment printer (z-series). There's an older 18" model with dye inks, but it's not at all the same. Lots of people been waiting for a 17" Z-model, but I guess HP doesn't feel they can make one at a competitive price point due to the built-in spectro.

The Z's have a fine reputation. Their real strength seems to be gloss printing with their gloss optimizer, though some have complained about some gamut problems on matte papers in the reds/oranges. The only thing I don't like about the Z's is that you're paying for a spectrophotometer that you might not want or need. I already have a spectro, I don't want to pay for another one that can only be used with one printer even if it is convenient. On the other hand, if someone doesn't already have a spectro this could be an attractive option.

You're right, I was thinking of the B9180 but it's only 13".

The spectro is actually usable with other printers, in theory. You can print targets on another printer, and then feed them through the Z3100 to have a profile generated. I've never done that though...

I bought it already owning an I1 Photo and PMP. It's a lot more convenient to push a couple buttons and come back half an hour later to a completed profile, rather than having to do all the measurements by hand. I know it doesn't take that long, but it's one of those things I always hated doing.

One of the reasons I really don't like HP as a company is that part of the Z3100 hype was it was an upgradable hardware platform, and you would always be able to upgrade your hardware to the latest. Then came the Z3200, and no upgrade path. Oh well.

[indyspeedbird]

I worked for Epson and where they have everyone beat is in 'the ink', where the final results are really where you want it. Try the same pic on the Epson vs anyone including Canon and if the settings are correct the Epson should be the outright winner. Last I heard they still had a 90% of the pro using printers market share and in Europe they own the market.

[jeffkohn]

Originally Posted by indyspeedbird

I worked for Epson and where they have everyone beat is in 'the ink', where the final results are really where you want it. Try the same pic on the Epson vs anyone including Canon and if the settings are correct the Epson should be the outright winner. Last I heard they still had a 90% of the pro using printers market share and in Europe they own the market.

This was true a few years ago, but the latest Canon and HP large-format printers have changed the game. Epson got complacent, they weren't used to having serious competition and now they do.

[snidow]

I received an Epson R1400 for Christmas and the print quality on it is outstanding. I've both Canon and HP in the past but would not trade this Epson for either at this time. But I have not tried any of the higher end photo printers.