Can I see your M digital prints?

[bruniroquai]

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Thanks guys, I Will go tomorrow to leica Store in Mayfair and check the prints.

 

Sure the Monochrome is a special camera when You see the prints on a Baryta paper, as the m9 will be.

[atufte]

Print from Leica Monochrom ISO 10.000, from the city of Prypiat, Chernobyl Ukraine (The Gym)

 

PS! Notice the CF card for size reference... (sorry for bad quality, this is just a instagram)

 

(Printed on Epson 9800 LF printer, on regular semigloss Epson Archival paper)

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[menos I M6]

I will have to concur that some of the fine art papers processed on a good inkjet look wonderful, but not photographic.

 

I have been looking for an inexpensive place to get some made so far without much luck.

They all seem to have large set up fees and will not furnish a profile so the fee can be avoided. I need to experiment and the high fixed cost makes this impossible. I do not want to maintain a printer as my volume is to low and I read about and have experienced numerous problems.

 

My current printer, which I use exclusively for B/W prints is a Canon 9500 Mk1, printing with pigment ink.

I think the printer cost me new on a local sellout ~ 300 EUR a few years ago.

One full set of all 10 inks cost ~ 100 EUR (it will take you long enough to get a good opinion on different papers and printing technique fiddling until you get close to what you want).

 

I use only the highest graded papers from RedRiver, which I import from the US - great vendor and fantastic papers.

They have a huge selection on different materials, weights, structures and all sizes, you could possibly want.

They also offer profiles for download for their papers and structure their web shop very nicely to make it easy to shop only for papers, fully compatible with the printer model, you use.

 

I got a startup pack with all gear including framing tools, cutting gear, printer, basic stock on all raw materials to take me for a few projects for much less than I thought.

 

I do not deal with any of these anymore up to 13x19:

 

- drive to lab, bring, pick up stuff

- deal with opening hours of lab

- swallow ever growing prices of the local labs

- deal with ever changing people at the labs and go through the whole profiling and proofing again over and over

- blame faults in the print to other people (if you print by yourself, you always know who messed up ;-)

 

 

I refine my own profiles and print settings all by myself and can adjust, experiment and react on an instant right with the next print - just like in the darkroom.

I don't have to wait on other people to understand what I want and hope, they get it right.

 

Given the fantastic feature of repeatability and documentation with digital printing, you can endlessly refine your settings and KEEP them.

 

I would not want to make printing outside anymore.

 

The biggest hassle really is to get started and find your first basic setup. This is a pain.

Once you have a basis from where to go, it's all smooth sailing and pure enjoyment.

[MarkP]

Hi Dirk,

 

I'm pleased to see that a few other people are getting excellent results out of the Canon 9500. I agree that it takes a bit of work to optimise the printer profiles and settings to get it just right.

 

I'm interested in your use of pigment inks.

Can you please supply more information?

 

 

Regards,

Mark

[algrove]

Dirk

Thanks for you comment on Red River papers as I must admit I never tried them as I import (via B&H) Canson and Ilford papers over here to the US, I must give them a try.

 

Are their papers better for B&W or color or both? Maybe you can PM me which papers worked best for you. I print with an Epson 3880, mostly 13x19 and sometimes 17x22 and then my club does the bigger stuff like up 36x48" and they use Epson papers seeing how they get the papers donated by Epson as well as the printers too.

[sblitz]

print off of my epson r2880 from my m9 vs scanned negative, scanned negative looks better, more depth, smoother transitions across tones, color or b&w, differences that are not as evident on a screen become so on paper. but i still love my m9 and recognize that digital is digital and has an inherently different look on paper. which is okay, you can still make incredible art with it, as made evident in any leica gallery.

[bruniroquai]

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Print from Leica Monochrom ISO 10.000, from the city of Prypiat, Chernobyl Ukraine (The Gym)

 

PS! Notice the CF card for size reference... (sorry for bad quality, this is just a instagram)

 

(Printed on Epson 9800 LF printer, on regular semigloss Epson Archival paper)

 

 

Looks simply amazing!!!

 

Can't wait to learn how to process the image with CS and SE and later how to print... loooong way to.

[jaapv]

Hi Dirk,

 

I'm pleased to see that a few other people are getting excellent results out of the Canon 9500. I agree that it takes a bit of work to optimise the printer profiles and settings to get it just right.

 

I'm interested in your use of pigment inks.

Can you please supply more information?

 

 

Regards,

Mark

The only thing is that it has hollow legs regarding ink... Especially if doing single prints. You need to collect a number and do a series in one run.

[menos I M6]

Hey Mark, I second Jaap on the ink consumption.

 

The Canon 9500 is designed with tiny, tiny, tiny little ink containers (I wouldn't call them containers though as of their size).

 

It is a printer, delivering absolute top grade prints (short in nothing to the large format EPSON pigment printers in the local lab), but it's weakness is the ink consumption (cost) and that it is obviously firmware restricted to not be able to print panoramic (endless) prints despite it's load through capability.

 

If you take it as it is, it is a gorgeous printer.

 

When I bought mine, I had the opportunity to buy a large format top of the line Canon demo printer instead at 30% of it's new price.

I am still kicking myself, not having bought that one instead (benefit to the obviously larger possible print sizes is a much higher economy in regards of ink costs).

 

As Jaap suggests, I do my prints in batches. Somewhere on the net, I read about the ink consumption amount during one cleaning run of the 9500, which it does mandatory on start up - it was shockingly high in reference to its tiny container volume.

The bad is, even if you print exclusively B/W with it, as I do - you have to replace every single colour of the ten containers, when they run low, not just the 4 containers, you use for B/W printing :-(

 

The least you start the printer up and the more you print, the more economic it gets. I never made very precise records of ink consumption with mine, but I feel I get anything between 12-15 13x19 prints from one cartridge (one cartridge is about 10-14 EUR).

I buy single cartridges on the lowest price and stock on them and once in a while I buy a complete 10 colour pack, when it is convenient (RedRiver Paper also sell these inks as a tip - no affiliation with them other than being a happy customer).

 

I have no scientific comparisons in longevity between the Canon pigment inks and other inks, but a unscientific test, where I hanged sample shots from the 9500 and normal ink prints from a higher grade EPSON printer (no pigment ink) in a window to expose them to direct sunlight for several weeks showed extreme bleaching of the standard ink, while the pigment ink stood up very well and would still be very viewable, if handed without reference of a fresh print.

The prints are durable as well, holding up fine for handout photographs (touching and scratching).

Many People with no photographic background, I have handed these prints have commented and asked me, where I would have those photos developed (analogue), as they wouldn't know no place in town, who would make such prints anymore, as all the old shops were gone ;-)

They wouldn't believe, they came out of a printer the size of a larger office inkjet, whey have at home as well.

 

@ Algrove:

I use mainly RedRiver Arctic Polar White #1916 in the heaviest grade and print also on their Premium gloss papers. I don't print on rags or rough fibre art papers, so I never tried them.

I print almost exclusively B/W.

 

Their papers are supplied with downloadable colour profiles on their website, which make a clean colour workflow as easy, as possible.

They offer also a mixed package of different papers at a relatively low cost to try out all their main papers - I suggest to do this first and print nothing but colour charts and sample shots to get a feel of these papers.

[Jeff S]

Looks simply amazing!!!

 

A screen shot of an instagram. In terms of print quality, in what way is this remotely 'amazing'? Even the poster apologized for the bad quality.

 

Sorry, but I find the premise for this thread baffling. Prints and screen shots are apples and oranges. And even when viewing a beautiful print in person, nobody knows what camera was used; dozens of other variables are involved.

 

Jeff

[bruniroquai]

I meant, looks with a good Deep...

[Jeff S]

Deep what? Are you describing the pic itself or some particular print quality? The latter can only be ascertained by holding and viewing a print. There are lots of ways to explore differences in print qualities, and none of them involve computer screens, especially subtle tonal gradations and textures.

 

I suggest you get off the forum and start looking at some prints. There are good and bad prints from all cameras.

 

Jeff

[MarkP]

Thanks Dirk for your detailed reply.

 

I agree with Jaap and yourself that the results from the Canon 9500 are spectacular, but the trade-off is the cost of the Canon ink cartridges. I too have had a number of comments where people were astounded that prints of this quality were done at home on a desktop printer.

 

Thanks for your advice regarding minimising startups and printing in batches.

 

I also primarily print B&W, but have moved more and more to duo-, tri-, and quad-tone prints as I love the increased depth of tonal range. The Canon handles these very well. Again, this is obviously at the expense of even more colour ink. I have only ever used the original Canon ink cartridges, I'm not game to use 3rd party inks. I'm now primarily printing on Ilford Gold Fibre Silk.

 

Regards,

Mark