Seeingeye Posted January 18, 2009 Share #1 Posted January 18, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) After four eventful years, my cheap and cheerful Epson R200 is no longer looking so cheerful and it seems that we shall soon be going our separate ways. Despite head cleaning and realignment, the printer remains distinctly off colour. Of course, we both knew that this was going to happen one day and that I was only really waiting for something better to come along. But it just never did. The R200’s parent still has not resolved the problem on its high end printers of swapping ink cartridges when changing paper. Unless, of course, I want to spend a small fortune on the 11880 and then another fortune on the larger home that my new amour would demand. I think that Epson was deliberately trying to keep us together. It merely teased with the prospect that it might one day produce an affordable printer where the print head could simultaneously cater for the all the inks in its inkset. So I am on the market again. The R200 has served me well and taught me much, but I had been getting frustrated that I could not print larger than A4 and I really wanted better mono. I was also suspect of the printer’s tendency towards green, despite using Epson ink, paper and profiles. I have played away and paid for commercially produced prints, which gave me the large colour images that I craved, but disappointed with black and white. Consequently I have a dilemma. Should I bite the bullet and buy a 2880 or possibly a 3800 before the price rises in the UK come through? I have not been printing much on matte paper, so my objections to swapping cartridges are mainly theoretical and I know that the results will be good for both colour and mono. Or I could forsake Epson and try the HP B9180. I am not sure that I want a Canon 9000 or 9500, which are optimised for different types of paper. Alternatively, I could seek the acquaintance of another A4 cheapie and settle in for a further wait. My question to all the relationship advisors in the L-Camera community is what have your experiences been with either the Canon or HP models, especially producing mono prints from the M8? Mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 18, 2009 Posted January 18, 2009 Hi Seeingeye, Take a look here Seeking A New Relationship. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
farnz Posted January 18, 2009 Share #2 Posted January 18, 2009 Mike, Sorry, I can't help but I just wanted to say that I enjoyed reading the subtle humour in your post. Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morten Grathe Posted January 20, 2009 Share #3 Posted January 20, 2009 Dear Mike, I use the Epson R2400, and I am very happy with the results. The two things that I don't like is the print-cost and the black ink-swap-problem. The 3800 will give you same image-quality and eliminate the ink-problem plus give you A2. The final price depends on your matte/glossy swap plus your print volume. Personally i swap papers a lot and I print a lot, so my next printer will be the 3800. Epson Denmark has calculated that an A3 costs ca. 2€ in ink on the 2400 and ca. 1€ on the 3800 - you do the math... Ps. try and treat youself some Hahnemuehle Photorag, and do some BW M8 images -you will love it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wparsonsgisnet Posted January 20, 2009 Share #4 Posted January 20, 2009 Mike, I also use the 2400 and always use glossy paper. In addition, I use a 1400 with Cone b/w inks and matte paper. But you complained about real estate problems so perhaps that's not the way to go. There have been posts here about the Epson K7 ink sets giving good b/w in the color printer. I guess that's a 3800? Don't remember. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
erl Posted January 20, 2009 Share #5 Posted January 20, 2009 Mike, I have gone through about 10 printers in my time (Mainly Epson, but some Canons). MY Epson R1800 just clagged up a print head to finality, for me. I went straight out (after some research) and crossexamined the Epson Pro 3800. That was Monday 19 this week. My acid test was for it to print B&W from both colour and B&W originals without a colour cast. . . . . .BINGO! I bought it on the spot. I got it home and poked a 'non specified' image at it (it was a B&W scan) and printed it with my normal colour settings. I expected it to choke. In one gulp it spat out a perfect print. I have arrived, finally, at the digital equivalent of where I was years ago with analog. This machine swallows anything I poke at it and sends back fabulous A2 prints. The ink carts are much larger, and more expensive up front, but the volumetric cost of use is much less. It has four B&W colour carts, of which it uses three at any given time. This has to be a truly versatile printer that does both B&W and colour effortlessly. And it is fast compared to my old 1800. I can't give this machine a big enough wrap and I notoriously 'can' desktop printers. I think because it has scrambled into the 'Pro' section, according to Epson, that it is safer to assume it will perform better both in quality delivered and backup service that is offered as 'on site'. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted January 21, 2009 Share #6 Posted January 21, 2009 If you are thinking of going with the Epson 3800, you might want to check out the Canon ipf5100. It is physically bigger and heavier than the Epson so that might be a factor for you. They use 12 colors of ink and 4 of them are gray and black. (Photo black, matte black and two grays.) When printing monochrome,. they can be set to use only the black and gray ink for perfectly neutral results. Alternatively it lets you adjust the amount of color to a b/w print so that you can achieve any type of warm tone effect. The driver is especially good at previewing this- especially the Photoshop plug-in which can work in 16 bits. It can work in full screen mode and give a large preview. Recently Atlex.com had a deal where for a short time, they sold the 5100 for $999 and gave $300 of paper with it. There was a further reduction of $200 if you could give them a serial number of an existing "qualifying" printer for an upgrade. It included free delivery. Considering that it comes with 12 90ml "starter" ink carts, that is about $600 worth of ink. So buying it for $799 was kind of no-brainer for me. As Canon reduced the price on this for about a week or so, other dealers had good pricing too. You might see if any kind of deal like this happens in your area. Here are two screen shots showing how you can adjust the tone of monochrome prints. I scanned the neg and am able to make inkjet prints from this picture that look virtually identical to the original print that was made on Agfa Brovira. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeingeye Posted January 25, 2009 Author Share #7 Posted January 25, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) Thanks to everyone who has replied. I have spent the last few days working out my options and concluded that I still want to have the ability to produce at least some prints at home. Initially I had not been considering an Epson 3800, but I have had an offer of a new one at a price that would be less than a 2880 and the cost of an equivalent amount of ink for that printer. Ongoing costs for the ink would be lower as well. It will probably be that, or a R800 and trade prints when I want something larger. I am hoping to be able to look at the 3800 next week and make a final decision. Alan - I did look at the Canon IPF5100, but its price in the UK is considerably higher than the price that you manged to obtain in the US. I will rarely want to print even as large as A3 and a while back someone told me that buying A3+ paper and cutting it in half produces images that would be the right size for my purposes. Does anyone have experience of doing this? Mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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