Best A4 printer...particularly for mono

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photostar_1

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Carole
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Hi...my printer has finally died :'( and I now need to look for a replacement. I need to print for camera club comps and particularly like to print mono. The printer I used to have gave awful colour casts.

My question therefore is complicated...........

1. What's the best A4 printer (especially for mono) you know of?
2. Would it be silly to get an A3 printer for the odd occasionally big print, but actually use it mainly for A4?
3. How on earth do you work out cost per print?


I could stretch to the cost of an A3 with an ink tank, but is it really worth it for mostly A4 work?

All advice welcome!
 
I'm using an HP PRO B9180, and whilst the ink costs a fortune, it is stunning in terms of the finished product. The printer you can probably find for less than £500, it will do A3+ which is an added bonus. It's always good to be able to do that bit bigger (IMO).

G.
 
The cost of ink is truely redic... It must be one of the highest marked up products in the photography/ computer industry!

Not producing prints to garys pro standards but i've found now if your going to produce a lot of prints you are actually much cheaper going to boots! And unless your outlaying the huge costs on hardware and consumables like gary is for a buisness the ordanry photographer cant beat getting it done on the high st.
 
got a fotospeed one on my R2400 and got no complaints - also got a waste ink tank hooked up too
 
Talking about printers, I called up epson on line to check on their printers. Did you ever see so many printers. How do they do it in so short a time. How do they tool up so quickly. In the car industry it takes months to tool up for a new car.
 
A lot of the newer Canons take a black cartridge, and another "photo black" one to produce better shades.
 
weiran said:
A lot of the newer Canons take a black cartridge, and another "photo black" one to produce better shades.
Click to expand...

The A4 Canon IP range take 3 colour, and 2 black, 1 is photo and the other (which is a larger tank capacity) is for text. Some of the A3 printers add another 2 colours and I seem to remember there are also some adding more blacks / shades of :thumbs:
 
I may be wrong here but I believe these Canon printers have a text black and a photo black and no light grey and dark grey neutral inks so they will still print by mixing the CYM inks to create a somewhat unreliable neutral. Inkjets can't create a decent range of tones using a single black.

I don't think anyone currently makes an a4 printer that can use grey inks, HP used to make the 7760 series which uses the HP59 cartridges with 3 neutral inks inside. I still run one of these printers and when set on max dpi with Ilford paper (the one in the black box I've forgotten the number) the quality is almost like a bromide.

Might be worth grabbing a used 7760 series printer of Fleabay the print head is in the cartridge so no issues there.

But I might be wrong there may be a current A$ printer with 3 neutral inks..

John
 
You can find out the cost per page by dividing the ink cartridge price by the yield. Yield is the number of pages that can be printed with one particular inkjet cartridge or toner. For example, if the price of an inkjet cartridge is £33.99 and its yield is 800 pages, then its cost per page will be £33.99/800=0.042p. Most cartridges should have the yield information printed on the packaging and you get better value if you choose the XL (high-yield) packs. Independent reviews in the trade press are also helpful indicators as they usually test the cost per page. Try Computershopper.co.uk or Which? as both sites provide pretty comprehensive information.
 
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