Printers ?

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freddisu

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Hi , i hope this is the correct section,!
I am thinking about buying a printer , one that will print up to A3 .
Mostly the photos will be for competitions at the camera club, and some for my own use .
Do you have any advice on which are the best , also which ones do not cost a fortune to run ie; ink cost .
I am hoping to spend less than £300, am i being a bit optimistic ?
 
I think you'll struggle to find a new, photo quality, A3 printer within your budget. Epson and Canon make superb A3 size printers and they ocassionally appear on the used market. Owners tend to be as enthusiastic about their brand of printer as they do about cameras ;)

Running costs are rather high however - my Epson 2880 runs at about £1 per print even using a CIS and after-market inks. You can get lots of A3 prints from your local Costco/Aldi/ASDA/etc for £300 :)

HTH ;)
 
Epson all the way, you should be able to get one with your budget,and 3rd party ink is readily available for Epson printers.
 
Sometimes I could take an axe to my Epson R2880, lovely prints, but too dark and I've spent hours trying to improve things to little effect.

I mention this because I think it's worth Googling for info on whatever ends up on your short list. I wish I'd Googled "Epson dark prints" before buying because if I had I wouldn't have bought it.
 
Well I got the Canon 9000 MKII and I paid less then that BUT this was at FOI and it was a B grade BUT it a top notch printer, to which I have added a CityInkExpress CISS.
The main thing about printing is Colour management, this is where most fall down and get bad colours or dark prints...
 
http://www.parkcameras.com/10218/HP-Photosmart-B8550-Printer-.html

This is a cut down version of the B9180 (which I own) and falls within your price range.

Consider however that you really need to run a full calibration system on both monitor and printer to get the best results.
I use the Spyder3Studio Print SR but it's not cheap.
 
woof woof said:
Sometimes I could take an axe to my Epson R2880, lovely prints, but too dark and I've spent hours trying to improve things to little effect.

I mention this because I think it's worth Googling for info on whatever ends up on your short list. I wish I'd Googled "Epson dark prints" before buying because if I had I wouldn't have bought it.
Click to expand...

I have 2 Epson printers (the 2880 and an R265) and used to suffer with "dark print syndrome" until I bought a Pantone Huey monitor calibrator - no more problems :D Both printers are fitted with CIS and use after-market inks. I also use paper profiles on the 2880 but can get almost identical results from the 265 without them - can't explain why, it just happens .......

My wife uses the same two printers over our network and still moans about dark prints/incorrect colours ... she's to stingie to buy a calibrator even though I've proved to her that it would correct her problems on her PC :p

The Huey is connected all the time and updates the screen calibration once every minute to take account of changes in the ambient light conditions in the room.

HTH :)
 
Ooh, a fellow Lincs person too.:)
 
Hi,, Thanks for your replies , i can see i have a lot to think about :thinking:. I am still very novice but feel that if i am going to buy a printer i might as well get one that will do a decent size print , is good to know what other people use and any problems with them .:),
:ty:
 
"I have 2 Epson printers (the 2880 and an R265)..."

My problem is definitely not a monitor calibration problem. I've tried printing the same pictures I've printed on a HP printer and the Epson consistently produces darker prints. The HP produced accurate prints. I'm convinced that the problem stands a better chance of being fixed if I buy a different make of paper and use non Epson profiles but this annoys me as I think that Epson should sort their own profiles out, the net is awash with dark print reports and they must know about the issue.

As I said, I only mentioned this to encourage research before buying.
 
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