Home Printing (part one)

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DaveHolmes

Member

1,174 posts

11 years
Bradford

Link Posted 27/03/2013 - 16:38

Hooked up my old printer today - stuck in a couple of new ink cartirges - fed in some HP Premium photo paper that my dad picked up cheap on one of his random buying sprees (I've got 6 packs of the stuff!!)

The printer is a HP C5280

Reasonably happy with the results but think a better/newer/better printer would do a much better job...

And that is a Pentax round my boys neck!

........................................................................
Digital:
Pentax K5- Vivitar 19mm 3.8; FA35mm f2; D-Xenon 100mm macro f2.8; DA50-200mm WR...
Flash:
Yongnuo YN-560; Vivitar 285HV; Cactus V4 triggers...
Film:
Pentax-MX & M50mm f1.4; Spottie & 55mm f1.8; MG & M40mm 2.8...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveholmesphotos/

Blythman

Member

4,248 posts

12 years
Blyth, Northumberland

Link Posted 27/03/2013 - 16:57

I put a tick in the yes box, but if there'd been a "very occasionally" box I would have chosen that one.

My printer is a max A4, while most of my prints are 16"x12" and I get them done by DSCL

Alan

PPG
Flickr

bettyswolloks

Plus Member

1,590 posts

16 years
Pentaxia

Link Posted 27/03/2013 - 16:59

If there's lots to print, from say a birthday party, I let asda do it. But normally I do my own at home, A4 and A3, I have a paper fetish

love using my Hahnemühle fineart paper or some of calumets very lovely brilliant museum paper. I'm currently decorating the stairs with A3 prints, I've already done the attic ceiling

Last Edited by bettyswolloks on 27/03/2013 - 17:00

wvbarnes

Member

1,720 posts

12 years

Link Posted 27/03/2013 - 17:02

I picked up a six ink canon MG6250 (A4 with scanner) for £99.99 recently. I would have bought the top model but that won't yet take pattern inks and costs more than double just to add film scanning.

Stand out feature is the decent black and white photo output, presumably down to the light grey ink added to the two blacks. £6.49 a set of six ink cartridges from Amazon at same time!

Last Edited by wvbarnes on 27/03/2013 - 17:03

DaveHolmes

Member

1,174 posts

11 years
Bradford

Link Posted 27/03/2013 - 17:06

bettyswolloks wrote:
If there's lots to print, from say a birthday party, I let asda do it. But normally I do my own at home, A4 and A3, I have a paper fetish

love using my Hahnemühle fineart paper or some of calumets very lovely brilliant museum paper. I'm currently decorating the stairs with A3 prints, I've already done the attic ceiling

I think I'd love an A3 printer... Only seen a couple (Staples and PC-World) in stores and they didn't get great reviews... Ink is an issue as well... 'Brother' seem to do the cheapest refils but not sure on the quality because there doesn't seem to be any way to get a sample unless you buy...

giofi

Member

904 posts

13 years
Espoo, Finland

Link Posted 27/03/2013 - 17:07

wvbarnes wrote:
I£6.49 a set of six ink cartridges from Amazon at same time!

Hi Bill, I guess these are not Canon?

Giorgio

Pentax Photo Gallery

Blythman

Member

4,248 posts

12 years
Blyth, Northumberland

Link Posted 27/03/2013 - 17:10

DaveHolmes wrote:
I think I'd love an A3 printer... Only seen a couple (Staples and PC-World) in stores and they didn't get great reviews... Ink is an issue as well... 'Brother' seem to do the cheapest refils but not sure on the quality because there doesn't seem to be any way to get a sample unless you buy...

Not cheap to get one that does B&W without a hue. So looking at £400 or so plus ink plus paper versus just over a quid a print from DSCL was pretty much a no brainer for me.

Alan

PPG
Flickr

DaveHolmes

Member

1,174 posts

11 years
Bradford

Link Posted 27/03/2013 - 17:11

Maybe Pentax could broker a deal with Ricoh for their DSLR users to get discounted printers and ink?

bettyswolloks

Plus Member

1,590 posts

16 years
Pentaxia

Link Posted 27/03/2013 - 17:24

DaveHolmes wrote:

bettyswolloks wrote:
If there's lots to print, from say a birthday party, I let asda do it. But normally I do my own at home, A4 and A3, I have a paper fetish

love using my Hahnemühle fineart paper or some of calumets very lovely brilliant museum paper. I'm currently decorating the stairs with A3 prints, I've already done the attic ceiling

I always use a CISS on my printers, once setup the print colour and quality is as good, if not better than, original ink. Its cuts the cost of ink down to a level where I just don't think about it, I buy the ink when I see a tank running low and just top up as and when needed. Buying ink by the 500ml saves money for fun

One day you'll find, 10yrs have got behind you.

DaveHolmes

Member

1,174 posts

11 years
Bradford

Link Posted 27/03/2013 - 17:28

bettyswolloks wrote:

I always use a CISS on my printers, once setup the print colour and quality is as good, if not better than, original ink. Its cuts the cost of ink down to a level where I just don't think about it, I buy the ink when I see a tank running low and just top up as and when needed. Buying ink by the 500ml saves money for fun

Sorry mate... CISS ? #learningcurve

bettyswolloks

Plus Member

1,590 posts

16 years
Pentaxia

Link Posted 27/03/2013 - 17:43

Continuous Ink Supply System, I'm using an inkflow setup at the moment.

One day you'll find, 10yrs have got behind you.

Helpful

MrB

Member

1,680 posts

11 years
Herts, England

Link Posted 27/03/2013 - 18:16

Dave, I would keep and use your old HP - the quality is good on HP Premium photo paper and you would probably need to spend quite a sum to get better. Have you tried using the 351 colour with the 348 photo cartridge? - this 6 ink pairing can give very good results. I am still using a much older HP 7760 printer (2004) which still prints well. One advantage is that OEM cartridges for the older printers often appear cheaply on eBay - and with these simple printers we get a new print head with each fresh cartridge.

Philip

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PaulEvans

Member

210 posts

13 years
Manchester UK

Link Posted 28/03/2013 - 06:45

I've had Epson 1270 and 1290. Both gave long service but died of the dreaded pink stripes disease. I now have a Canon A3+ 9000 mkii. It's lovely quality and generally happy with the colours but the pukka canon ink is ruinously expensive (roughly £1 per millilitre or £1000 per litre!). The forums say that CISS systems and 9000's do not play nicely with each other (lots of good advice on nifty-stuff.com), so I plan to get a chip resetter and some quality inks to refill my cartridges using the syringe method, which apparently works well with these printers.

Paul

K3ii, DA16-85, DA35mm Limited, FA77mm Limited, 55mm f1.8 K, 135mm f3.5 M, DA300, DA 1.4 HD TC,
DA16-45, Sigma 15mm f2.8. Cosina 100mm f3.5 macro

Helpful

CoDa

Member

1,384 posts

14 years
Bedford

Link Posted 28/03/2013 - 20:14

Just to add a comment about A3 printers. I bought the Canon iX6550 and checked the print quality using this site - http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/black_and_white_test.html and http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/test_images.html the download is about a quarter down the page.

The B&W image when viewed in bright light is in my opinion very good, not had chance to really check the colour one yet. I also am using Black Diamond paper with good results including A3 size.

I look around for the best deals in ink and just stick to originals as the printouts will then be consistent.

Helpful

bettyswolloks

Plus Member

1,590 posts

16 years
Pentaxia

Link Posted 28/03/2013 - 20:24

CoDa wrote:
Just to add a comment about A3 printers. I bought the Canon iX6550 and checked the print quality using this site - http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/black_and_white_test.html and http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/test_images.html the download is about a quarter down the page.

The B&W image when viewed in bright light is in my opinion very good, not had chance to really check the colour one yet. I also am using Black Diamond paper with good results including A3 size.

I look around for the best deals in ink and just stick to originals as the printouts will then be consistent.

I read some pretty negative comments concerning the ix6550 and black and white prints. But I bought one anyway

Its a cracking printer and I cant fault the results from it, be them colour or B+W. It replaced an Epson R2400 which was class leading, and I'm more than happy with the 6550's results.