New Printer

A couple of months back I purchased a Pentax DSLR. Would anyone like to recommend a high quality A4 photoprinter.
many Thanks
Tom

Epson r300 or r1800
The 300 has built in memory card slots.

Sue and I have made some terrific prints using Epson 890 and 1290s printers, so I'm sure the later models will produce even better results.

In A3+ printers, the 1290s is still hard to beat.

I bought the Epson R800 which is excellent. If I had the space I would now buy the R1800 or the R2400 if you do much black and white is apparent;y excellent
Peter

I've been happily using the R1800 since my 1280 took a dive off a mover's truck. It produces incredable colors, and it's black and white is nothing to sneer at eigher!


There's a smaller version, the R800, that prints up to A4.

Thanks everyone so far.
Any Canon users here? I ask because the appear to be a lot cheaper to run.
Tom

I use the Canon i950 and am very pleased with it for colour use. It is OK for B&W. Latest incarnation of the top range A4 printer is the Pixma ip8500. It uses the same ink system as the i950 but with 8 ink colours (including black)

Are the cartridges the same size? You may find that the cost of refilling might be cheaper, but the actual cost per page is different.
It's worthwhile checking the detailed specifications and capacities of the ink before making a judgement based on cost
Matt

A recent review (in PCW) of 3rd party inks showed that some of the ones available for the Canon actualy delivered slightly better quality images than they manufacturers ink (and they were all close anyway), whereas the 3rd party inks for Epson and HP ae not as good. This effectively could make the Canon much cheaper to run.

However the test did not look at the light fastness of the 3rd party inks, so caveat emptor. I've got some to try out but have not switched over yet.

Note the Canon tanks are just tanks, whereas the Epson tanks include the print head, and that is what makes the Epson tanks more expensive.

Well exactly Matt. That's what I was hoping to find out about and why I used "appear to be cheaper".
I notice that when I post a new message the name Overbeyond shows up. When I reply to a message Guest comes up.
Any reason for this?
Tom

Tom - you've been logged out, that's why you appear as "Guest". I've noticed this a few times this week. Check the top panel before you reply. I presume there have been phpBB updates going on.
Matt

I have a C***n pixma iP5200 which I'm very impressed with, but I haven't had it long enough to work out how much it costs to run. It only has 5 ink tanks, but it has a higher resolution and smaller drop size than the current C***n 8-ink printer (iP8500 I think?).

It has an internal paper drawer for 6x4 which is really handy, and a little CD drawer for printable CDs. The R version has WiFi, which is nice.

C***n don't seem to make such strong claims for the archival life of their prints as Epson, but I think you have to take most of that with a pinch of salt anyway.

If you head over to www.canon.co.uk you can get sample photos printed at 6x4 on their photo printers.

For what it's worth I have a IP4000 which I now run on 3rd party ink. For colour on Canon paper it is as good as the prints I get from www.photobox.co.uk (and much much cheaper for large prints).

However, the B&W printing lets it down, there just isn't the impact I'd expect.

Anyway, give the different printers a try - it'll cost you nothing save the upload of an image.

Vincent Oliver has some down to earth printer reviews:

http://www.photo-i.co.uk/index.html - click on the reviews menu on the left.

Based on his review I have recently purchased an HP 8450 which seems to work very well - I haven't tried it yet but the B&W photographic output is supposed to be the best there is.

Just got back a print from Epson for the R800 and one from Canon for the Pixma 8500. Both are very good and hard to choose. Perhaps the Epson print is more natural and smooth for the want of a better word.
Most of the entries in the competitions in our camera club are on A3 so perhaps i should be thinking of the R1800 of which I have only heard good news.
Thanks again to all for your replies.
Tom