Not going to replace my printer, my reasoning....

I've got an old Canon Pixma IP5000, a great printer in it's day, smallest droplet size on the market at the time etc, but very tired now, and printing photo's onto glossy paper it's just not good enough anymore. Now, for serious stuff I always get a pro lab to print it, they're the experts not me, but for just mucking about, 'photo album' type shots for relatives, small frames on the wall, I used to do it myself, not anymore. So, I wanted a new A4 printer, and being a B&W nut, I wanted good B&W performance so grey inks, and I didn't want a scanner or a photocopier built in, I'd never use it so I'd be paying for something I'd never use, I just wanted a quality basic A4 printer for mostly documents/business but the occasional photo.

Doesn't exist!!

There is no good A4 printer that does B&W as far as I can tell, you have to go to an A3 to fit all the cartridges in, but I'll never print A3, I'd use a lab for that, and they're huge, I don't want anything that big. I did look at the Canon pro series, but have you seen the size of them?? Lordy!! Also, so many of them have front loading cassetts now, which inxreases the footprint compared to a chute at the back, so that's another load out.

So, I've decided to try out a few cheap 'snapshot' online printers and see how good they are, I'd rather pay 15p per photo and just wait a few days than spend £300 on a printer I don't really want, and haven't got the space for anyway. So, I'm keeping the Pixma for documents, using a pro lab for good stuff, and a high volume online printer for snap shots.

Unless anyone knows of a good quality A4 printer, and only a printer, that does really good B&W, and has a rear sheet feeder? Because stuffed if I can find one!

The Epson 3880 with Cone Piezography black and white inks?

http://www.piezography​.com/What_is_Piezograp​y_site.html

Depends on how much you want to spend to print your own work.

kirk

That's not a A4 printer, it's A2 and it's huge. I can't think of any small B/W photo printers capable of multiple gray ink cartridges.

I didn't replace my color printer, either. I now have a $70US B&W laser printer since I found that Costco & a few others could print better & cheaper than I could.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #17829616
I didn't replace my color printer, either. I now have a $70US B&W laser printer since I found that Costco & a few others could print better & cheaper than I could.

That's what i do. I have a HP laser jet for document printing and such but all of my image prints are at Costco.

When I first began doing digital photography, I knew that I needed to calibrate my monitor for best results when making prints from the files. So I went all out and purchased a Spyder 3 Master kit, which included a colorimeter for taking readings from prints for creating custom printer profiles. I went some time without buying a printer, and then it dawned on me. A quality photo printer costs $1000.00 and up (back in2008 at least), the ink cartridges are 40-60 $ a pop each, and the cost of the paper. I figured I could have a lab like mix make 100's of 16x20 for the same cost as one printer, ink and paper. I decided it was not economically viable to print your own stuff, unless you could sell all the prints for a decent profit. Besides that, labs use real photo paper, not ink or dye, and I like the look better.

So now I have this never used Spyder 3 print calibration colorimeter sitting unused-expensive lesson learned.

The only reason to print yourself is instant gratification, IMO. I have a Costco three miles from my house, and they can make a better print there than anything I could print at home. And they'll do it for $1.50 for an A4.

JeffreyG wrote in post #17829848
The only reason to print yourself is instant gratification, IMO. I have a Costco three miles from my house, and they can make a better print there than anything I could print at home. And they'll do it for $1.50 for an A4.

It used to be $2.99 for a 12" X 18" print! How could I not love them! ; )

Hey guys...Cosco is good for more than pictures, especially when ya got six kids...

Seems like everybody else came to my conclusion a long time ago then

A couple years ago, Costco quit having the inks for my (ancient) Canon iP4000, so I saw the handwriting on the wall. I found a low use iP4300 used at a very low price, and purchased it because I saw that Canon had more recently morphed the PIXMA iP and iX 6nnn-8nnn series into larger footprint printers while also having the lower end 2nnn series printers. I had not yet pressed the iP4300 into service; then my iP4000 started to give me the 'ink absorber almost full' message, so I knew the end was near for it and was glad I had the iP4300 ready for use..

In view of my infrequent photo printing (like so many others, I found that Costco was a very cost effective truly photographic (not inkjet) alternative, so I just recently purchased a new Canon MGnnn multifuction printer (for only $50!) simply to make it easier for my wife to photocopy things without setting up the Canon 8800F photo scanner just to make a photocopy, and also offering us good printing for printing web page information. I haven't yet decided what to do about the iP4300 vs. the MGnnn multifunction!

gjl711 wrote in post #17829605
That's not a A4 printer, it's A2 and it's huge. I can't think of any small B/W photo printers capable of multiple gray ink cartridges.

It prints A4, has a rear feed and can be fit with 7 carbon black inks in a set to print black and white. If the OP does not really want to print fine art black and white, then an online lab might be fine.

There are online services that offer digital silver prints as well, taking your digital image and printing it on photosensitive paper with a darkroom chemistry.

It all depends on what you are trying to achieve and how much money you want to invest in your image and its output.

kirk

I ditched my last inkjet years ago before I got into photography. I hated that the ink heads would dry between uses, making me waste time and paper cleaning them in the hopes of getting a good print on the expensive photo paper.

I don't think I could even buy the photo paper for what Costco charges for prints. It helps that I live a mile away so its pretty convenient, even for small orders.

kirkt wrote in post #17830085
There are online services that offer digital silver prints as well, taking your digital image and printing it on photosensitive paper with a darkroom chemistry.

As someone who cut their photographic tooth on B&W too many decades ago, I have never liked the appearance of any inkjet B&W print, particularly those using pigment black (and grey) ink because of the way the ink would 'sit on the surface' of the paper. So learning about the ability to send out B&W for conventional photosensitive paper prints can make me interested in exploring monochrome digital photography, whereas I had no interest in this with inkjet printing as my only alternative. Have you any favorite vendors for photographic B&W prints?

Personally I use a Pixma MG5150 multifunction printer. Admittedly as far as photo is concerned it is only a four ink printer, the fifth being pigment black for text only. I use OEM inks only and print onto Canon PT101 Platinum Pro paper from LR. I find that it gives really nice colour and black and white results. Actually the monochrome results are really surprising, very neutral indeed, and I have yet to see any metamerism between daylight, traditional tungsten, CFL or LED lighting in a home environment. For prints up to A4 it's great, although an A$ print as described works out at about £2.50. I didn't particularly want an all in one type printer but it was the best deal I could find for a printer that would produce decent photo prints up to A4. I don't print too often from it, I usually go for the larger cheaper prints from the lab, but I have never had any issues with the print heads in the five or six years that I have had this printer.

For anything larger than A4 I use a pro lab. I mainly use DS Colour Labs based in Manchester. They do 16×12 or A3 C-Type prints on Fuji Crystal Archive paper, Glossy or Luster, for only £1.15 each. I use the Glossy and again it makes for a really nice monochrome print. Standard P+P is only £4.99 and although standard Royal Mail is usually next day delivery. Order standard prints by 1pm and they normally dispatch the same day. They Offer the Fuji Crystal Archive Pearl, which is Fuji's metallic paper finish, they also print direct onto Aluminium dibond. The Pearl is quite a bit more expensive, but they do quite often have special deals. The Pearl paper is stunning, and monochrome can look really good printed on it. The standard of work at DSCL is superb and the there are several other POTN members who use them.

I also use the Berlin based lab Whitewall for some very special prints. Whitewall offer monochrome printing on traditional Ilford MC papers. The standard gloss RC paper is very nice and produces a classic monochrome print. They are not cheap though as a 16×12 with added 1.8" border works out at nearly £17 plus £9.99 P&P. I have also tried the traditional Fiber Based Baryta paper, and IMO this is the best quality I have ever seen for a monochrome print, including from my own darkroom. The same 16×12 was £27 +P&P, so not a cheap option.

One thing I have considered is printing my own large format monochrome negatives, and contact printing them myself. Permajet offers an inkjet film base for this purpose, although designed for both dye and pigment printers, I think a pigment one would be better. Even better may be using a laser printer and suitable film stock. For someone who used to enjoy the darkroom this seems like a nice combination of digital/analogue photography.

Alan