What's a high capacity, high quality Canon PIXMA printer?

My wedding is coming up and the tech-minded brain in me is trying to come up with a photo kiosk (not a booth). I need a printer to print a lot of 4x6 photos reliably. I already have a Canon PIXMA Pro-100 (unopened), but that seems excessive and expensive for printing 4x6 photos. I recently purchased a ton of glossy 4x6 PIXMA photo paper from Canon (their buy 1, get 9 free deal), so I'd like to focus on PIXMA printers.

Any suggestions of printers for this purpose? Having never done anything like this before and the excessive number of Canon printers on the market, this makes it very difficult to figure out. Qualities I imagine it'll need to have:

1. Decent quality 4x6 edgeless prints
2. High capacity loading tray so that it doesn't have to be reloaded often.
4. High capacity ink so that it won't have to changed after 10 prints.

Ideally, it'll also print up to LTR size photo paper, because I have a bunch of those too. I see a bunch of cheap PIXMA printers (<$100). I hear the print can be slow, but if it's that cheap, I can technically buy two.

What's your experience with PIXMA printers?

I'd suggest the Pixma MG7720(USA)/MG7750(Eur​ope).

It delivers better photo quality than the cheaper models in that group, due to the inclusion of grey ink and down to 1 picoliter droplets, which compensates for the absence of light cyan and light magenta inks that I had in my earlier HP Photosmart.

I own the previous model (MG7550) and am quite happy with it.

I would have thought the Pro 100 would have been perfect for this! Just becasue it can print to A3+ size doesn't mean it can't print 6×4s. I thought you had to go to something like this to start getting the higher capacity ink carts, you need the extra ink when you start having to cover the larger paper sizes. Not only that but you have the Pro 100 already.

Although often virtually given away in the US, the Pro 100 is still near the top of the range of home/small business photo printers.

Alan

agedbriar wrote in post #18057380
I'd suggest the Pixma MG7720(USA)/MG7750(Eur​ope).

It delivers better photo quality than the cheaper models in that group, due to the inclusion of grey ink and down to 1 picoliter droplets, which compensates for the absence of light cyan and light magenta inks that I had in my earlier HP Photosmart.

I own the previous model (MG7550) and am quite happy with it.

Pricewise, this is great. But only 20 sheets of 4x6 at a time could be problematic. Someone has to keep refilling every 10 minutes. But good to know it's a good printer. I could use this to print my other photo-related items.

BigAl007 wrote in post #18057385
I would have thought the Pro 100 would have been perfect for this! Just becasue it can print to A3+ size doesn't mean it can't print 6×4s. I thought you had to go to something like this to start getting the higher capacity ink carts, you need the extra ink when you start having to cover the larger paper sizes. Not only that but you have the Pro 100 already.

Although often virtually given away in the US, the Pro 100 is still near the top of the range of home/small business photo printers.

Alan

Indeed, it's nice. It's also huge. I suppose no one would accidentally walk away with it. I tried doing the math once. I don't remember the numbers, but I swear it costed more to print 4x6s on the Pro-100 than it costs to get it printed professionally at AdoramaPix. Anyone know approximately how many 4x6 photos a full set of ink for the Pro-100 could print?

ghostman wrote in post #18057694
Pricewise, this is great. But only 20 sheets of 4x6 at a time could be problematic.

True, but the Pro-100, your most obvious alternative, is no better.

ghostman wrote in post #18057698
Indeed, it's nice. It's also huge. I suppose no one would accidentally walk away with it. I tried doing the math once. I don't remember the numbers, but I swear it costed more to print 4x6s on the Pro-100 than it costs to get it printed professionally at AdoramaPix. Anyone know approximately how many 4x6 photos a full set of ink for the Pro-100 could print?

Here in the UK it is certainly going to be cheaper to send images out to a lab. For 6×4s you shouldn't be paying more than about £0.05 each in bulk. Of course the issue is that its not imidiately available. Unfortunatly this type of on demend printing is not cheap. For small prints of this size for booths etc Dyesub seems to offer the cheapest option. The only problem being the cost of the printer. The other advantage of dyesub is that the per print cost is fixed.

Alan

Yeah, the Pro 100 does cost a bit more than Adorama or Costco to print, but you are also trying to give the photos away right then and there. There is a premium for right now printing. You would also want to invest in some Precision inks and skip the OEM installation and just go straight to the refills and set all your adjustments there. Then you can have a set or two of backups.

I have a pixma 7520.

1) More than decent IQ and does edgeless 4 x 6.
2) Not sure you're going to find anything consumer inkjet that can do anything considered "high capacity"
3) There are XL tanks, but even the regular tanks, you will get more than 10 prints!

How many photos are you thinking?
What is the source and how are you getting to photos to printer? Does the site have wifi?
Do you have someone who will basically man/trouble shoot the kiosk? Change paper/ink, distribute photos, dealing with the printer, assisting with print option from android and iphones, camera, etc.

Based on my 6 months of real life usage, your idea sounds like a good idea, but unless you can dump all printer responsibilities on someone else the whole time, I would not pursue. I think the biggest pain/bottle neck is the print speed, which might result in people printing and leaving to get a drink, adding to the queue, so photos will start pile up and someone needs to distribute or now drunk people will come back to look for their first set and decide to print some more.... and there should be NO reason that you have to go trouble shoot that printer or deal with any hassle that comes up because of it during YOUR wedding!

pro-100 is definitely huge. I have an old epson 13x19 printer and the 100 is much larger and heavier. You can print a lot from a set of new tanks, and it is very fast (pretty sure less than 10 seconds for 4x6 once it pulls in the paper) on it's regular quality setting. I have not gotten out my loupe to compare a "Fine" print vs the standard print, but the standard looks great to the naked eye.

Looking into a M something series printer seems like a huge waste of time when you already have the pro 100.

all that said, i agree with lil' above in saying that you're not going to have time or patience to deal with keeping a printer going. I'd say there's a good chance that if it doesn't piss you off, it will definitely piss off your spouse.

I also use the Pixma 7520. It's an excellent printer and has 2 print trays for loading paper. I use 2 of them for event printing. I also use 3rd party ink from amazon and have no problems at all.

Hahaha. I'm certainly not planning to man the kiosk on my own. I'm toying with the idea of hiring someone to keep it restocked, but it may not be worth the effort.

The MG7220 is actually on sale for a refurb unit from Canon right now, so I was still considering it for home printing of photos (ie. Save the Date cards). The genuine ink comes with a how bunch of paper for free too at the moment, but the grey alone seems to be sold separately at an extra $30. That makes it pretty pricey for ink. I might as well get it printed from AdoramaPix/Costco if I abandon the kiosk idea.

Now.... what to do with 2000 4x6 sheets of photo paper if I don't make the kiosk?