Rob Barron
Loves the place
Registered: September 2006
Location: Poole, Dorset
Posts: 6013
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Review Date: Fri November 10, 2006
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: £350.00
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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Top quality, A3+, Fast, Quiet, CD printing
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Cons:
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No roll paper adaptor
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going to tell you everything that you can read in the blurb, just what I as a user of the i9950 for a year have found it to be: top quality.
This printer delivers stunning quality and vibrant images that are easily comparable to chemically printed photos. It can print right up to A3+ which is 19" x 13" and can do it borderless. I personally don't recommend borderless at that size as it tends to be less quality in the last inch of the print. It's fine on smaller prints though. I print non-borderless which only leaves half a centimetre all the way around. If I want a borderless print, I then trim the white off with my A3 guillotine. Most of the time I leave the white border on as it looks better.
Try going down to Jessops to get an 18" x 12" print done. It will cost you about £10 per print. So how does this compare? Well in quality it is easily as good. I interpolate high res shots up to 4750 x 3250 pixels which I then print at 250 pixels per inch. Yes, 300 is the best for smaller printers but you won't see the difference at this size I assure you. You don't hold A3+ posters 12 inches from your face to look at them like you might a 6" x 4" print, hence the difference.
The paper I use most is Ilford Galleria Smooth Pearl A3+ which costs me £18 for £25 sheets so 72p per sheet. Even if you add a way over the top £1.28 for the ink, that is £2, a fifth of what you would pay at a professional processor and you will have a picture that is equal or better in quality.
The colours give an excellent gamut (colour range) and although the branded cartridges are generally considered the ideal, I rarely now use them as they are too expensive. At a general price of £8.99 per cartridge, that is a whopping £71.92 for a set. Instead I have tried various generic cartridges and have found a set that I feel is absolutely up there with the Canon ones: and the manufacturer concerned guarantees that! The colour is the same, the fluidity is the same, the quantity per cartridge is the same. The price however is not. I get them from printerinks.com where they sell 3 for the price of 2. That works out at £2.63 each and a set for just over £21. At that price I don't worry how much ink I am using.
The extra colours give superb skin tones, wonderful variations in foliage and natural greens, punchy reds, beautiful variations in sky blues, etc. Shadows with some cheap inks end up as black blobs, not so here. If you can see detail on the screen, you will see detail in the print.
Speed is exceptional as is the quietness with which it provides a full A3 print in about 2.5 minutes in full colour. I used to sit in the living room and listen for the noise in the printing room to stop. I can't do that anymore as there isn't any noise to hear. Fortunately, because of the speed, I don't need to go off and have a cup of tea while I am waiting!
CDs/DVDs are easily printed direct using the supplied adaptor. Buy the DVDs with a printable surface or just put a CD label on and then print direct. Perfectly centred DVD prints every time.
If you have a Pictbridge compatible camera, you can connect direct to the printer without even having the computer turned on at all. Useful if I need a quick 6"x4" print run off. On my 20D, I am restricted to 6" x 4" but I can crop the picture in camera first. However, I believe with the 30D and upwards you can print larger prints as well.
I think that's as much as I need to say, this is a top quality printer and is now available at good prices for this type of thing. When it first came out, it was about £500 but now you can get them on the internet for £300 which makes it an excellent price IF you think you will use the size above A4 to a reasonable extent. Most photographers at times want to print at least 12" x 8" which is marginally too big for A4. The great thing is, A3+ is a touch bigger than A3 so you can fit two 12" x 8" shots onto one sheet and they will be the full size you need to fit a pre-sized frame.
If you are on the look out for a reliable printer that takes you right up to the level of professional quality shots, this could be the answer to your needs. It will cost you at least £100 less than the Pro 9000 but you won't be disappointed with the results.
Rob Barron
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