Arthur said:
But, it doesn't use pigment inks, and that's the problem. The trade
off isn't color rendition, or vibrancy, (and you can answer this
better than many... do you think the color rendition of the R800 is
less vibrant than the dye ink sets printing color matched prints?)
BUT, the trade off is: dye ink which doesn't clog as often, but
doesn't provide permanence, versus pigment which can clog more often,
but provides permanence.
You have a point, Art, but I bought them to do different jobs. I have the
R800 for those prints I wish to last, and the Canon I bought as a 'laser
substitute'. The Canon will have at least 200 pages shoved through it a
month, the Epson is used for customers' photos.
Although I do not own a R Ultrachrome ink printer, I'm somewhat
surprised (that's not a challenge of your experience, just surprised)
that yours clogged as it did, because I tested the R Ultrachrome inks,
and they just took forever to dry (I'm speaking months).
Well, it did, which is why I'm even less enamoured of Epson (surely there
must be a compromise, some sort of middle ground?). Here's something else I
hate about the R800, which is putting me off purchasing one of the new A3s.
Last year, I had to produce 500 service sheets for my grandmother's funeral.
At the time, I had an i9950 and it didn't much care for taking the sheets
through the other way (they would catch and the corners would be spoiled).
So, because I found it at a reasonable price, I purchased the R800. Now,
bear in mind I was using Epson ink and Epson media, this was what happened.
I printed the outside of the 'cover', which had a picture of my grandmother,
along with the date and time of the service and, on the back an image of a
rose (they were her favourites) and my contact details (included at my
grandfather's request). I printed them in batches of 100. I did the outside
of the first batch and then went to have lunch. I left them in a box, went
and ate, and then took five of them and placed them in tray to print the
inside (a couple of rose images, one either side). After the first couple
had printed, I picked them up and looked at them - they were spoiled; the
ink hadn't been absorbed by the card at all, it was sitting on the surface -
I picked up one of the remaining three and ran a finger lightly over the
text on the front; it smeared. In fact, smeared isn't the right word, it was
like powder. OK, I thought, I've not left them long enough to dry.
So I left the rest, spread out on the dining room table, overnight (about 10
hours). The dining room is well ventilated and adequately heated. I picked
one up the following morning and, guess what? The same thing happened. I
have spoken to Epson and they have yet to come up with a satisfactory answer
(actually, they've yet to come up with an answer, full stop). I had to do
that batch again and feed the rest through one at a time. Bear in mind that
each outside took roughly 3 minutes times 500 is 1500 minutes, or 25 hours.
The insides probably took half that - 12½ hours. That's 37½ hours - and I
hadn't done the service sheet innards, they probably took another 12½
hours - 50 hours all in, most of which I had to spend 'nursemaiding' the
printer! If you can come up with an explanation for that, you're a better
man than I (or Epson), Gunga Din...
I really wish Epson would come up with a special cleaning method for
printers left unused for several weeks that used some solvents stored
in the printer to clean the heads.
You and me both, buddy. It's hardly environmentally friendly to have to
shove a nozzle check through every day, either. I like to take myself off,
when I can afford it, and I have yet to find a satisfactory method of
storing the printer (with tanks in or without) so that I can come back and
use it immediately.
Anyway, I'd be interested in your experience with color rendition with
the R800.
You mean photo print quality? Can't fault it. My father took some photos of
his prize tulip bed with my 350D and I used that as a test print as it was
all strong colours (reds, yellows, greens and blues) - it was fantastic.
There is one thing that puzzles me about the Canon though (and you may be
able to clear this up for me). I thought the Canon black was pigmented which
would mean, I would have thought, that it was waterproof (or water resistant
at the very least). So I printed a letter on Canon's own plain paper (I
believe the code is 101) and left it for 30 minutes and then rubbed it
gently with a damp cloth. It smeared. I repeated the test using their high
resolution media. Same thing. So, if I cannot achieve a water-resistant
finish using Canon inks on Canon media, then it's a pretty poor show. I have
emailed Canon several times (as the ink in my i9950 obviously does the same
thing) but I have yet to receive any kind of a response.
It's a bit misleading to advertise it as pigmented (which, by definition, is
water-resistant) if it's not. I would have thought they'd have tested it
with their own media!
Just odd that's all...
