Which Printer

[Mr Darcy]

I know this is a perennial question but it hasn't been asked in a while.

I am looking for a new printer.
My old one (Epson 1280) is distinctly showing its age, mainly because the ink fades much too quickly.

What I am looking for is
Archival grade inks for colour work. I probably don't need 200+ years, but the two or three years I am getting now is way too low.
Top notch photo quality
Reliable - My 1280 is about 15 years old & apart from the ink issue still great.
Ability to print Panoramas at least 300 x 2000mm. i.e. at least A3 with a roll option, but the drivers must be able to print long without hiccoughing as I have heard some do.

I won't use it often, but I want it to deliver the goods when I do.

The only one I have come across that explicitly states it will print up to 15000mm on roll paper is the Epson 4900. It looks on paper to be absolutely magic, but at something north of AUD3000 it is too expensive for my limited needs. If I as setting up in business it would be different. I would probably never get through the first set of ink either -200ml cartridges.

If it matters for the printer drivers, I am using a Mac these days, though I could probably set up a DOS box if needed for the printer.

SO folks, what's out there?

[Murray Foote]

Well, HP are out of the equation, having withdrawn from consumer printers after their 9180 proved too unreliable. Epson have a much better reputation than Canon for the "enthusiast" market and have the lion's share. Personally I wouldn't get a Canon but then I don't know a lot about them either.

On the face of it, your most likely alternative is the R3000 at $1,300 or so. (Refer Northlight Images and Vincent's review on Photo-I).

It does have roll feed but whether it prints 2-metre panoramas I rather doubt (you'd have to ask Epson; web sites don't seem to say). In which case the only alternative as a printer might be to see whether you can find a second-hand 4800, but it would need to be within driving distance, come with a full set of cartridges and be available for test printing. Might be very hard to find, too.

The reason it may be difficult to find printers that can generate 2 metre panos is to do with drivers and I think a deliberate marketing strategy to differentiate the more expensive printers. There is a German site with a fix that overcome this but that's unlikely to work because nothing appears to have been done for 3 years, recent drivers/ models may fail and it may be XP-specific.

Another alternative is the freeware Quad Tone RIP if you can get your head around using it. That should bypass restrictions though only for mono and the R3000 may be too new for it as yet.

Also you could ask the question on the Photo-i forum just in case HP or Canon do have a viable alternative.

[Murray Foote]

Alternatively, there's the question of whether you really need a printer that can print to 2m. There's only so much wall space. If you're only going to do this occasionally and mainly will do smaller prints, it might be more economic to get an R3000 or 3880 and when you need to print large panos, hard proof on that printer, then soft proof against a printer profile supplied by a custom printer such as Stephen Best and get them to print it.