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Yet again last night my 5000 refused to print. Eventually I had to unplug it when the vacuum wouldn't turn off but nothing else would happen. On plugging it in this morning, it once again tried to do an initial fill (which of course uses a vast quantity of ink). I really am getting fed up with it (fortunately on the Canon wiki there are instructions for bypassing the initial fill). If it weren't for the expense and for the excellent quality of the prints, I would have drop kicked it a long time ago.
I would be very leery of buying the newer Canon printers given the problems of dud cartridges and heads and Canon not covering them and the risk that the interface isn't any better - too bad they messed up an excellent printer.
I'm thinking that in the long run, I could use my 4000 and 7600 for big prints (which are generally not on glossy paper anyway) and pick up a 3800 and dedicate it to gloss prints. It would be slower than the 5000 but I'd be extremely surprised if it were anywhere near as much hassle.
as an aside, was given a sample pack of the Gold Silk Ilford paper and looking forward to trying it (after I stop kicking the 5000).
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10 comments:
Just in case you're not aware of this resource...
http://canonipf.wikispaces.com/
HTH
Alan
Have recently purchased and installed a 3800 -- at this point, I am deeply in love. For the past few years, I have been printing with a 4000 at school, and while the 3800 won't take rolls like the 4000, I like the paper handling of this printer much, much better. BTW, the Gold Fiber Silk prints a wee bit green with the 3800 and using the profiles supplied by Ilford. Reminds me of that greenish look from the old Agfa Portriga Rapid when processed in Dektol at 1:2.
P'taker
Thanks for that info - green huh, like you I'm old enough to remember portriga rapid and it's green tone, especially in latter years (those were the days of silver shortages and paper manufacturers were cutting back). Anyone else have any experience with 3800 and green?
George
I sympathize with you George. I have a 5000 and so far I've had 3 bad carts. Fortunately my dealer replaced the first two and Canon replaced the last. I've also had the roller break which required three tech visits. I will NOT get another Canon printer, that is for sure.
Roger
I've been using the 3800 for almost a year, mainly with Epson papers. Using the 'automatic BW' setting in the Epson driver, BW prints are perfectly neutral. This driver allows the option of producing warm and cool versions of BW also. I haven't tried the Ilford paper.
LN
Maybe there's a post I missed wherein you give your reasons for choosing Canon? Wouldn't you be considering Epson or HP by now? Or don't they have a comparable product?
There are actually a number of posts dealing with the 5000 but basically at the time it was the only 17 inch printer which could handle gloss and black and white and which produced top quality prints as per Luminous Landscape. He even warned of the awkward interface but what wasn't apparent until after I purchased it were all the reliability issues surfaced. Since then the HP Z 3100 has come out but costing more than twice as much and Epson, bless them, still doesn't have a printer that does both glossy and matte (not in archival anyway)
George
George,
My Epson 3800 has drivers for their Premium Glossy and Matte papers, which I assume are archival when used with their pigmented inks.
Laurie
Laurie:
that's true but you have to swap out inks every time you shift from glossy to matte and back.
George
While you may have to "shift" the inks between gloss and matte black on the 3800, it only takes a minimum amount of time. In the past printing with my 2200 Epson, I was a big fan of several matte papers -- most notably the Velvet Fine Art. However, (FINALLY) the new crop of baryta based gloss papers from Hahnemuhle. Harman, Ilford, Epson and others, is leading me to leave the matte papers behind, and print only on these "glossy" but expensive papers. Unbelieveable prints that have fooled several silver b&w and c-print printers.
P'taker
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