Large Size Prints Without a Large Price

Some call me “old school” but I’m not a big fan of showing pictures on the tiny screen of my cellphone.

Quite often I print some of my favorite shots onto photo paper. With my Epson ET-3750 Printer I’ve made hundreds of 4″x6″ prints and dozens of larger 8-1/2″x11″ enlargements. In the two years that I’ve had the ET-3750 printer I have never had to change an ink cartridge. The printer’s large EcoTanks are refillable making the cost of the prints very affordable.

Every so often I’ll take a picture that I’d like to show off – meaning print a bigger enlargement. Earlier this year I found out about the Epson ET-8550 EcoTank that handles paper up to 13″x19″ at an affordable $600 price.

Here’s a few short steps for setting up the printer for use.

 

The shipping carton is about 30″ x 20″ x 10″ and weighs about 20 lbs.	The bright blue tape secures the parts during shipment is easily removed.
The printer uses four inks: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. The shipment includes a second bottle of black ink.	Each ink bottle fills the respective reservoir. The bottles are “coded” to prevent inadvertent filling mistakes.
You can visually view the level of each ink reservoir. The ink supply will yield about 2400 4″x6″ prints for about 4 cents each.	The bottom tray holds smaller paper (e.g. 4″x6″) and larger (8-1/2″x11″). The rear paper feeder holds larger paper up to 13″x19″.
Here is a completed 13″x19″ print. You can see the rear paper feeder.	You can compare the print size next to the 12″ ruler. This print was on standard ink print paper.

As you can see I’ve been able to make a bunch of big enlargements – at a reasonable price.

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The ET-8550 has other features other than its large print capability.

Wireless connection to your Mac or Windows PC
Two-sided printing
High resolution document scanning and copying up to 8-1/2″ x 14″
Handles variety of papers including glossy, matte, texture, cardstock

For those of you who like to print big – this is an affordable and capable printer.

 
 

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High Quality Desktop Printer

I’m an ardent believer that it’s better to get your photographs off of your hard drive and into print.

About ten years ago, we had a 13″ wide printer to handle some of our smaller photographs. However, after it died following a long and generous life, we chose not to replace it. Since then we’ve been using a variety of photofinishers to reproduce our photographs.

After strolling by the Epson booth and seeing some of their impressive photograph displays, I talked to one of their customer representatives and am now considering their new Surecolor P600.

The P600 is a replacement for their previous R3000 model. It connects to your computer setup via an Ethernet connection or via WiFi. You’ll need a desktop area of 24″x36″ for the printer. The top loader automatically feeds 13″x19″ paper for borderless printing. There’s a front loader for feeding single sheets of specialty fine art papers up to 1.3mm thickness. For panoramic prints up to 10 feet long, the P600 accepts the included roll feeder.

The P600 uses nine high capacity ink cartridges including three types of black ink for smooth toned black and white photographs. The many photographs on display at the Epson booth demonstrated excellent quality on a variety of papers including these panoramas. In the past, I’ve had positive experiences using many fine art papers from Epson’s wide selection.

 
 
I asked the Epson representative about my concern about clogged ink cartridges when the printer is sits unused for a short while and was told that the ink will remain usable for up to six months from installation.

The list price of the Epson Surecolor P600 is $795. For more information, see the Epson P600 webpage for details.

The P600 is now on my short list of equipment purchases. I’m anxious to print several panoramas that I’ve stored on my hard drive – again, the hard drive is not a good place to keep photographs.
 
 
Written by: Arnie Lee
 
 

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Wedding & Portrait Photographers International Convention – Part 1

February 21, 2011

The WPPI holds its annual convention here in Las Vegas. My original plan was to fly here from Grand Rapids on Sunday. But the weather man kept telling me that Sunday was going to be a no-no because of the umteenth snow storm that was closing in on the midwest. So I rescheduled my flight and arrived here late Saturday and beat the foot of snow that closed highways, schools and activities.

The convention started on February 17 and runs through February 24th. There are two parts to the convention.

• the first part are dozens of seminars led by some of the best names in the wedding and portrait photography business. Many of these professionals are versed in the creative styling, equipment selection, lighting techniques, printing selection and workflow while others are experts in the selling, advertising, promotion and business end too. I counted more than 100 different seminars with diverse titles as: “The Art of Light and Motion”, “Lightroom – step by step workflow for beginners”, “Winning Marketing Strategies”, “High Fashion Meets Wedding”, “The Power of Video Marketing” and “Your Wedding Business from Scratch to Success”.
• The second part of the convention is the trade show with more than 300 exhibitors including the major camera, lighting and photo printer services.

The WPPI management was predicting 13,000 attendees – an impressive number mostly owing to a very full and robust set of seminars. The high attendance suggests that these individuals understand the importance of investing in their profession.

Today I spent some time at the trade show. Here’s a few of the exhibitors with whom I stopped to talk about their products.

Here’s a look at some of the attendees crowding around one of the camera manufacturers booth. The major camera makers were there: Canon, Fuji, Leica, Nikon, Panasonic, Sigma and Sony. There were also dozens of lighting manufacturers, makers of camera bags and backpacks, tripods, backdrops, wireless flash syncs and printers. In full force were photo printing services. With so many wedding and portrait photographers attending, they were keen to show them the huge range of photo services offered.

Most of the recent cameras can now capture video. Switronix showed me this portable LED that provides lthe equivalent of 50 watts of daylight balanced lighting. This is the TL-50 and includes rechargeable NiMH batteries which can power the LED for an amazing 3 hours. Dave was handholding the TL-50, but the unit is lightweight and conveniently mounts on the flash shoe. Price is about $250. For more information, contact Switronix.

For portable flash units, LumiQuest makes several models of diffusers and bounce devices. Here Heidi is showing me the company’s most popular model, the Softbox III. To use it, you unfold the 8″ x 9″ flat package to this shape and attached it to the flash with velcro straps. I found that the unit was very study and can be used on-camera or off-camera. Price is about $45. For more information, contact LumiQuest.

At the Hoodman booth, I had a demo of their Cinema Kit Pro. Designed especially for the videographers, the mounting bracket sits on the flash shoe and swings up and down to provide a magnified view of the LCD without any reflection or interference from sun or room light. If you have trouble seeing the LCD as you capture videos, this device makes it easy to monitor the detail. Price is about $180. For more information, contact Hoodman.

Epson had many of their professional line of printers on display. I had my eye on the new Epson 4900. The printer was spewing out gorgeous samples of 17″ wide photos and uses ten color cartridges. Designed especially for high quality, professional applications, the printer includes an in-line X-Rite SpectroProofer for exacting color management. Price for the 4990 is about is about $2500. For more information, contact Epson.

I’ll have more news from the show shortly.

Written by Arnie Lee

 
 

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