New spectrophotometer from Konica-Minolta

Andreas S

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Today we've got a parcel from Konica-Minolta, their new MYIRO-1. It is for the first time that Konica-Minolta enters this part of measuring devices. The goal seems to be clear, taking over at less a part of the business in entry level devices. Until now there was only Xrite to provide "affordable" devices with their i1Pro series. That will change from january on (official date of release).
oben.jpg

The beauty

vergleich.jpg

compared to Xrite i1Pro2

As their responsable for Europe told me, there is the same technology inside as in their FD range. They are produced in Japan (not in China as the i1Pro) with the same quality standards as all the other devices from Konica Minolta. And they can be operated wireless!!!! The specs:

Illumination/viewing system45°a:0° (annular illumination)*1
Spectral separation deviceConcave grating
Wavelength rangeSpectral reflectance: 380 to 730 nm
Spectral irradiance: 360 to 730 nm
Wavelength pitch10 nm
Half bandwidthappr. 10 nm
Measurement areaø 3.5 mm
Light sourceLED
Measurement rangeReflectance: 0 to 150% / Density: 0.0 D to 2.5D
RepeatabilityColorimetric: Within 𝞼∆E00 0.05
(When white calibration plate is measured 30 times in 10-second intervals after white calibration has been performed)
Inter-instrument agreementWithin ∆E00 0.3
(Average of 12 BCRA Series II color tiles compared to values measured with a master body under manufacturer's standard conditions)
Measurement time
(single-point)
Appr. 1s
Measurement conditions *2M0, M1, M2, User-defined illuminant
Observers2° Standard Observer, 10° Standard Observer
Status indicatorLED to indicate instruments status
InterfaceWireless LAN (802.11 b/g/n); USB 2.0
Scanning measurementsScanning of color charts under all measurement conditions in one single scan
PowerUSB bus power; Rechargeable internal battery
Dimensions (WxDxH)73 mm x 171 mm x 71 mm
Operating temperature/humidity range10° to 35°C, 30% to 85% relative humidity with no condensation
Storage temperature/humidity range0° to 45°C, 0% to 85% relative humidity with no condensation
*1Illumination for wavelengths under 400 nm is unidirectional
*2M0, M1, M2: Illumination conditions defined in ISO 13655


We will implement it to our software by the end oft this week or next week. Until then we will do some tests to have a direct compairaison to the i1Pro. But as i know both brands quite well I'm almost certain who will be the winner. I will post the results here when it is done.

The MYIRO-1 will be available in different packages, in the way Xrite does with their iProfiler software. I'm not allowed to communicate the prices, just let me say that the price will be close to the i1Pro range, depending on the software bundle.
 

Artur5

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Very interesting. I’ll keep one eye ( albeit not DisplayPro ;) ) in this thread.
X-Rite products for advanced amateurs need urgently a modern replacement. For instance, the harware of the Color Munki hasn’t been updated for many years.
I’m afraid though that your concept of ‘affordable’ differs from mine, if we’re talking four figures like the X-Rite i1Photo Pro 2.
Let’s hope that they release also devices competing in price with the Color Munki Photo/i1 Studio.

BTW I had no idea that Konica-Minolta still existed as a company. I was convinced that anything related to Minolta had been absorbed by Sony, like the photography segment.
 

Andreas S

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Konica-Minolta is far away from being absorbed by Sony. They just sold their photography branch to them. They are considered to be the benchmark in color measurment equipment. Konica-Minolta also provides the color management technolgy for Eizo sreens, are the biggest player un industry and so on.
I don't believe they will produce a competitor to the Color Munki, they have extremly high quality standards and produces in Japan, not in China. By this they have much higher costs in production as Xrite. It wasn't easy to convict them to launch the MYIRO and I see no way to do the same for a low cost solution.

The Color Munki is a "spin off" of the i1Pro Rev D with an bigger aperture. There is a physical UV filter and by this it can't be used with standards as FOGRA or IDEAlliance using M0 and M1. Basicly it could be used with the new FOGRA 51 standard which is M2 based, but there is still the problem with the low repeatability and the useless software provided.
There are some reasons why Xrite wont make a new Color Munki, have a look at their history and you will understand.

We are working on a project with one of their biggest worldwide distributors to give a new ability to the Color Munki (spot measurement and direct export to Adobe) and I know that even this improvement can't be distributed officialy by retailers in the US.
 

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There is a question for existing i1Pro/i1Profiler users , whether this spectro is compatible with the i1Pro2, whether there would be some cross upgrade options for current i1 users if this Konica spectro is more reliable and gives more accurate readings.
 

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For what I’ve been told by a guy working professionally in the color management segment, the ColorMunki hardware is very outdated and can’t be used to calibrate accurately modern monitors with LED backlight, while it’s OK for profiling printers, provided the paper we’re measuring isn’t massively coated with OBAs.
According to him, the only current device costing less than $500 that should be used for calibrating/profiling monitors is the X-Rite i1 DisplayPro.
He thinks too that all Spyder Datacolor products are useless paper weights. :rolleyes:
 

Andreas S

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There is a question for existing i1Pro/i1Profiler users , whether this spectro is compatible with the i1Pro2, whether there would be some cross upgrade options for current i1 users if this Konica spectro is more reliable and gives more accurate readings.
Compatible with i1Profiler? Never. Would you expect Coca Cola to serve Pepsi?
More reliable and more accurate, I think so. There are the same components inside as in the FD series, assembled with the same standards in quality contol at the same production units. That means a higher accuracy and reliability than the eXact range from Xrite. A company, selling Konica and xrite, made a test some time ago. The average Delta in spot measuring mode with an i1Pro was 0,12 with a FD 0,04. Konica grants ∆E00 0.05. for the MYIRO.
 

Andreas S

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First of all a happy new year to everyone.
As the MYIRO is now integrated in our software I could achieve the tests.
The goal was to know how good is the accuracy of repeatability compared to an i1Pro2? We measured 30 times the white plate, red, blue and green referencies. First always i1Pro followed by MYIRO. Average/Peak. All measurings where done in M0 mode.
White:
∆E00 = 0,0389/0,09 0,0086/0,01
Red:
∆E00 = 0,028/0,07 0,018/0,04
Blue:
∆E00 = 0,04/0,05 0,0093/0,01
Green:
∆E00 = 0,0479/0,05 0,0055/0,01

In my opinion the MYIRO is the better deal if one is looking for quality.
 

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For what I’ve been told by a guy working professionally in the color management segment, the ColorMunki hardware is very outdated and can’t be used to calibrate accurately modern monitors with LED backlight, while it’s OK for profiling printers, provided the paper we’re measuring isn’t massively coated with OBAs.
According to him, the only current device costing less than $500 that should be used for calibrating/profiling monitors is the X-Rite i1 DisplayPro.
He thinks too that all Spyder Datacolor products are useless paper weights. :rolleyes:

I am aware of this, but how come that the sRGB and Adobe RGB profiles I make for my humble EIZO CS2420 with the Colormunki and Colornavigator 7 do not visibly differ from the published profiles ?
In case the Colormunki should be too much off, it would be visible in the generated data.

For an amateur the Colormunki is a much better tool than no tool at all, in particular when printing with 3th party inks.
 

Andreas S

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I am aware of this, but how come that the sRGB and Adobe RGB profiles I make for my humble EIZO CS2420 with the Colormunki and Colornavigator 7 do not visibly differ from the published profiles ?
In case the Colormunki should be too much off, it would be visible in the generated data.

For an amateur the Colormunki is a much better tool than no tool at all, in particular when printing with 3th party inks.
Two reasons:
1) Your model ist the lowend. That means that the factory calibration is not as good as for the high-end monitors.
2/ Colornavigator is based on Konica-Minolta engine and by this you will have much better results as one can obtain by using the standard Color Munki software. The hardware calibration is only possible with the Colornavigator software, so you can't realy compare. But you are free to use the Munki with it's own software to create a soft calibration stocked on your computer.

For sure, a Color Munki is better than nothing. But I did the same test as above with a Color Munki too, believe me, you better wont see the results. They are very bad. We will make a special edition of one of our software modules to be distributed in a bundle by the biggest distributor of Xrite devices (except in the USA) by their demand. My condition for the deal was that it have to be distributed with another name, guess why…

For printer calibration ( at an "affordable" price) the best thing to do is going Konica-Minota. The i1Pro3 may be of interest for some rough substrates. (Xrite provides one to me this month, I will test it too)
For a standard retailer there might be an interest to sell i1Pro as one can obtain very interesting goodies for this (We are selling them too). An amateur wont be able to see the difference, any way. Our real business is providing color management solutions to the industry, so we have to use the best input material on the market. If the input is bad the result will be bad too. And no one of our customers will search the error at his input device. So I prefere earning a little bit less on the device.
 

palombian

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....
2/ Colornavigator is based on Konica-Minolta engine and by this you will have much better results as one can obtain by using the standard Color Munki software. The hardware calibration is only possible with the Colornavigator software, so you can't realy compare. But you are free to use the Munki with it's own software to create a soft calibration stocked on your computer.

...

To be precise, Colornavigator accepts the Colormunki Photo as external measuring device, and I suppose it does a hardware calibration.
Nice to hear the software is from Konica-Minolta.
Do you think the EX sensors sold by EIZO - as it seems based on the Spyder - would give a better result ?
 
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