An Honest Profile Opinion on The Inkjet Printer...

[The Hat]

The Canon Pixma Pro 1...


I can’t say very much about the Pro 1 because I never was in love with this machine, yes it does the finest prints imaginable but it never did what I wanted it to do easily without huge arguments, and it usually won. (Time wasting)

By changing the Print Quality output or the Media Setting, I could end up with a half dozen different looking prints, that’s not exactly what I wanted but it was something to behold, and for those wishing to use this printer, ICC profiles and quality paper matching are totally essential.

If you go messing around with print setting as I had too then you’ll get nothing but headaches, I really had to think about what I wanted to print before I could actually get the correct output that I required.

All of my work on the printer were documents and brochures and it did them very well but I had to be very mindful and careful not to get head strikes, mainly from curled paper edges.

As a Photo Printer, it deserves to be treated carefully and if you don’t know what you’re doing, then this printer is not for you, you need to have Photographic Printing Experience before you can reach the full potential of this printer, but it will still astound you with its beautiful output quality when treated properly...


Comments:

The Pro 1 is not an easy printer to use if you don’t follow the recommend Media and print setting in the driver, with the corresponding paper you wish to use, but follow these simple procedures and everything works fine.

The cartridges are easily refilled if you wish to switch to good quality 3rd party pigment inks, which are now becoming available, in fact refillers will find this printer a breeze to work with. (Simple to Refill 10 out of 10 )

As a Jobbing Printer its totally crap, and I would recommend staying the hell away from it, you can’t easily make this printer do what you want it to do, it Practically has a mind of its own. (2 out of 10)

As a Fine Art and Photographic Printer there is not much out there that comes close to it for sheer perfection, yes it’s that good, but you do need to be selling your prints to use OEM inks... (10 out of 10)

 

[PeterBJ]

My present default printer is a Canon MP800, bought at a thrift store for DKK 75 = € 10 = $ 11.30. It is based on the iP5200 print engine and has a CCD scanner, that also does 35 mm film and slide scanning. The printer is 9 years old but still going strong with only two missing nozzles in PGBK, apart from that the nozzle check is OK. I think that some of the printers of the PGI-5/CLI-8 generation were among the best printers for small office and home use. The transparent cartridges have an acceptable capacity and they are refill friendly. But these printers are no longer produced. If you want one you will have to look for a second hand unit, and buying a second hand printer is a gamble, especially as these printers are getting very old now.

But wasn't the purpose of this thread* not to get a list of new and recommendable printers? I don't know what new printers to recommend. Printers of the Canon MG series based on PGI-x50/CLI-x51 and PGI-x70/CLI-x71 cartridges are clumsy, flimsy and noisy in my opinion, but maybe next generation of Canon inkjet printers for home use will be better?

Some say the Canon Maxify printers are good. These printers are office printers with CMYK pigment inks. I'm sure this is excellent for office documents, but for home use photo printing is also important IMO. Any comments on Maxify photo printing.

I know there are other brands of printers, but some older Canon printers are those I prefer and know a little about.

*Edit: the post was moved to here from this thread, as it was a bit off-topic for Emulator's thread.

*Edit: After moving my post I forgot to add a rating.

Is the printer worth owning: I will say 8 out of 10. It is based on the then popular iP5200 printer with a CCD scanner added.

Ease of refill: The printer uses the PGI-5/CLI-8 cartridges that are refill friendly and resetters have been available for several years. 8 out of 10.

Is it a money pit: With refilling and using good but reasonable priced non-OEM photo paper, the printer is not expensive to run. I once made an estimate of refill costs based on ink price, accessories and shipping. My result was around DKK 10 for one refill of a cartridge, or approximately 1.50 € or $. I will rate the costs 2 out of 10.

Using only OEM materials bought at regular store prices I guess the printer would be a money pit with an expense rating of 10 out of 10.

 

[mikling]

The Canon Pixma Pro 1...


I can’t say very much about the Pro 1 because I never was in love with this machine, yes it does the finest prints imaginable but it never did what I wanted it to do easily without huge arguments, and it usually won. (Time wasting)

By changing the Print Quality output or the Media Setting, I could end up with a half dozen different looking prints, that’s not exactly what I wanted but it was something to behold, and for those wishing to use this printer, ICC profiles and quality paper matching are totally essential.

If you go messing around with print setting as I had too then you’ll get nothing but headaches, I really had to think about what I wanted to print before I could actually get the correct output that I required.

All of my work on the printer were documents and brochures and it did them very well but I had to be very mindful and careful not to get head strikes, mainly from curled paper edges.

As a Photo Printer, it deserves to be treated carefully and if you don’t know what you’re doing, then this printer is not for you, you need to have Photographic Printing Experience before you can reach the full potential of this printer, but it will still astound you with its beautiful output quality when treated properly...


Comments:

The Pro 1 is not an easy printer to use if you don’t follow the recommend Media and print setting in the driver, with the corresponding paper you wish to use, but follow these simple procedures and everything works fine.

The cartridges are easily refilled if you wish to switch to good quality 3rd party pigment inks, which are now becoming available, in fact refillers will find this printer a breeze to work with. (Simple to Refill 10 out of 10 )

As a Jobbing Printer its totally crap, and I would recommend staying the hell away from it, you can’t easily make this printer do what you want it to do, it Practically has a mind of its own. (2 out of 10)

As a Fine Art and Photographic Printer there is not much out there that comes close to it for sheer perfection, yes it’s that good, but you do need to be selling your prints to use OEM inks... (10 out of 10)

As I once commented as it looks like Hat agrees, the Pro-1 is for ideally suited for the more advanced printing enthusiast. It must be listed as one of the top printers around despite its age which precedes the Pro-10. If you don't shoot raw and process properly, then the potential of this printer is wasted. It is a distinct step up from the Pro-10. Gradations are very very smooth. Good ICC profiles are highly recommended to extract what this machine is capable of producing. Highly underrated machine when it first appeared...same story for the Pro-100. Over time, folks will come to see its value. You need to use a well calibrated monitor to extract the shadow detail and nuance this printer is capable of. I would say this should be the second or third photo printer you will have owned. Not recommended for someone new to photo printing.

 

[mikling]

My present default printer is a Canon MP800, bought at a thrift store for DKK 75 = € 10 = $ 11.30. It is based on the iP5200 print engine and has a CCD scanner, that also does 35 mm film and slide scanning. The printer is 9 years old but still going strong with only two missing nozzles in PGBK, apart from that the nozzle check is OK. I think that some of the printers of the PGI-5/CLI-8 generation were among the best printers for small office and home use. The transparent cartridges have an acceptable capacity and they are refill friendly. But these printers are no longer produced. If you want one you will have to look for a second hand unit, and buying a second hand printer is a gamble, especially as these printers are getting very old now.

But wasn't the purpose of this thread not to get a list of new and recommendable printers? I don't know what new printers to recommend. Printers of the Canon MG series based on PGI-x50/CLI-x51 and PGI-x70/CLI-x71 cartridges are clumsy, flimsy and noisy in my opinion, but maybe next generation of Canon inkjet printers for home use will be better?

Some say the Canon Maxify printers are good. These printers are office printers with CMYK pigment inks. I'm sure this is excellent for office documents, but for home use photo printing is also important IMO. Any comments on Maxify photo printing.

I know there are other brands of printers, but some older Canon printers are those I prefer and know a little about.

Yes, pretty much the end of the CLI-8 machines signalled the end of high quality machines for the home office. What came beyond was never quite as good build wise. However, the image quality of what came next improved a bit especially when the gray ink tank machines appeared. I remember very well how I was throroughly flamed for proposing that grey ink was the future even for color printing and there were those who did not understand why but insisted it was strictly for B&W. At the time the MP980 started to show what grey ink could do for color printing. Canon was tip toeing into what it could do with this combination....Little did we know what they were up to eventually...The Pro-100 that was to come years later.

The Maxify line is an excellent printer for its intended use and is my go to bulk printer. It is optimized for text and standard graphics and with pigment ink, it will rival a laser with much lower running costs. Generous cartridge size and with aftermarket carts, the ability to run without resetting the chips, though available if desired. So if you're planning a big print job. Top off all the carts and set the number of copies to 500 and let her rip. Comes out like a fast photocopier with very good print quality. How good? Take an Epson R3000, set it to plain paper with quality setting. The maxify will match that output quality with dramtically faster speeds in standard format. Set to higher output quality...there is no need to . The maxify has been to what I see, intentionally crippled in photo quality by Canon. It can print OK photos but it is not a photo printer.

 

[mikling]

The Canon Pixma Pro-100.

What can we say?

This printer I now consider as a must own by anyone in North America considering the purchase of a photo printer especially if you plan to refill. It is destined to be a classic.
Build Quality: Better than anything else before for the desktop. If you don't already own one, do not be fooled into thinking this is a cheap printer.
Print Quality: Easily better than anything else before in the dye ink category and I would go so far to say even against the Epson P800. Despite its low cost of purchase in North America, it is really way up there for image output. Its capability in B&W is unrivalled by anything in the dye ink category. This printer can easily be a good first photo printer as well as being a great photo printer for someone who knows how to dial in print settings.
Cost. In North America, never before has a printer of this capbility been unleashed to the public for this low a cost. It is a "gift" from Canon if you know to navigate the markets. Canon intends to dominate the imaging scene and they have unleashed this weapon.
Where does this machine fit in Canon's scene. To take market share from Nikon as well as throw Epson a huge curve ball. This machine runs rings around Epson 1500s, Artisan 1430 etc. Epson does not know what to do. If it introduces a real competitor to the Pro-100, they will shoot themselves in the foot as it will steal a lot of sales from the P400 and P600. Profitability will plummet because its competitor to the Pro-100 will need to be priced aggressively.
Refill ability: When you're dealing with a top end current printer with ALL the advantages of the CLI-8 of days past that PeterBJ longs for. This is the penultimate photo printer for the refiller. This is a gift from the printer gods before things get bad for refillers. Like a candidate for the 2016 POTUS says "trust me" it will.
High Highly recommended you acquire one of these before the rebates run out and keep an eye out for Black Friday sales. My last purchase was when someone on this board pointed out a $34 USD deal WITH paper on a black friday deal. I still have it in storage.

Even if you own an Epson pigment printer, try this on if you can get it on the cheap. ​

 

[palombian]

I own a MG8250, the top machine of the 525/526 series.
Bought it for the 6 cartridges (GY added) and the CCD 35mm film scanner.

When the prints come out they have indeed a high gamut and graduated tones, but they fade faster than prints from a 5 carts machine (MG5250, IX6550). Tried different gray inks.

The Pro-100 will without any doubt be much better, but I do not see why the prints would be more resistant to fading.

As most people I was attracted to the glossy prints, and found the ones from pigment printers less brilliant and with gloss differences.
But since the 3th party pigment inks have been enhanced, and with some experience it is possible to produce very acceptable prints, who do not loose their quality, even on an older machine as the PRO 9500.

And since a PRO-100 is not a bargain in Europe, I think I better go sooner or later for a PRO-10 or PRO-1.

 

[pharmacist]

Why are those Canon Pro-100 printers so expensive compared to the US deals ??? I want it too . We Europeans (Martin0reg, Palombian, me) can not take any profit of these deals unfortunately.

 

[mikling]

Why are those Canon Pro-100 printers so expensive compared to the US deals ??? I want it too . We Europeans (Martin0reg, Palombian, me) can not take any profit of these deals unfortunately.

Aren't cameras and lenses a lot more expensive in the EU as compared to the USA? If so, that means that the market for this category of product is much smaller and caters only to the well heeled. Rebating will not make huge differences in that market as compared to the USA where I suspect cameras and printers are sold more widely. I suspect there are no duties for cameras entering the USA from Japan and china or the far east. Is there a luxury tax on these products in Europe? If there is, then this instantly makes the products costly. General taxes can also decrease the disposable income of the individual as well making luxury items even less affordable. What it ends up doing is that Photography products are more affordable to a greater percentage of the population in the USA. Not cheap but still more affordable in the USA.

This can become a hot topic as it will get into the politics of taxation and social benefits. Dangerous ground. Everything is connected.Different points of view.

 

[stratman]

Is there a luxury tax on these products in Europe?

For one, there is the VAT.

International tariffs for Japanese cameras:
http://www.dutycalculator.com/dc/15...apan-manufacture-from-germany-to-canada-is-0/

Different points of view.

True and due to social engineering.

 

[Roy Sletcher]

This can become a hot topic as it will get into the politics of taxation and social benefits. Dangerous ground. Everything is connected.Different points of view.

Yeah - Usually I pile-in. Love rational civilised controversy, but will sit this one out.

Fortunately Canada falls somewhere between the US Free-Enterprise system and the European "Tax them til they bleed" philosophy.

If only giving more tax dollars gave citizens better governance I would be all for it. Unfortunately, in too many cases, giving politicians additional tax dollars is like giving whisky and car keys to teenagers.

One thing I find interesting with the Canon rebates in the US is the fact they they will rebate printers and paper NEVER the inks. I am sure they have data that tells them each dollar in printer and paper rebates gives them an even greater increase in ink profits. That is good business and and a compelling reason for us to refill our canon printers.

rs