Hi all, please help a newbie with some ink reccomendations.

[Ink stained Fingers]

I'm not aware of 3rd party inks with a similar UV/ozone stability like the OEM inks, I'm not so familiar with the HP printer product lines but I think to remember that there are larger format models running on dye inks and pigment inks. And the pricing for those cartridges - bigger than yours is more economical, and you are easily able to pull the ink from those cartridges, and use it as refill ink.
At a higher temperature the abs. humidity is much higher, and humidity is helping the ozone to do its work on the color molecules.

 

[GoneFishin]

Obviously I'm still very new to all of this but am quickly forming the opinion that a 3rd party ink with the equivalent UV/Ozone stability of an OEM one is somewhat of the holy grail of inks.

I have still got half a dozen prints mounted behind glass from my IX6550 and I guess they're around 18months old, so when I get the new printer and inks, I will try printing off a duplicate image or two and have a look at the difference.

Although not in direct sunlight for too much of the day I'm sure my previous prints will have faded and obviously there will be the variables a new printer and Inks will bring but I'll be interested to see how different they look.

Overall though I'm quite happy to accept some fading as a trade off for the savings in ink costs, I really don't think that either my photos or prints are critical enough to merit much else for the time being but it's good to have aspirations though

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

that's the best approach - to test for yourself whether prints with the new inks will last as long as the previous ones, or long enough, in your particular environment. Suppliers typically are not supplying any fade parameters, and even so you wouldn't be able from there to calculate a time, number of hours whatever until you would see the fading to start in your settings.

 

[fotofreek]

Superb! - Never visited, but what a place to wet a line and on a drizzly grey old day here in Blighty those pictures make one want to start packing...

...Fishing gear and expense you say, not my words but seems apt:

"A fisherman’s worst fear is that when he dies his wife sells his equipment for what he told her it cost."

Excellent quote! Don't be fooled by the pictures. Especially during the summer we have fog, wind, and cool weather. Sometimes the fog "burns off" and we then have a cool sunny day. The San Francisco Bay Area has micro-climates. The city is only 7 miles by 7 miles in size and you can go from neighborhood to neighborhood and have temperature differences of ten or more degrees - cooler by the ocean and warmer as you go inland. Just over the Golden Gate or Bay bridges there can be a 25 degree difference in temperature! The sunrise picture was taken in a portion of the bay that is generally warmer and less foggy, but the offshore area - the direction the boat is going with the Golden Gate bridge in the background - is often foggy in the summer. Rarely tee-shirt weather for offshore fishing so we dress in layers for any kind of change in temperature.

 

[GoneFishin]

Must admit, I did have more of a general sun, sun and then some more sun idea Of San Francisco; then there's the grass always seeming greener and once you add in a boat, some fishing rods and those kind of views... it all seems very appealing.

That really is a lot of variation in weather, can only be a good thing though as when I hear of micro climates it puts me in mind of various documentaries I've seen of places where you also have a huge variety of landscape, flora and fauna and would guess you don't have to travel too far out of the City for some fantastic scenery - actually, a quick look on wiki shows how many parks are right on your doorstep, very nice indeed.

 

[3dogs]

One thing we don't get here is good fishing weather.....dawn on a freezing July morning 8am on a saltwater river lure fishing, hooked up to a 77cm Jewie on 2kg. Tough but SOMEONE has to draw the short straw

 

[Emulator]

Interested to note a switch on some of OctoinkJet ink suppliers:

http://www.octoink.co.uk/pages/Bulk-Ink-Suppliers.html

Is there more information on the relative merits, with regard to specific printers?

 

[CakeHole]

From what i can tell, some models just do not have ink specifically made for them by some of the companies. If you look through all the products it soon becomes apparent. Octoink actually started selling ink other than Image Specialist many months back.

KMP ink they have sold for ages for some of the KMP products it seems it was just phased out or they could no longer get stock, particularly on SOME Canon Black KMP pigment ink.

KMP ink in black PGI5BK (pigment) for my Canon MP610 as an example has been phased out, it used to come in 100ml bottle rather than the current Image Specialist ink 125ml bottles. Im guessing in this case it was phased out more because it was virtually the same price but you got 25ml less than the Image Specialist product so was probably a slower seller and once stock was gone its gone.

Either way all those brands mentioned are typically good quality, (image specialist, KMP and OCP are known brands and inktec actually make their own aftermarket carts, refill tools in addition to ink) unless you are very anal about your prints with a printer all configured/calibrated you are not likely to spot much if any difference between them. If you get to that stage of wanting perfection then refilling as it will always slightly vary can even happen with same brand bottle to bottle, at that stage of perfection seeking refilling is probably not for those individulas.

 

[GoneFishin]

Nice shot 3dogs, looks to be a great spot and like you say, sometimes this fishing lark really is a bind . Wasn't familiar with the Jewie but after a quick look on YouTube - they are pretty impressive and should imagine one that size would give quite a scrap on that setup.

I shall endeavour to get a pic or two of my own up soon. Was going to post a recent night sky one but after exporting it from Lightroom, I found that the resulting jpeg looks nothing like the edited Lightroom shot and the 'blue star' look really wasn't what I was shooting for. Not convinced it's a colour space issue, more that some of the Lightroom settings haven't been applied at all; oh well, a bit more learning to do.

Regards the different ink suppliers used by Octoink - when I spoke to them recently it was indeed a fairly simple thing as CakeHole describes; they simply use the brand that gives them the best and most up to date OEM match/product at any given time and I think it's something they keep under review to make sure that remains the case.

 

[martin0reg]

After I have found a OEM dye ink for refilling epson home printers, from big drylab cartridges, I searched for a similar solution for canon.
And there are the BCI-1411 (330ml) and BCI-1301(130ml) cartridges for canon dye LFP's.
I am refilling my pixma's (4000 and 4500) with these inks since two months now and have very good results, no problems with ink flow. Color matching is as good as others, some kind of profiling is necessary as with others.
Main reason was that I expected better longevity, less fading from these canon dye. I have to admit: it is not as good as the fuji DL for epson, but it is better than other 3rd party dyes I used before.

I have done my latest DIY-fading test (one week under a UV-bulb for terrarium) with
- canon BCI-1411 vs fuji DL

- and one of the many 3rd-party dye for canon VS. epson OEM dye ink for the L300 (80ml bottles)

[exposed prints are on top, stored prints are on bottom]

The test http://www.printerknowledge.com/thr...uting-magenta-and-cyan.7545/page-5#post-80941