new printer
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Yes, I do have new printer. But there is a story behind it. As you maybe know I am using carbon pigment inks for producing my photographs. I started way bank in 2001 when I have got epson 890 printer. Simple and cheap machine. I was already following Digital Black and White printing group at Yahoo for couple of month. I asked few people to send me some test print s with those new carbon pigment inks from MIS call UT. I was amazed. Using printer for 80 euro and special inks which with cartridges and all other necessary stuff cost almost twice as much you can produced great black and white prints. That time, five years ago Paul Roark, designer of those inks helped me a lot. I started to be independent from lab and was producing prints with much higher quality and much higher lightfastnes. Than new inks come, new generation UT2 inks. When I was done with UT I moved to UT2. Even nicer tones and archival value on good paper raised even higher to almost century, according to tests.
I was printing more and more still using my epson 890 printer. From time to time would be nice to have bigger print but A4 was maximum I could get out of this printer. As I print more and I run out of inks I bought CFS (Continuous Flow System). So I didn’t need to refill cartridges anymore I could print almost non-stop. And that what was I doing. Every image I have put on web in last two years was first printed to see if it is standing the most critical view.
I used expensive and nice paper like Hahnemuhle PhotoRag, or PermaJet Alpha or Omega papers to produce prints sold on my web shop and cheap, good but no archival Epson Archival Matte for test prints.
CFS system it has its problems and you need to take care, when you do that it works flawlessly. Last month I did cleanup of it as it start producing drops of inks it help for a while, than it was back. I did more things and repairs. Printer works but is not reliable anymore. Yes almost five years of printing had probably took his tax. Could work with cartridges perfectly, I do not know I didn’t test it.
So about two weeks ago I start investigating again about new printers and inks. I look at new epson 2400 which looks great, but as a new product is quite expensive around 800 euros. I look at epson 1290s, it is the same technology, now old as my epson 890, just A3 size same as epson 2400. You can get new for around 340 euros. And there is a nice epson R220 (only A4) but for as little as 85euro. That I need to buy new inks, cartridges or CFS system which is for these printers between 140-250 US$ with 4oz UT2 inks. I didn’t know where to go. A lot of money for myself who is selling inly over Internet and that not really much. But I really like to have A3 option to print. For a while I was truing to convince myself fro epson 2400. New technology future and such a thing, but those 1000 euro total with inks is for me huge investment. R220 option was also interesting, also new technology, independent cartridges, cheap. Only the A4 size was stopping me from going that way.
After a while I wrote email to Paul Roark, explaining him option and my needs and asking him for advice. And even not one hour later I had answer. All very interesting views and informations. But the most interesting was that he was suggesting epson 2200 or 2100 in Europe as a possible option. This is a printer replaced by new epson 2400. I completely forgot about that printer. Also my friend Daniel Staver is using this printer and there is a huge support for it. Also MIS has dedicated black and white UT7 inks for it. So I star looking for this printer. Paul mentioned that epson US is selling refurbished version for quite low price. Epson Europe has no such a option, I called them. I looked at market, few shops still have it for around 600 euros, but hey you can get 2400 for little bit more. Than I look at eBay, price in UK an Germany are going round 300 euros. I looked at local second hand sites in The Netherlands and found two. One for 250 and next for 350. And later on I have found one which has no price mentioned but people from few days ago where bidding around 190 euros. I called the person.
What happen was that I met very nice professional photographer who was very open to try and test printer. I visited Robert van Tongeren tonight at his studio. Printer was there and was working perfectly. We had couple of hours talking about all kinds of things. Starting with photo business, over creativity, management and future. Views at work and human satisfaction. Very very nice discussion. At the end I come home not only with printer, but also with very nice feeling that I met nice person.
So I have new epson 2100, thanks to advice of Paul Roark, designer of nice carbon pigment dedicated black and white inks made by MIS. I like to thank also my friend Daniel Staver, who I was bothering today whole morning about all the details of epson 2100. And I like to thank Robert van Tongeren for nice chat and my new printer!
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