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Which printer for 13x19 prints (Epson vs Canon)

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tiko

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I'm in the market for a 13x19 printer and am having a tough time choosing between an Epson Artisan 1430 and a Canon Pixma Pro 9000MKII. They're both on sale and the canon is about $150 more expensive than the Epson. While I'm inclined towards the Canon, the price of the Epson is lucrative. However my experience with Espon printers (home office inkjets) hasn't been very positive. Something about the quality and paper handling mechanism makes me hesitant. My experience with Canon has been great so far, but it's $150 bucks more. I am mostly concerned about print quality (speed not an issue) and average running costs (ink).
Has anyone used either and willing to share their experience?

PS. I mainly shoot portraits and landscapes, as an amateur photog (not for profit, although I do some "pro" work for community fundraisers).

Thanks!!
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@AT
 
I've had a 9000II for almost 2 years. I've had no problems whatsoever other than user error. Print quality is amazing. OEM ink is horribly expensive. It doesn't get along well with Red River glossy papers; leaves tracks of dots from the feed wheels. I don't know if everyone has that problem but I know some people do. No problems with any other papers I've tried. It works great with Canon and Kodak glossy so it's something about the RR glossy emulsion. There's one thing about the driver that I don't like: You can't print borderless on custom-size paper; in other words, a size that's not in the pre-defined list of sizes (which is pretty long). But I love it.
Never had an Epson.
 
Actually, there's another weird thing about the driver for the 9000II. It seems any time you use a custom size you have to have the image in portrait orientation; if it's a landscape-oriented image you have to rotate it before printing. I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be that way, but that's my experience. 'Course, if you never use custom paper sizes it's a non-issue but I had a terrible time figuring that out.
 
I have a Canon 9000 Mark II and I really like the print quality. But some of the more high end users on here who earn a lot of money selling their prints might say the printer I have is crap. It works for what I want and I love the quality. And I paid $100 for it brand new in a sealed box from someone on craigslist.

You should definitely go on craigslist or ebay and look for either the Canon 9000 or 9500. People are selling them for really CHEAP, often still unopened in the box.

The reason for this is that Canon has a rebate where if you buy a DSLR and a canon printer, you get the printer for free or nearly free. So people are turning around and selling the printers.

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Antonio
http://www.intensitystudios.com
 
Thanks for your feedback John, much appreciated. I don't anticipate printing on custom sizes so that shouldn't be an issue; nevertheless that is odd.
John Little said:
Actually, there's another weird thing about the driver for the 9000II. It seems any time you use a custom size you have to have the image in portrait orientation; if it's a landscape-oriented image you have to rotate it before printing. I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be that way, but that's my experience. 'Course, if you never use custom paper sizes it's a non-issue but I had a terrible time figuring that out.
Click to expand...
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@AT
 
I always have a hard time finding Epson ink locally. In fact, I have to find some today since I had to do a flush and nozzle clean as the Epson had plugged up bad (Lack of use in the past month.) and it took almost an entire cart of black to get it going again. :( My local Best Buy used to stock it and their paper too, but now I have to order it online. They seem to be cutting back on that stuff in my local store.

I can find Canon ink almost anyplace. Paper may be tougher sometimes. The Craigslist cheap-buy suggestion is good too if you can locate one.

Fwiw, I threw out an old wide-bed HP as the ink and print heads were terribly expensive and cost as much to replace them all compared to when new. It would clog badly. Stuff is absurdly priced.

Mack
 
GMack said:
I had to do a flush and nozzle clean as the Epson had plugged up bad (Lack of use in the past month.) and it took almost an entire cart of black to get it going again. :(
Click to expand...
Every time I think of getting an Epson somebody says something like this.

Whenever my printer sits unused, it's not because I planned to not use it, it's just because that's what happened. So, Epson users, isn't there some sort of prevention for this? (Or a cure that doesn't take a whole cart of ink?)
 
intensity studios said:
I have a Canon 9000 Mark II and I really like the print quality. But some of the more high end users on here who earn a lot of money selling their prints might say the printer I have is crap. It works for what I want and I love the quality. And I paid $100 for it brand new in a sealed box from someone on craigslist.
Click to expand...
A common refrain from Epson users. Don't tell my customers their B&W prints were done with a 9000 Pro. ;p I've not had one complaint but I do tweak with NIK Silver Efex and that does make a difference with the Canon prints.
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I own both he Canon PRO9000 MK II and the Epson R3000 and both have their place in the printing world....

Bob P.
 
About 6 or 7 months ago I sold my home and moved into an apartment. I packed up my Epson Stylus Pro 3880 in its original box; and put it into storage. I left the 9 ink cartridges in the printer. A few months later I bought a new home and moved in about approximately 5 months after renting the apartment. Recently, I took the printer out of the box and I set it up on my compter desk. I did nothing at all to the machine since it went into storage. It had been non-operational for a total of about 7 months. Today. I decided to see if it was going to print without any issues. It printed this image perfectly. It was as if it had never been in storage. It was pretty surprizing. I was expecting to loose the ink or have clogged heads.





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truview
 
I have 17 13" and larger printers that hardly ever clog. Epsons and Canons. Specially the Canons.

I can go up to a month without printing and all is fine. Longer and I am pushing it.

If I get a clog, it's my fault for not printing. To me, not printing, is not something that "just happens".

That's the reason I purchase fine printers in the 1st place.

If my intention is to only print once in a while I'll just go to the photo center where I live and print then there.
 
Thank you all for your insight and feedback. I think I'm going to go with the Epson for now, unless I'm able to find a Pixma 9000 for cheap on craigslist. Given the frequency of printing and the fact that I don't earn anything out of this, I'll start off with the lower cost option.

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@AT
 
I was considering that model of Epson Artisan printer before I settled on the Canon 9000. I went on Amazon and B&H and read the reviews and they said the Artisan goes through ink FAST and it's expensive.

I do not have any first hand info on the Artisan printer, but reading the reviews made me choose the canon.

Keep in mind that buying the printer is often the cheapest part of the equation. It's the inks and paper that end up costing. Printer companies know this, so they take a loss up front, knowing they will profit when it comes time to refill the tanks.

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Antonio
http://www.intensitystudios.com
 
jtoolman said:
To me, not printing, is not something that "just happens". That's the reason I purchase fine printers in the 1st place.
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If you know you're not going to be printing for a while you can possibly take some sort of preventive measure to prevent clogging. But if you don't plan to go a long time without printing (but it happens anyway because of, oh, say, life happening) then you can't take whatever preventive measure there might be. That's when a cheap "cure" would be handy.
 
I think the savings in converting either printer over to a reusable/refillable cartridge or CIS type system and using bulk 3rd party compatible inks would far outweigh any differences you might see in ink usage per print across printer brands.

Anyway, am about to find out.... just bought an Epson 1430 and 730 .... not yet in a position to justify the outlay for a bigger/better machine e.g. R3000
 
You really are not making your case with me!

If some "life Happening" event does take place, I really don't think I would not realize that it was taking place and I would just ignore it. In years of maintaining and using over a dozen printers in my shop, I have not run into such a situation.

It would have to be something quite extraordinary! But if circumstances where such that I had to abandon my printers for a while, then cest la vie! I can go at least a month without any problems.

I too wish there was a magic button one could press to put our printer in standby without any detrimental effects. Or one that would restore your printer from dried up to free flowing. Unfortunately that's not the case and the printer companies would never provide us users with anything closely resembling it.
 
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