Friday 24 June 2005

Hey,

Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal?

His goal: transcend dental medication.

Anyway, just a quick one today... I've been busy all week taking pictures, believe it or not.

Inside:

• Choosing a colour printer
• A couple of recent snaps
• The end is nigh!
  

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Choosing a colour printer

It sure is fun fooling around with your pictures and then printing them out.

As a commercial photographer, my clients are organisations who mostly use my pictures for publication. So I provide digital files to them on CD, rather than prints.
Therefore I'm certainly not an expert in colour printers. But of course I do take more than a passing interest in anything photographic and follow developments to some extent.
So keep in mind that this article is written on that basis.

Personally I have an Epson 1290 A3 colour inkjet, which I've had for about two or three years. It was about $1000* at the time - a significant premium on the 1270 model, which only takes up to A4 paper.

However I haven't used the printer for ages since it has a clogged ink nozzle (causing blobby streaks on the prints) and I haven't bothered to get it serviced yet.

So what do I do when I need prints?
When I get my personal (holiday snaps etc) work printed, I take or send the files to a nearby minilab where they do an excellent job of printing them, and 6x4 inch prints are only 50c. For larger stuff, most professional labs will do beautiful 20x32 inch Pegasus prints for under $40. For anything in between, I wait till I have enough to fill a 20x32 inch sheet and then get it printed and cut it up myself with a Stanley knife and a steel ruler.

Anyway, I digress. My Epson 1290 produced really excellent results. The current generation have some improvements, such as inks which are less prone to fading, individually replaceable ink cartridges for each colour, and the ability to print onto CDs.

Epson were the early leaders in photo quality printing and so they're a bit of a favourite of photographers. However Canon also got into inkjets early on and also seem to make very good printers. I'm sure the others, e.g. HP, Kodak, etc are fine, too, but to be honest I don't really pay much attention.

You'll find even the cheapest ($100-$150) models from Epson and Canon now produce really superb results. Some of them use six colours of ink to enable them to print a wider range of colours.

One thing to research carefully if you're going to be doing a fair bit of printing is the cost of running them. Find out how much the replacement ink cartridges are (per millilitre, as they all take different sizes) and also whether you can replace the colours individually. On my printer there is just a black cartridge and one for all the colours. So it's kind of frustrating forking out $40 or $50 for a colour cartridge when I've only run out of yellow - or whatever.

As for refilling the inks - plenty of people do it of course, but it's not something I've ever dabbled in, and probably something most professional photographers avoid because they would rather not risk unpredictable changes in colour - something which is obviously less critical for personal use. Some people say that the whole genuine ink cartridge business is a scam - which I suppose it is to some extent, but I'm sure there is also some truth to the manufacturers claims that non-genuine inks can damage the printer on give poor results. I would imagine that Canon and Epson spend zillions on researching materials and production methods to get good quality and consistency, and stake their reputations very much on providing it. Unlike 'XYZ bargain ink refills', or whoever.

Space (and time!) don't permit recommending any specific models, but it should be fairly easy to find reviews and specs for any printer you are considering on the net. Just make sure the review is from an authoritative source (like a major online or offline publisher and/or a site allowing user reviews), rather than some thinly-disguised affiliate site which just wants you to buy the goods through their link for a commission.

*(Note for readers outside Australia - all prices are in Australian Dollars!)

Recent snaps

We're good enough for management consultants BDO. Are we good enough for you? We'll soon be starting up a separate division to do this sort of stuff - stay tuned!

Snapped while doing a shoot for Coleman Studios. Did you know the Eureka tower is 300m tall, which means it's the world's tallest apartment building and, like, really tall.

The end is nigh!

The end of the financial year, that is.

In case you hadn't noticed, you're rapidly running out of time if you need to get a few more expenses on the books before the end of the year.

A couple of clients have asked if it's OK if they book and pay now for photography they have coming up in July or August.

I'm happy to do this - I have a long 'equipment shopping list' in whiteboard marker on my filing cabinet - so don't worry, the taxman won't get hold of it.

Seriously, though... if you want to do this, you need to let me know on Monday, as I'll be away for a few days from Wednesday.

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That's all for now.

Talk to you soon,



Steven Pam
Steven Pam Photography