Not sure if this is the best forum to be looking for it, but I'm in need of help, suggestion and/or advice concerning the buying of a new printer.
I'm on the path toward becoming a professional wildlife photographer, though I'm aiming to sell my work by way of a small gallery here in Thailand (which is where I live) rather than attempting to go the conventional route of trying to market myself to media outlets and stock agencies.
While Thailand is truly a wonderful country to live in for many reasons, there are a number of definite drawbacks, and one of those is not having access to professional print shops that you can rely on to not only print your work exactly as you want it with a high level of consistency, but that have the integrity not to keep copies of your work for their own purposes; case in point: I spent several days at my local print shop ordering and picking up prints of images I came back from Kenya with in 2006. One one occasion going in to pick up another batch, I was somewhat surprised to see one the best shots I'd taken of a Leopard out in the open blown up as a large print, framed, and hanging on their wall!!! :^(
Anyhow, based on the above I knew from the outset that I'd really have to buy a printer and learn how to do everything myself, which is not a learning curve I'm particularly looking forward to, as I'd much rather spend my time out in the field or working in post processing, but I don't see any other practical alternative.
While I read a lot of positive things about Epsom, I'm leaning strongly toward a Canon printer right now, as in view of the considerable amount of money I've spent up in the Canon shop in Bangkok I know they're willing to give me a pretty good price and have assured me of safe delivery and set-up (including desktop to printer calibration) at my home.
The one I'm currently looking at is the biggest they have, which is a Canon IPF 5000 and, although I've searched on the net and haven't found such a model, I'm told this one will be a Mark II.
Reason why I'm looking at such a relatively large printer is that I don't want to be limited to A3 size, as I'm hoping eventually to be able to print up and sell larger images than this, and I really don't want a similar experience to the one I had when I bought a 300mm f/2.8 lens for my camera only to discover a couple of months later that it was inadequate to fill my needs, and ended up losing a large chunk of money when I part-exchanged it for a 500mm f/4!
This is rather a long post I know, and I still have a number of questions I'd really like to ask, but I'll leave this here for now in the hope of someone responding with some advice on what I've written so far.
Thank you for your time and consideration in advance.
Kind regards,
Ashley
Posted by Garry Revesz on March 18, 2011 at 12:57 PM
Ashley, it sounds like I'm on a similar track as you; "on the path toward becoming a professional wildlife photographer". However, I'm in a major centre (Toronto) and have access to several excellent professional (and ethical) print shops. Having said that, I am leaning toward doing my own printing as well simply because I want direct control over the results and want to experiment, but I'm looking at it as a long term ramp up because it is a complex knowledge and skill set. I currently have both Epson and a Canon printers and can do up to 13" wide by almost any length. I like the Epson printers - they have never failed me and the quality is outstanding, especially when you get into the Ultrachrome K3 inks. You can check the results of an independent test lab at <http://dpnow.com/1867.html>
As you probably know, it's not always the cost of the printer that will kill you but the cost of the ink and with Epson you get more yield per cartridge in the larger reservoirs that come with larger printers so your cost per print drops, sometimes significantly.
If you're interested, my brother has a print shop in Australia and he does prints on canvas for framing up to 24" x 60" on an Epson 9880, and he's very ethical :-) If you want further info, contact me offline.
Hope that helps
Posted by Garry Revesz on March 18, 2011 at 12:59 PM
Whoops! I just realized that the link for the lab tests didn't come through. Here it is: http://dpnow.com/1867.html
Personally I wouldn't do it. I've spent the past couple of years trying to get good prints from my Epson. It's almost become a second career. Almost never are they perfect. A friend has the huge Epson (around $4000, and oh, you want ink too? That'll be another $1000+ dollars). The quality is still not what I would expect. I've been having my photos printed at one of out local "big box" stores and the quality is excellent. The price is very reasonable. If you don't like anything about it they'll do them over for free. Think of the new lens that you could buy instead. P.S. I worked and lived in Thailand for many years also. There must be places in the cities that will process your photos and will mail them to you.
Thank you Garry and Charlie for your thoughts and helpful suggestions, very much appreciated :^)
As it happens, since posting up this thread yesterday I did further research in to this subject and, much the same you both have offered, there are many conflicting views regarding comparisons between Canon and Epsom and doing one's own printing in general. All of which is of course interesting to note, but still doesn't bring me that much closer to knowing which decision I'll be best off making.
I will look more into Epsom, although in light of the relationship I've already established with the people in the Canon shop up in Bangkok, unless I'm able to find a dealer with whom I'm able to build up enough of a rapport with to develop my confidence in them being willing to offer good after sales customer care if needed, then I'll probably go with Canon.
That said, I'm now leaning more toward the smaller model (Canon Pro 9500) with the thought in mind I might be biting off more than I can chew by starting off with the larger one, seeing as i have virtually no experience of printing images myself, not to mention the extra cost of the printer, the paper, as well as the ink I'll need.
Garry: If I do end up with the smaller printer, and still can't find anyone here I can trust to print up copies of images I'd like to have larger than A3, I may well look up your brother-in-law, so thanks also for that and I'll drop you a line in any case :^)
Charlie: You could well be right about there being reliable printers in the cities, I've just never come across or heard of any. All the same, your suggestion reminded me of a photographer I was in contact with back in 2008 (actually did a 3-day photography course with him!) who lives and works in Bangkok, so I sent him an email this morning in the hope of rekindling the relationship and to find out if he could point in me in the right direction. Hope to hear back from him soon ;^)
Thanks again to you both for your time and feedback, and wishing you an excellent weekend :^)
Thank you Garry and Charlie for your thoughts and helpful suggestions, very much appreciated :^)
As it happens, since posting up this thread yesterday I did further research in to this subject and, much the same you both have offered, there are many conflicting views regarding comparisons between Canon and Epsom and doing one's own printing in general. All of which is of course interesting to note, but still doesn't bring me that much closer to knowing which decision I'll be best off making.
I will look more into Epsom, although in light of the relationship I've already established with the people in the Canon shop up in Bangkok, unless I'm able to find a dealer with whom I'm able to build up enough of a rapport with to develop my confidence in them being willing to offer good after sales customer care if needed, then I'll probably go with Canon.
That said, I'm now leaning more toward the smaller model (Canon Pro 9500) with the thought in mind I might be biting off more than I can chew by starting off with the larger one, seeing as i have virtually no experience of printing images myself, not to mention the extra cost of the printer, the paper, as well as the ink I'll need.
Garry: If I do end up with the smaller printer, and still can't find anyone here I can trust to print up copies of images I'd like to have larger than A3, I may well look up your brother-in-law, so thanks also for that and I'll drop you a line in any case :^)
Charlie: You could well be right about there being reliable printers in the cities, I've just never come across or heard of any. All the same, your suggestion reminded me of a photographer I was in contact with back in 2008 (actually did a 3-day photography course with him!) who lives and works in Bangkok, so I sent him an email this morning in the hope of rekindling the relationship and to find out if he could point in me in the right direction. Hope to hear back from him soon ;^)
Thanks again to you both for your time and feedback, and wishing you an excellent weekend :^)
Ashley
Posted by Linnet Long on March 19, 2011 at 1:31 PM
Some photo labs will also mail internationally although I realize you could have issues with the integrity of the mail. UPS or fedex? Cost is not necessarily prohibitive if you order a fair volume at one time. Just a thought. ..!
As it happens, although I forgot to mention this point here, it was something I brought up in my email to Garry yesterday. Here's what I wrote, " ... while I've given plenty of thought to sending digital copies of my images to print shops abroad and having them send the finished prints back here, aside from the cost and time it would take for them to arrive with me, another concern I have is whether or not Thai Customs would try to charge me tax or duty.
When my family and I visited Egypt and Kenya back in 2006, we sent back a fair number of items (like paintings, ornaments and statues) for our home, but before Customs would release them we had to pay 30% of what they believed the value to be in accordance with their taxation of imported handicrafts.
If we end up selling the enlarged images as of course we hope, then perhaps the extra cost of import duty can be built into our asking price, but the thought of getting stuck with a stack of large prints that we can't sell or, at best, can only break even on is, well, something of a concern as you can probably appreciate."
As Garry has suggested though (and thanks again Garry!) I can always try this with one image to start with and see what happens.
... well, pardon my French but I have to say, "Frickin' L!!!" 8^) Wow! Seriously, this is an amazing find and thank you so much for taking the time to search and let me know; I guess my web-search techniques are in as much need of further development and improvement as my photography skills - LOL ;^p
Really this is wonderful news and you can be sure I'll be paying one of their extremely professional looking labs a visit next time we're up in Bangkok, thank you so much Charlie, you having me tapping this message out while smiling ear to ear :^)
Discussion
9 repliesI'm on the path toward becoming a professional wildlife photographer, though I'm aiming to sell my work by way of a small gallery here in Thailand (which is where I live) rather than attempting to go the conventional route of trying to market myself to media outlets and stock agencies.
While Thailand is truly a wonderful country to live in for many reasons, there are a number of definite drawbacks, and one of those is not having access to professional print shops that you can rely on to not only print your work exactly as you want it with a high level of consistency, but that have the integrity not to keep copies of your work for their own purposes; case in point: I spent several days at my local print shop ordering and picking up prints of images I came back from Kenya with in 2006. One one occasion going in to pick up another batch, I was somewhat surprised to see one the best shots I'd taken of a Leopard out in the open blown up as a large print, framed, and hanging on their wall!!! :^(
Anyhow, based on the above I knew from the outset that I'd really have to buy a printer and learn how to do everything myself, which is not a learning curve I'm particularly looking forward to, as I'd much rather spend my time out in the field or working in post processing, but I don't see any other practical alternative.
While I read a lot of positive things about Epsom, I'm leaning strongly toward a Canon printer right now, as in view of the considerable amount of money I've spent up in the Canon shop in Bangkok I know they're willing to give me a pretty good price and have assured me of safe delivery and set-up (including desktop to printer calibration) at my home.
The one I'm currently looking at is the biggest they have, which is a Canon IPF 5000 and, although I've searched on the net and haven't found such a model, I'm told this one will be a Mark II.
Reason why I'm looking at such a relatively large printer is that I don't want to be limited to A3 size, as I'm hoping eventually to be able to print up and sell larger images than this, and I really don't want a similar experience to the one I had when I bought a 300mm f/2.8 lens for my camera only to discover a couple of months later that it was inadequate to fill my needs, and ended up losing a large chunk of money when I part-exchanged it for a 500mm f/4!
This is rather a long post I know, and I still have a number of questions I'd really like to ask, but I'll leave this here for now in the hope of someone responding with some advice on what I've written so far.
Thank you for your time and consideration in advance.
Kind regards,
Ashley
As you probably know, it's not always the cost of the printer that will kill you but the cost of the ink and with Epson you get more yield per cartridge in the larger reservoirs that come with larger printers so your cost per print drops, sometimes significantly.
If you're interested, my brother has a print shop in Australia and he does prints on canvas for framing up to 24" x 60" on an Epson 9880, and he's very ethical :-) If you want further info, contact me offline.
Hope that helps
As it happens, since posting up this thread yesterday I did further research in to this subject and, much the same you both have offered, there are many conflicting views regarding comparisons between Canon and Epsom and doing one's own printing in general. All of which is of course interesting to note, but still doesn't bring me that much closer to knowing which decision I'll be best off making.
I will look more into Epsom, although in light of the relationship I've already established with the people in the Canon shop up in Bangkok, unless I'm able to find a dealer with whom I'm able to build up enough of a rapport with to develop my confidence in them being willing to offer good after sales customer care if needed, then I'll probably go with Canon.
That said, I'm now leaning more toward the smaller model (Canon Pro 9500) with the thought in mind I might be biting off more than I can chew by starting off with the larger one, seeing as i have virtually no experience of printing images myself, not to mention the extra cost of the printer, the paper, as well as the ink I'll need.
Garry: If I do end up with the smaller printer, and still can't find anyone here I can trust to print up copies of images I'd like to have larger than A3, I may well look up your brother-in-law, so thanks also for that and I'll drop you a line in any case :^)
Charlie: You could well be right about there being reliable printers in the cities, I've just never come across or heard of any. All the same, your suggestion reminded me of a photographer I was in contact with back in 2008 (actually did a 3-day photography course with him!) who lives and works in Bangkok, so I sent him an email this morning in the hope of rekindling the relationship and to find out if he could point in me in the right direction. Hope to hear back from him soon ;^)
Thanks again to you both for your time and feedback, and wishing you an excellent weekend :^)
Ashley
As it happens, since posting up this thread yesterday I did further research in to this subject and, much the same you both have offered, there are many conflicting views regarding comparisons between Canon and Epsom and doing one's own printing in general. All of which is of course interesting to note, but still doesn't bring me that much closer to knowing which decision I'll be best off making.
I will look more into Epsom, although in light of the relationship I've already established with the people in the Canon shop up in Bangkok, unless I'm able to find a dealer with whom I'm able to build up enough of a rapport with to develop my confidence in them being willing to offer good after sales customer care if needed, then I'll probably go with Canon.
That said, I'm now leaning more toward the smaller model (Canon Pro 9500) with the thought in mind I might be biting off more than I can chew by starting off with the larger one, seeing as i have virtually no experience of printing images myself, not to mention the extra cost of the printer, the paper, as well as the ink I'll need.
Garry: If I do end up with the smaller printer, and still can't find anyone here I can trust to print up copies of images I'd like to have larger than A3, I may well look up your brother-in-law, so thanks also for that and I'll drop you a line in any case :^)
Charlie: You could well be right about there being reliable printers in the cities, I've just never come across or heard of any. All the same, your suggestion reminded me of a photographer I was in contact with back in 2008 (actually did a 3-day photography course with him!) who lives and works in Bangkok, so I sent him an email this morning in the hope of rekindling the relationship and to find out if he could point in me in the right direction. Hope to hear back from him soon ;^)
Thanks again to you both for your time and feedback, and wishing you an excellent weekend :^)
Ashley
As it happens, although I forgot to mention this point here, it was something I brought up in my email to Garry yesterday. Here's what I wrote, " ... while I've given plenty of thought to sending digital copies of my images to print shops abroad and having them send the finished prints back here, aside from the cost and time it would take for them to arrive with me, another concern I have is whether or not Thai Customs would try to charge me tax or duty.
When my family and I visited Egypt and Kenya back in 2006, we sent back a fair number of items (like paintings, ornaments and statues) for our home, but before Customs would release them we had to pay 30% of what they believed the value to be in accordance with their taxation of imported handicrafts.
If we end up selling the enlarged images as of course we hope, then perhaps the extra cost of import duty can be built into our asking price, but the thought of getting stuck with a stack of large prints that we can't sell or, at best, can only break even on is, well, something of a concern as you can probably appreciate."
As Garry has suggested though (and thanks again Garry!) I can always try this with one image to start with and see what happens.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond :^)
Ashley
Hang on a sec, let me check out that link ......
... well, pardon my French but I have to say, "Frickin' L!!!" 8^) Wow! Seriously, this is an amazing find and thank you so much for taking the time to search and let me know; I guess my web-search techniques are in as much need of further development and improvement as my photography skills - LOL ;^p
Really this is wonderful news and you can be sure I'll be paying one of their extremely professional looking labs a visit next time we're up in Bangkok, thank you so much Charlie, you having me tapping this message out while smiling ear to ear :^)
Wishing you an excellent week ahead :^)
Ashley