Long story short: After “years” of waiting, reading, and evaluating, I finally managed to decide: I bought an HP 8850, figuring out that this is the “cheapest” way to get into Fine Art Printing, with a printer that is more modern than the Dye A4 printer I already have and supports pigment inks.
My other candidates were:
- Epson 2880. Dropped it because of the tiny ink cartridges (11 ml) and the need to switch the cartridge (and waste ink) on any change from Matte Black to Photo Black. As I do not know yet which paper types I will use most, I want to be flexible. The HP has both installed in parallel.
- Canon Pixma Pro 9500. I skipped this choice relatively quickly after reading a test in a magazine (I think it was the FineArtPrinter), and my previous printer was a Canon (the i950), which left me disappointed. Well, I never used the original inks (just too expensive), and was not satisfied with the quality of the KMP inks I used instead. Anyway, I wouldn’t ever consider using Dye inks again after I had sniffed into the world of Fine Art Printing on a workshop held by Hermann Will this spring.
- HP 9180. Well, about 150€ more than the 8850 it’s only advantage would have been the Ethernet port. The display I think I can spare, and the fact that it can work with media stronger than 0.7mm does not seem to be a killer application for me (now).
- Epson 3800. This was actually the hardest decision. I really like quality products, and the fact that this was the highly recommended model on the workshop I took didn’t make it easier to skip it. But: 1200€ is a different initial investment than 480€ for the 8850. A2 is a huge advantage, of course, over A3+, but the desk space required for the 3800 in operation seemed be larger as well, and that is – as usual – at a premium at my home.
The HP was endorsed on the “Meet the Experts” workshop I attended in Munich on October 23 this year, and photographer Robin Preston – who does amazing things with cars – couldn’t praise the 9180 enough for it’s ease of use and color predictability. I just figure the 8850 is not worse.
I’ll keep you updated on my first impressions.
Oh, and the German Mac user group “Mac-Treff München” reported nicely on this workshop. They even have a photo of me!
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