A rare technical post - so tune out if you are as averse to them as I am on most other blogs...
That said, for years I have fiddled with Epson printers - used third party inks, loaded my own with syringes (and ruined a couple of good shirts in the process).
Finally the Epson 2400 (and its bigger brothers came along) and basically, as far as I was concerned it was plug and play. I get great colour when I need it, and on Crane Silver Rag I get excellent black and white prints. Though on the latter I'm pretty picky - most of the time the prints are 98.5% there - although they are as good as most of what I ever produced in the darkroom.
But then something comes along to spoil it all. HP has a range of pro printers, the Z2100 and Z3100 range and a smaller 13" sibling the Photosmart B9180. I've been hearing good things about these. Well, today I saw some black and white prints done on one and damn - they are 99.825% there. Basically they seem to do pretty much what I want - no complaints. A show printed up on one of these would just look great. Bugger.
Trouble is, I don't want another 13" printer when the one I have is going strong. And as much as it would be nice, a 24" or 48" is out of the question. But a 17" Z series prosumer printer along the lines of the Epson 3800 (or even 4800) would just hit the spot.
So come on Hewlett Packard - we're waiting - a good sized market of creative photographers. Heck, I'll even test drive it for you. I want to see what the picture up top (and many more) look like on the HP.
Okay, Online Photographer mode is now off for another few months and back to regular programming.
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