Anyone using the Canon Pixma Pro-100 Printer?

[Colin Woods]

Hi All

I have been without a photo printer since my 2005 Epson 2880 stopped working a couple of years ago. At the moment the Canon Pixma Pro-100 is on a pretty good special offer, down to $280 from $500. Is anyone using this printer and how do you get on with it. The reviews generally are pretty good, but it would be nice to hear from someone who actually uses it, rather than from someone who gets to play with one for a few days to write a review.

Colin

[CarlosGandiaga]

I've had one for about 2 years and I love it..

[Colin Woods]

Great, thanks. The reviews were all positive, but liking something for a week and living with it are not always the same. Looks like I'll be off to the shops tomorrow.

[DCSmith]

You might not like it if you print black and white.

Pretty bad metamerism under fluorescent and LED lighting.

[Martin Carlsson]

Have had the bigger brother "Pixma Pro-10" for a few years. I know the Pro-100 is a different print technology (dye based) vs the Pro-10 (pigment based). However, inks apart they share a lot of tech I think and the Pro-10 has been great. Solid as a rock and always consistent prints, never had any issues (not a single one). 

[Chuck Nacke]

Someone gave me a brand new Pro-100 (I did a favor for them) and I've been lightly using it for almost a year

for mostly prints for myself and I've been happy with it.  I've only been using Canon paper and it seems to work

well.  Even though I have never been a fan of Epson, I still prefer prints done on 100%rag 300gsm fine art paper

using an old Epson 1800 that I've had for over a decade.  For the record, some of the large prints that I did on 

art paper have been hanging in the afternoon sun for a decade and they still look like the day that they came

out of the printer. 

[Chuck Nacke]

Last note, didn't Canon give the Pro-100 away with several of their cameras?

[MDM]

16 hours ago, Colin Woods said:

Hi All

I have been without a photo printer since my 2005 Epson 2880 stopped working a couple of years ago. At the moment the Canon Pixma Pro-100 is on a pretty good special offer, down to $280 from $500. Is anyone using this printer and how do you get on with it. The reviews generally are pretty good, but it would be nice to hear from someone who actually uses it, rather than from someone who gets to play with one for a few days to write a review.

Colin

 

Be mindful that the price of the printer itself is not really the main issue, it's the real world price of the ink that matters. Consumer and prosumer printers are like razors - it is often cheaper to buy a new razor with blades than it is to buy replacement blades. They sell the printer cheap to get you to buy the inks. And the real world price of the ink is difficult to determine as the figures quoted by manufacturers relate to continuous usage whereas in the real world a lot of ink gets used in cleaning the printer when it us turned off and on again - similar to fuel usage in cars and mileage quotes from manufacturers.

 

There are only really two brands on the market for photo quality printers: Canon and Epson. It is always difficult to compare printers as most people do not have current versions of equivalent printers so it often comes down to somebody being very happy with the results without being able to actually compare with anything else.

 

In my opinion the SC-Px00 Epson printers which use the newish Ultrachrome inks are really superb in terms of print quality. I have the SC-P600 and the print quality is far better than my previous Canon printer (PixmaPro 9000). Ink consumption is also much better as the Canon used vast amounts cleaning itself.  I have only ever had to do one deep clean on the Epson. It has worked perfectly after being out of action for a month and doesn't appear to consume a lot when it cleans itself. 

 

But the Pixma-9000 was a previous generation so perhaps comparisons are unfair.  In fact this is a case where an unbiased comparative review if available is preferable to a user review really.

 

 

[The Blinking Eye]

On 30/08/2018 at 09:52, Colin Woods said:

Hi All

I have been without a photo printer since my 2005 Epson 2880 stopped working a couple of years ago. At the moment the Canon Pixma Pro-100 is on a pretty good special offer, down to $280 from $500. Is anyone using this printer and how do you get on with it. The reviews generally are pretty good, but it would be nice to hear from someone who actually uses it, rather than from someone who gets to play with one for a few days to write a review.

Colin

 

Did you buy it? Do you like it?

[Colblimp]

I use a Mitsubishi D70DW event printer.  Expensive, but media is cheap and it can print a 6x4 in 8 seconds.  As the name suggests, it's great for events too and it earns me a shed load of money.  Win!

[RCS]

I've got the Canon Pixma Pro-100. Very good, but the price of ink is crazy (as MDM warns, above) - c. £100 for a full set. Given that I'll sometimes go a few weeks or months between uses, I suspect that the tanks often dry out before they empty, meaning I'm not even getting full value for my money.

Last time I (nervously) tried buying cheapo non-Canon ink, at £30 for a set. I made a few (colour) test prints, compared them to earlier Canon-ink prints, and couldn't tell the difference. More importantly, the printer didn't break!

[Colin Woods]

13 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

Did you buy it? Do you like it?

No, I still do not have a printer. When the world re-opens and I can sell direct to the public at markets I will get another printer, but until then I am living without one.

[MDM]

9 hours ago, RCS said:

I've got the Canon Pixma Pro-100. Very good, but the price of ink is crazy (as MDM warns, above) - c. £100 for a full set. Given that I'll sometimes go a few weeks or months between uses, I suspect that the tanks often dry out before they empty, meaning I'm not even getting full value for my money.

Last time I (nervously) tried buying cheapo non-Canon ink, at £30 for a set. I made a few (colour) test prints, compared them to earlier Canon-ink prints, and couldn't tell the difference. More importantly, the printer didn't break!

 

I wouldn't put cheapo inks in a quality printer. I would consider using 3rd party inks by a company that specialises in photographic printing such as Permajet but you need to have the right printer and be making a lot of prints. I use the Epson own inks for the amount I print - expensive but beautiful quality. If I spend time and energy calibrating a printer setup then I won't want to change it by using different inks. Printing is the real test of good colour management. 

 

Tell the difference is very subjective. Skin tone is one of the real tests for tell the difference as well as black and white which will really show any colour casts. There are also questions about longevity and fading which certainly won't be apparent perhaps for some time. When I first started printing the prints used to fade really fast. Nowadays my prints don't seem to fade even after several years. And what about cleaning the printer internally?  

 

 

[MDM]

14 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

 

Did you buy it? Do you like it?

 

The problem with deciding on a printer in this way is that you probably will not get an objective user review as very few users will have two equivalent printers from Canon and Epson. So, for example,  I have owned both but the Canon was from 2008 and the Epson from 2015 and the Epson is far better but I am comparing it with an older Canon so it is an unfair comparison. You will also find personal bias towards a particular brand which is not helpful. The things you need to think about are how much printing are you intending to do, what maximum size of print, what is the cost of ink (major consideration) and how much do you intend to spend on the printer. As mentioned above, the cost of the printer is often secondary to the cost of inks. Beware buying end of line printers as well as the inks may go up in price as they become more scarce. 

[Harry Harrison]

I don't know the Canon, but I can reiterate that ink costs are considerable, up to about £1000/litre, maybe more, and then there's the paper! Cleaning cycles can get through eye-watering amounts of ink if you're not careful as MDM says.

 

I think some new Epson printers are cobbled so that it is impossible for 3rd party suppliers to provide either cartridges or refill ink for them, that seems to be the way it's going, even if on the face of it that seems to breach anti competition laws in some countries. I think the Canon has user replaceable heads, at least I know some Canon's do. Having followed a professional printer forum for a while I know that they can go wrong quite easily, particularly the heads (multiple cleaning cycles are to be avoided) and that the standard Epson charge for one of their professional printers is about £2000. Actually they are extraordinarily complex machines and clearly do an astounding job when they're working fine.

 

I think Keith Cooper at Northlight does do thorough reviews, here's his on the Pro 100:

 

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pixma-pro-100-printer-review/

 

and also a piece on ink use:

 

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/printer-ink-use-and-waste/

 

Actually there's loads of good stuff on his site.

 

 

 

 

[MizBrown]

I had a little four color Epson and while it wasn't a dedicated photo printer, it could do decent enough prints, but I didn't use it enough to keep it in good working order.  If you're not going to print every week, you're probably going to be better off finding a good printer and paying to have it done.  I've got some prints on the wall from a local photographer who uses his printer enough to keep it working, so I'll probably go that route.

 

Basically, it's very useful to spend time printing, but unless you are doing it often enough that the ink doesn't clog the system, paying to have it done might make more sense.  My Nicaraguan printer does as good a job as my pro camera shop printer in the DC area did. 

[sb photos]

7 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

I had a little four color Epson and while it wasn't a dedicated photo printer, it could do decent enough prints, but I didn't use it enough to keep it in good working order.  If you're not going to print every week, you're probably going to be better off finding a good printer and paying to have it done.  I've got some prints on the wall from a local photographer who uses his printer enough to keep it working, so I'll probably go that route.

 

Basically, it's very useful to spend time printing, but unless you are doing it often enough that the ink doesn't clog the system, paying to have it done might make more sense.  My Nicaraguan printer does as good a job as my pro camera shop printer in the DC area did. 

 

My last printer was an A3+ Epson R2400. It produced excellent archival prints on a variety of papers. Unfortunately it was used less and less, then after 12 years it suffered from a clog from hell. I always intended to add a CIS but never did. Folding up a wad of paper towels, soaking in Isopropyl Alcohol and Ammonia, placing under where the head passed, and manually working it back and forward didn't clear the clog. Since then I've used two labs when I have a requirement for prints, and for general use a Brother mono laser printer.

[MDM]

2 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

 

 

I think Keith Cooper at Northlight does do thorough reviews, here's his on the Pro 100:

 

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pixma-pro-100-printer-review/

 

and also a piece on ink use:

 

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/printer-ink-use-and-waste/

 

Actually there's loads of good stuff on his site.

 

 

 

 

Absolutely agree. Invaluable resource for info on printers and other things photographic. 

[MDM]

3 minutes ago, sb photos said:

 

My last printer was an A3+ Epson R2400. It produced excellent archival prints on a variety of papers. Unfortunately it was used less and less, then after 12 years it suffered from a clog from hell. I always intended to add a CIS but never did. Folding up a wad of paper towels, soaking in Isopropyl Alcohol and Ammonia, placing under where the head passed, and manually working it back and forward didn't clear the clog. Since then I've used two labs when I have a requirement for prints, and for general use a Brother mono laser printer.

My Epson SC-P600 is amazing in that regard - it has never clogged and hardly ever does a big auto clean thing except when I go from photo black to matte black inks (the annoying thing with a lot of Epson printers). I printed from it earlier having not used it for about 6 weeks and it printed perfectly with no loss of ink from cleaning. The Canon 9000 I used to have would waste loads of ink cleaning itself. But as I said above that was an older generation and maybe the new ones are better. 

[Vincent Lowe]

1 hour ago, sb photos said:

 

My last printer was an A3+ Epson R2400. It produced excellent archival prints on a variety of papers. Unfortunately it was used less and less, then after 12 years it suffered from a clog from hell. I always intended to add a CIS but never did. Folding up a wad of paper towels, soaking in Isopropyl Alcohol and Ammonia, placing under where the head passed, and manually working it back and forward didn't clear the clog. Since then I've used two labs when I have a requirement for prints, and for general use a Brother mono laser printer.

 

I'm still using a R2400 and it's still giving good results.  I did have a CIS system but after not using it for a long time (well over a year) the ink in the flexible CIS tubes clogged.  The ink in the reservoirs was still usable though and I've now changed over to the Marrutt refillable cartridge system which works a treat.  Works out a lot cheaper than Epson cartridges.  I'm using Fotospeed Ultra 4K inks.

 

Of course, after over a year without use, the print heads were well and truly clogged - all of them.  As you found, just cleaning the heads is a waste of time - the ink dries in the tiny tubes feeding the ink.  I used Magic Bullet printer cleaning fluid, which is well named.  It is injected into the print head from above, left for a few hours then bingo!  I think I left it overnight 2 or 3 hours and after a couple of head cleaning cycles the printer was up and running.  It's supplied with only one syringe but I bought a few more so I could do all the colours at the same time.  A bit pricey but it lasts ages (as long as you don't let the ink dry too often..😎) and certainly a lot cheaper than sending the printer for repair or buying a new printer.  Highly recommended.

 

Edit - just to add, I bought a set of ultra-cheap inks (from stinkyink I think) to check the printer was working okay before ordering the refillable cartridges and the Fotospeed inks.  They gave surprisingly good results but I can't vouch for their longevity.

 

 

Edited February 24, 2021 by Vincent Lowe

[Harry Harrison]

7 hours ago, sb photos said:

My last printer was an A3+ Epson R2400

I have a friend who still uses its predecessor, the R2100, he just gets it out of the cupboard and it works. In fact the simpler design with the cartridges on the head itself is more reliable, once tubes are required to get the ink to the head then there is a risk of air leaks over time and of course ink drying in the tubes. The downside is that the cartridges are tiny and so the ink is frighteningly expensive by volume. I've had a big 'pro' A2 printer (Epson 4000) that suffered a lot from blockages on individual nozzles and you could get through £25 of ink clearing it if it sat for a long time. However - I think actually that there is usually a simple physical problem that causes this and not the printer itself, with that printer there is a wiper blade that cleans the bottom of the head, a capping station where the head sits that has a rubber seal that can harden and 'dampers' which are in fact very fine filters that act as reservoirs before the ink gets to the head. All will deteriorate with age or lack of maintenance but Epson  will never mention this. Thanks to Youtube you can do this all yourself.

[The Blinking Eye]

22 hours ago, RCS said:

I've got the Canon Pixma Pro-100. Very good, but the price of ink is crazy (as MDM warns, above) - c. £100 for a full set. Given that I'll sometimes go a few weeks or months between uses, I suspect that the tanks often dry out before they empty, meaning I'm not even getting full value for my money.

Last time I (nervously) tried buying cheapo non-Canon ink, at £30 for a set. I made a few (colour) test prints, compared them to earlier Canon-ink prints, and couldn't tell the difference. More importantly, the printer didn't break!

I always use knock off print brands. Have not had much trouble doing that.

[The Blinking Eye]

14 hours ago, Colin Woods said:

No, I still do not have a printer. When the world re-opens and I can sell direct to the public at markets I will get another printer, but until then I am living without one.

 

I've been more than a year without a printer of any kind. I desperately need a basic printer for work. My old Canon inkjet broke down. Then I saw the Pro-100 and thought maybe I should start printing out my photos, which I have never done.

[The Blinking Eye]

13 hours ago, MDM said:

 

The problem with deciding on a printer in this way is that you probably will not get an objective user review as very few users will have two equivalent printers from Canon and Epson. So, for example,  I have owned both but the Canon was from 2008 and the Epson from 2015 and the Epson is far better but I am comparing it with an older Canon so it is an unfair comparison. You will also find personal bias towards a particular brand which is not helpful. The things you need to think about are how much printing are you intending to do, what maximum size of print, what is the cost of ink (major consideration) and how much do you intend to spend on the printer. As mentioned above, the cost of the printer is often secondary to the cost of inks. Beware buying end of line printers as well as the inks may go up in price as they become more scarce. 

 

Buying anything online is a long stretch into hell, but especially buying a printer. I am so tired of researching every purchase ad infinitum. That's why I have gone over a year without a printer. I loved my Canon Pixma 922 and super annoyed I have to figure out a new solution now.

[The Blinking Eye]

11 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

I don't know the Canon, but I can reiterate that ink costs are considerable, up to about £1000/litre, maybe more, and then there's the paper! Cleaning cycles can get through eye-watering amounts of ink if you're not careful as MDM says.

 

I think some new Epson printers are cobbled so that it is impossible for 3rd party suppliers to provide either cartridges or refill ink for them, that seems to be the way it's going, even if on the face of it that seems to breach anti competition laws in some countries. I think the Canon has user replaceable heads, at least I know some Canon's do. Having followed a professional printer forum for a while I know that they can go wrong quite easily, particularly the heads (multiple cleaning cycles are to be avoided) and that the standard Epson charge for one of their professional printers is about £2000. Actually they are extraordinarily complex machines and clearly do an astounding job when they're working fine.

 

I think Keith Cooper at Northlight does do thorough reviews, here's his on the Pro 100:

 

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/canon-pixma-pro-100-printer-review/

 

and also a piece on ink use:

 

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/printer-ink-use-and-waste/

 

Actually there's loads of good stuff on his site.

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you!