Case Study
Award-winning landscape photographer and Canon pro Andy Farrer on using the Canon IMAGEPROGRAF PRO-2000 printer
“I’ve aways enjoyed the process of seeing images progress from camera to print. It is, for me, the ultimate way to bring your images to life. Photography is more than likes, faves and shares.
Since shooting with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, I’ve been printing on an Epson 3880. Having an A2 printer and being able to control the quality of prints for galleries, exhibitions, fulfil my own photo website orders and print for a few local photographers has been great. However, over the past few years I have been needing to outsource prints larger than I can print in-house more and more frequently. Now I’m using the 50-megapixel Canon EOS 5DS, I wanted something to show off the larger image files, and decided that a large-format printer was the logical way to go.
The large prints I had been outsourcing were produced on a Canon, so I was keen to investigate the newest models for myself. Ultimately, it all boiled down to quality, running cost, size and ease of use, so I went for the Canon IMAGEPROGRAF PRO-2000.
The first impressions were very good. Although the printer is a lot larger than a desktop printer, its footprint is actually pretty modest and it wasn’t nearly as big as I had feared. The basket that catches the prints folds away entirely when not in use, and the black design with the red stripe along the front is a nice nod to the L-series lenses (and looks very cool!).
Installing the software, ink tanks and loading a roll of paper was dead easy and the on-screen instructions, displayed on the printer panel, quickly clarified each step so I was ready to print very quickly.
The large-format print quality is staggering. I did a few side-by-side comparisons and the detail and incredible richness of the blacks took me aback. I had never thought of the print quality of the Epson as being particularly bad, but alongside the prints from the Canon IMAGEPROGRAF PRO-2000 they looked decidedly soft.
I’ve printed a lot at 24x16in with great success, but could easily go the other way on the roll for 24x36in prints with my 5DS images. I printed one image at 24x48in and it was epic! I’ve also printed in excess of 40 metres of prints so far, all printed at the highest quality, and the ink levels have barely moved yet.
Better still the PRO-2000 doesn’t waste a single drop of ink when switching from photo black to matt black as it has its own proper ink head for each. If, like me, you print on both glossy/lustre and matt/fine art papers, it used to mean printing in batches to minimize wasting ink, which in reality is an utter pain.
The Canon IMAGEPROGRAF PRO-2000 uses 12 pigment inks including a Chroma Optimizer (to over-simplify their technology, it’s a clear coat) which optimizes contrast reproduction and adds additional UV protection. The extra inks in the Canon are blue and red, providing wider colour gamut and greater economy and, ultimately, awesome large-format prints.”
The print quality is staggering. The detail and incredible richness of the blacks took me aback