Long-Term Report: Canon PIXMA PRO-1 (Review Part II)

Canon PIXMA PRO-1 Photo Printer (Adorama, Amazon, and B&H)

Today is the 1 year anniversary date that I’ve been using my Canon PIXMA PRO-1 printer, so I thought I’d follow up with a long-term report about how I’ve enjoyed this printer over the last year. Here’s the first two articles I’ve done about this printer in case you’d like to catch up on the prior articles before reading this sequel:

• REVIEW: Canon PIXMA PRO-1–Part I
• Which Printer Should I Buy? Epson or Canon?

New Firmware & Drivers

If you’ve are a PRO-1 owner and haven’t upgraded your firmware yet, now is the time to do so. Readers in the United States can update here:

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/standard_display/PRO-1_firmware_upgrade

This update adds better default color, increased printable area (5mm closer to the paper edge), Canvas media setting, and improve messaging about the ink levels.

After your firmware is updated, nice links are included to get all of your drivers and software up to date as well.

Living with the PRO-1

While this isn’t the speediest printer in the world, I enjoyed using this printer. It’s been reliable with no clogged print heads which even included a long-term endurance test where I did not run the printer for 6 months (due to testing of other products). I was able to fire the printer up, replace a few inks that were low, print a test pattern (which came clean) and print without any problems. I can’t go a week without massive head clogs in my Epson 4900, so this is a really big deal!

It’s Ink Thirsty

The ink consumption never improved on the second set of inks, so I’d classify this as a thirsty printer when it comes to ink. It’s small cartridges mean that you are going to go through one to two boxes of ink each year in what I’d call light duty usage. The inks don’t deplete evenly either, so you’ll want a box of all inks handy at all times. This makes this a rather expensive printer to operate compared to models with larger ink tanks.

Great Profile Availability

Even more so than most other printers, you’ll want to always use printer profiles for your papers rather than choosing “Printer Manages Color”. I felt the printer managed color was too green and not to my liking.

One area where Epson rules is the availability of great paper profiles for nearly every paper on the planet, but Canon has done a phenomenal job of working with paper distributors to have great printer profiles readily available. In fact, during my year of testing there wasn’t a single case where I had to generate my own paper profile for third party papers. This was a pleasant surprise for a printer that hasn’t been on the market all that long.

Photoshop CC

Using the latest firmware, I had no problems printing from my Windows 7 system using both the XPS and standard OS driver in the latest version of Photoshop CC (14.1.1 x64) at the time this article was written. I had printed using my Macbook Pro with Snow Leopard with the previous driver and had no problems, but I didn’t test on the Mac with the latest firmware simply because the Mac is not part of my standard print workflow.

My preference was for the standard OS driver and most often I was pleased with Perceptual as the rendering intent (whereas on my Epson’s I use Relative Colormetric most often). I saw no obvious advantage to the XPS driver.

Lightroom 5 Support

Using the latest firmware, I had no problems printing from my Windows 7 system using both the XPS and standard OS driver in the latest version of Lightroom (5.2) at the time this article was written. I had printed using my Macbook Pro with Snow Leopard with the previous driver and had no problems, but I didn’t test on the Mac with the latest firmware simply because the Mac is not part of my standard print workflow.

4x6 Prints

One area where the cheapo small printers shine and larger printers tend to fail is in handling small 4x6” prints. I’m pleased to say the PRO-1 makes printing this size paper fairly hassle free. Here’s an article that shows you how to do it:

• Getting Great 4x6 Prints Without Any Hassle–Part I of II

Conclusion

Overall I’ve been happy with my Canon PIIXMA PRO-1 printer. It’s been reliable and produces great results on the papers using the sizes that I care about.

It’s a very large printer so I’ve had to put it on the floor of my studio instead of a more ideal desktop location. This seems to translate into great build quality though as this printer is built like a tank.

The absence of a front panel LCD really bugs me when I’m changing inks, but the rest of the time the software tools for alerting me to matters that need my attention have been fine. I still wish Canon would add a small and cheap display, plus throw in wireless to make it as easy to use as the Canon consumer multifunction printers.

As a print master with both Epson and Canon printer experience, I’ve been very satisfied with both the color and B&W prints made with this printer. They are every bit as good as what I get with my Epson and large format Canon printers.

My future feedback for Canon would be to make this printer have a smaller footprint, weigh less, add wireless networking and large capacity print tanks. With these issued addressed, I think this could be a compelling choice for people retiring their older Epson printers.

Where to order

Please support this blog by buying your Canon PRO-1 Photo Printer at Adorama, Amazon, or B&H using links from this blog. NOTE: Your cart must be empty before clicking the links for me to get credit. Thanks for your support!

You can also now purchase the PIXMA PRO-1 direct from Canon and get FREE shipping when you use the coupon code SHIP75 and order more than $75 USD worth of products. Click the image below and search for PRO-1 to learn more:

Other articles you may enjoy

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy these:

• Choosing the right Canon printer
• REVIEW: Canon PIXMA PRO-1–Part I
• Canon PRO-10 Review
• Which Printer Should I Buy? Epson or Canon?
• Getting Great 4x6 Prints Without Any Hassle–Part I of II
• Printing Series 
• Lucia EX Ink Rain Test
• Canon Fine Art Bright White 330gsm Review
• Canon Premium RC Luster Photographic Glossy Paper Review & Tutorial
• Canon 1D Mark IV New Users Guide / Shoppers Guide
• Canon 1D X (Real World Usage)
• Canon 5D Mark III First Look (For Parents Version)
• Canon 6D (vs Canon 5DM3 & D600)
• Canon EOS M
• Canon 600EX-RT Flash First Look (ST-E3 RT)
• Canon 40mm f/2.8 STM Pancake Lens
• Canon 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye Zoom
• Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II (vs 24-70 f/4L IS Comparison)
• Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM First Look
• Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS vs 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 DO
• Canon 200-400mm f/4L IS with 1.4X Extender
• Canon G1X vs G12 vs Fujifilm X10
• Canon G15 vs s110 vs G12
• Canon Rebel T5i/700D
• Canon iPF6400/6450 vs iPF6300/6350 Comparison
• Canon SX-80 Pro Photography Projector

Disclosure

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you a penny more, but it does help to support future articles like this.

Canon Video Gold Mine on YouTube

Canon Videos on its YouTube Landing Page

Canon North America has done a fabulous job of consolidating all of its videos in one place at http://www.youtube.com/CanonUSA.  I’m very impressed with the structure and design of this site, and the quality of the material is fantastic!

If you haven’t discovered this resource yet, you are missing out!

Other articles you may enjoy

If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy these:

• Canon 1D Mark IV New Users Guide / Shoppers Guide
• Canon 1D X (Real World Usage)
• Canon 5D Mark III First Look (For Parents Version)
• Canon 6D (vs Canon 5DM3 & D600)
• Canon EOS M
• Canon 600EX-RT Flash First Look (ST-E3 RT)
• Canon 40mm f/2.8 STM Pancake Lens
• Canon 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye Zoom
• Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II (vs 24-70 f/4L IS Comparison)
• Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM First Look
• Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS vs 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 DO
• Canon G12 vs S95
• Canon G1X vs G12 vs Fujifilm X10Save
• Canon G15 vs s110 vs G12
• Canon Powershot s100
• Canon Rebel T4i
• Canon iPF6400/6450 vs iPF6300/6350 Comparison
• Canon PRO-1 Printer
• Canon Remote Releases and Cheap Alternatives
• Canon SX-80 Pro Photography Projector

Disclosure

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you a penny more, but it does help to support future articles like this.

REVIEW: Canon PIXMA PRO-1–Part I

Canon PIXMA PRO-1 Photo Printer (Adorama, Amazon, and B&H)

I love my Canon iPF6450 printer! It’s just so darn easy to use and headache free that it makes me wonder why all printers can’t be like it.

Well the folks at Canon have decided to up the game on their non-large format printers by offering the new PRO series printers which offer pro level quality prints at consumer prices and ease of use. The flagship of this series is the PRO-1 but beginning in early 2013 there will be two more models (both featuring AirPrint):

• Canon Pixma Pro-10 Photo Inkjet Printer – a little slower and 2 fewer inks, but add AirPrint
• Canon Pixma Pro-100 Photo Inkjet Printer – much slower and less inks, but more consumer features

I first saw the PRO-1 last year at the PhotoPlus Expo and was impressed at its stats which clearly made it a competitor to the hot Epson R3000 and the legendary Epson Stylus Pro 3880. The prints I saw at the show were amazing, and others agreed so it instantly became a hot seller. In fact, this printer was so hot that I just recently got my review unit – nearly a year after it was promised!

In the first part of my review I give a high-level summary of my early observations while using this printer.

Setup

Unlike some products where I don’t recommend using the CD and just jumping ahead to the web to get the latest drivers, this is a product where you MUST install the CD first. There’s configurations available if you don’t want all of the bundled software, but I highly recommend you install from the disc first and then get the updates from the web. The Canon software will help you with getting updates as well.

I did notice that Canon doesn’t like you to have more than one version of Photoshop installed, so if you do it will typically only install its software to be visible in the oldest version of Photoshop.

Beyond that everything worked seamlessly. One odd quirk though was that despite wanting to use the network cable for my connection, this printer still requires you to use a USB cable during setup. It does this to send commands to configure the printer on the network so there’s a benefit from it, but it’s a problem if you don’t have a long enough USB cable. You MUST connect via USB during setup for the port setup feature, so keep this in mind (or have a laptop handy).

The port setup feature worked seamlessly so that when I went to my Mac (running 10.8.2), I was easily able to add this printer without having any USB cables connected to it. I was pretty pleased about that!

Printing from Mac and PC is identical and using the XPS driver on the PC you can allegedly get 16-bit printing, but I never noticed any visible advantage of 16-bit printing on OS X or Windows.

Gorgeous Color Prints

From the first print that rolled out of the printer until now, every print that has come out of my PRO-1 has been excellent. I was a bit skeptical of the consumer looking Easy-PhotoPrint Pro app, but if you use it properly it works very well. The preview image doesn’t scale high resolution images very well so it may look bad, and it only uses the sRGB color space which means images with a bigger color space will look too read/orange on wide gamut displays like the NEC PA Series.

Printing has been reasonably quiet and fast for the quality of the images it makes. Now if you aren’t used to printing with a high quality ink jet then it might feel a bit slow. However, anytime you see paper moving while printing from an ink then it’s a fast printer!

Brilliant Grayscale Mode

My favorite feature of the Canon Easy-PhotoPrint Pro driver is the grayscale mode’s color adjustment dialog. The reason why it is so cool is because of its pattern print feature whereby you can print out a page full of test patterns (as big or as small as you like) that show the variations of the color or brightness & contrast so that you can get the perfect print on your final job. Here’s an example of this feature in action:

Pattern Print let’s you choose how to you want a sheet of test patterns printed

Print Preview shows the results before you print,
which sometimes is all you need

Your test sheet shows you all of the variations, so using smaller test patterns or
bigger thumbnails on larger paper is more effective than a letter sheet
of full-size images as shown here

The net result is that using the Warm Tone and the Brightness at +10 and Contrast at 0, I had an image that matched my best Epson 3880 and R3000 Advanced Black & White (ABW) print using Dark Tone and Warm Color Toning. The Epson ABW had a more satisfying warm tone that was about 20% more brown/sepia, but the two were identical in tonal contrast.

Sadly when you go to Tone Custom there’s no way to apply the values from the Warm Tone (or other tone options). This means there’s no easy way to tweak the warm tone to make it warmer like Epson offers. You could potentially do a Pattern Print with Color variations to try to figure it out, but that’s much harder and would require a few big sheets of paper and a lot of patience.

NOTE: If any of my readers have mapped the tones to color balance values, please let me know.

Small Print Handling

I printed several 4x6 sheets borderless and it just worked perfectly. I had no issues with scuffing, unwanted white borders, ink on the edges, etc… – it just worked.

It’s clear that Canon has added a little saturation to its profiles so if color accuracy is your goal you might need to desaturate a little before printing. However, most of my images – even those straight out of the camera – looked delicious straight out of the printer.

Ink Consumption

Ink levels after four 13x9, three 4x6, and seven Letter size prints

The ink from the initial cartridges (which are always small and go fast) seemed to be disappearing at an alarmingly fast rate – especially the matte black ink since I had only printed photo black images. I know that Canon will use Matte Black in their photo black prints, but I was shocked to see this much gone already. Hopefully this is just initial ink cartridge issues as this rate of ink consumption could get expensive quick!

Bundled Software

Lots of consumer oriented bundled software is included

Canon seemed to pull a lot of the software from their consumer printers and included them here in this PRO-1 which seems to be targeted to what I call prosumers – consumers who purchase pro photography gear. The advantage to this approach is that you’ll find some things that will make your life easier (and keep the significant other happy), yet you can still print pro worthy prints to give to clients.

Facial Recognition Asset Management

Faster and Easier than iPhoto/Aperture Facial Recognition

I was very pleased and surprised to discover that facial recognition software was included and even more shocked at how well it worked. It seemed to be more usable and faster than Windows Live Gallery and iPhoto, so if you haven’t had a chance to explore facial recognition in your images you are in for a real treat!

Helpful Troubleshooting and Maintenance Features

Troubleshoot is in clear English and is actually helpful

Quite a bit can be done from the comfort of your chair
thanks to its remote maintenance control panel

It’s clear with this product that Canon has made a great effort to make this printer easy to use and maintain for the average consumer. I was very pleased with some additional features not even found on my iPF6300.

Papers Performance & Profiles

So far I have tried out two of Canon’s papers:

• Photo Paper Plus Glossy II – This is nice traditional glossy paper with a good default profile that gives nice warm and saturated prints that people will typically find pleasing. Your images from your Canon camera can be printed directly to this paper from the in-camera JPEG with surprisingly good results – even with no post-processing.
• Photo Paper Plus Semi-Gloss – This is a fantastic paper that looks better than a luster without all of the texture in luster that reflects the light making it hard to view at certain angles. This paper is viewable from many angles and looks great. It’s a thin consumer paper so it doesn’t have a fine art feel, but it works great just like the Glossy II with unprocessed in-camera JPEG images straight from your Canon camera.

I’ve also tried one third party paper - lford Galerie Prestige Smooth Pearl Photo Paper. ilford is one of the many third party paper OEM’s that treat the PRO-1 as an important printer on their site – featuring photos and PRO-1 specific info. This paper is a real fine art paper that has a substantial feel and creates wonderful prints.

Canon has even made it easy to find information about compatible third party papers and included links to get paper profiles from third parties here. It’s not perfect since some of the third parties don’t direct link to where you need to be, but it’s a good start – especially for the novice printer user.

Auto Profiles

Like my iPF6300, if you have media type configurations that pair with a specific paper profile then choosing the Auto printer profile will automatically select the correct profile for the print job (including the correct print quality version). For the PRO-1 I would only do this for Canon papers included with the printer, but if you stick with just Canon papers this make the paper profile headache much less of an issue.

What’s Missing

My other Canon printer is an iPF6450 which features the Accounting Manager component within Status Monitor so I can get my exact costs of my prints taking into account the amount of ink and paper used for each print. This is super helpful when billing clients or giving a quote to a customer. Sadly, the PRO-1 – despite being the only “pro” printer that Canon Professional Services recognizes in its points system – doesn’t offer this feature.

Another painful omission is its brilliant Photoshop Export module which I’ve come to know and love more than that the included Easy-PhotoPrint Pro application because of its great soft proofing support and consistency across operating systems.

The lack of a front LCD panel really bugs the crap out of me. When something goes wrong you usually get an indication in a window on your computer, but honestly I wish they had the LCD too. It’s just one of those things like the transmission shifter for your car that really doesn’t need to exist on most modern day cars with electronic transmissions. However, it feels awkward when it’s not there and that’s how I feel about the missing LCD panel. It’s especially handy during setup and paper jams.

Conclusion

Click here to read part II of my review.

Where to Buy

Please support this blog by buying your Canon PRO-1 Photo Printer at Adorama, Amazon, or B&H using links from this blog. NOTE: Your cart must be empty before clicking the links for me to get credit. Thanks for your support!

You can also now purchase the PIXMA PRO-1 direct from Canon.

Other Articles You Might Enjoy

If you liked this article, you may also enjoy these:

• Long-Term Report: Canon PIXMA PRO-1 (Review Part II)
• Printing Series – for lots of good info on Canon & Epson printers, papers, experts and more
• Canon iPF6400/6450 vs iPF6300/6350 Comparison
• Choosing the right Canon printer
• Canon PIXMA PRO-1 Review
• Canon imagePROGRAF® 6400/6450 Comparison to the iPF6300/6350
• Canon Fine Art Bright White 330gsm Review
• Canon Premium RC Luster Photographic Glossy Paper Review & Tutorial
• How to print a 4x6 strip of prints without wasting paper
• Lucia EX Ink Rain Test
• Canon 1D Mark IV New Users Guide / Shoppers Guide
• Canon 1D X (Real World Usage)
• Canon 5D Mark III First Look (For Parents Version)
• Canon 6D (vs Canon 5DM3 & D600)
• Canon 70D (Part II)
• Canon Rebel T5i/700D
• Canon EOS M
• Canon 600EX-RT Flash First Look (ST-E3 RT)
• Canon 40mm f/2.8 STM Pancake Lens
• Canon 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye Zoom
• Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II (vs 24-70 f/4L IS Comparison)
• Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM First Look
• Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS vs 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 DO
• Canon 200-400mm f/4L IS with 1.4X Extender
• Canon G1X vs G12 vs Fujifilm X10
• Canon G15 vs s110 vs G12
• Canon Remote Releases and Cheap Alternatives
• Canon SX-80 Pro Photography Projector

I also encourage you to explore the right column of this blog for a wealth of information on a wide variety of articles.

Ron’s Printing 101 eBook

NOW AVAILABLE - Click Here to learn more

• Just getting started in printing?
• Haven’t bought a printer yet?
• Looking to move up to the higher end pro printers?
• Wondering if third party papers or ink refills are a good idea?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then you might find my Printing 101 eBook helpful. While it doesn’t feature anything about the Canon PRO-1 printer, it does have a wealth of information about what’s involved with printing (sadly it’s not as easy as file print).

Disclosure

Canon has provided me with this printer and papers for the purpose this review.

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission which helps to support this blog. Thanks for your support!

Nikon D600, Epson R3000 and Canon PIXMA PRO-1 First Look Report

I’m happy to report that I have some great new products on hand that I’m reviewing with full reviews coming to this blog in the near future. In this article I briefly mention each of the products and what my first thoughts are after unboxing and playing with them a bit.

Canon PIXMA PRO-1

Canon PIXMA PRO-1 Photo Printer (Adorama, Amazon, and B&H)

Oddly enough, this is the only printer that Canon’s Certified Professional Service (CPS) recognizes as a pro printer! While I’m skeptical of the inks compared to the wonderful Lucia EX inks found on my Canon imagePROGRAF 6300, early signs show that this is a nice high quality personal photo printer.

If you stick with the included disk, the setup is a snap. In addition the port setup feature worked seamlessly so that when I went to my Mac (running 10.8.2), I was easily able to add this printer without having any USB cables connected to it.

I’m already finding the lack of a LCD to be very frustrating and unnerving. This unit is also crazy big (about the size of Epson’s legendary 3880). These gripes aside, it creates nice warm images out of the box that look stunning on Ilford Galerie Prestige Smooth Pearl Photo Paper.

It’s going to be interesting to see if this printer can hold up well against its large format big brothers and the mighty Epson R3000.

Epson Stylus Photo R3000 – No wires required

Epson Stylus Photo R3000 Inkjet Printer (Adorama, Amazon and B&H)

When you set up this printer you quickly find out why it won the PC Editors Choice award – it’s just so darn easy to set up. From the time I got all the wrapping paper and tape off of it until the time I was making my first print was about 10 minutes on Windows 7. When I tried to install it on my Macbook Pro some of that work done on Windows could be leveraged so I end getting it working in less than 5 minutes.

Out of the box, both Mac and PC printed perfect color matched prints from Photoshop CS6 that were identical despite being printed from different computers and operating systems. The Ultra Premium Luster is a great photo paper and great profiles are included with the printer to get you productive in a hurry.

This printer features the same ink set as the legendary Epson Stylus® Pro 3880, but it is a higher resolution printer featuring the same AccuPhoto HD2 imaging technology as the 4900. This coupled with its roll support, smaller droplet size, and overall user-friendliness – I’m seeing why this printer has been so well reviewed – it’s pretty awesome!

I like this printer so much that it’s already taken on the roll as my everyday printer.

Nikon D600 – Plenty to be excited about!

Nikon D600 Digital Camera with 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR Lens 
(Adorama, Amazon, and B&H)

One thing I love about Nikon is that when they announce something, it’s typically on its way to resellers (unlike the other company that announces 6 – 9 months+ before availability). It was just a couple weeks ago that I posted my press release article on the D600, and now I have one in my hands.

ISO 6400 is usable
D600,f/5.6 @ 56 mm, 1/125, ISO 6400, No Flash, AWB, Handheld

My first impressions of this camera are very positive because it’s very well built (feels like a smaller D800 and as solid as a 5D Mark III). The kit lens in the unit I tested isn’t shabby either!

Very nice dynamic range
D600,f/11 @ 85 mm, 2.5s, ISO 100, AWB, Supported, No Flash

This bad boy generates images that are 6016x4016, which is definitely more pixels than most real people need. However, unlike the D800 it’s not a ridiculous amount so this camera is definitely more forgiving handheld than the D800. The lossless compressed RAW files were up to 33MB and JPEG’s went up to about 13.6MB, so that’s quite a bit bigger than even my 5D Mark III files. 

Excellent detail and sharpness even with the kit lens
D600,f/11 @ 85 mm, 5s, ISO 100, Mirror Lockup, Supported, AWB, No Flash

100% view of the scone above shows that there’s plenty of megapixels for cropping

This camera is impressing me early on because it offers a reasonable price with great image quality in a feature packed body that is as fun to use as the D7000. It’s certainly feeling like the camera that most D800 owners would probably enjoy more as their every day camera.

Conclusion

Fun times ahead as I’ve got some great products that make my life easier from capture to print. I hope you’ll join me for my reviews when the become available!

Thanks,
Ron

Other Articles You Might Enjoy

If you liked this article, you may also enjoy these:

• Nikon D800
• Nikon D4
• Nikon D7000 & 24-120mm Lens
• Canon Rebel T4i
• Canon 5D Mark III First Look & “For Parents Version”
• Printing Series – for lots of good info on Canon, Epson and more

Disclosure

Canon and Epson have provided me with printers and paper for the purpose of reviewing the products mentioned in this article. B&H loaned me the D600 kit.

If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission which helps to support this blog. Thanks for your support!

Photo Plus Expo NYC 2011–New Products Report–Part I of II

Jay Maisel and Greg Gorman enjoy talking about photography
at the Epson booth at PPE NYC 2011

Nearly everybody who is anybody in photography was at the Photo Plus Expo in New York City this year. It seemed like every time you turned your head there was another legend of photography. As one of my pro mentors told me “this is the show where you make your deals that carry you for the year”, so I hopped on a plane and made my first trip out to the big city to take it all in.

After speaking before a packed house at B&H, I enjoyed two action packed days on a press tour meeting the who’s who of photography and learning about a ton of great products. What follows is a partial list of new products that I saw that were worth mentioning. My apologize for all of the products not mentioned as this is just a tiny fraction of what I was able to enjoy at the show.

Canon PIXMA PRO 1 Printer

4 of 5 Monochrome Ink Cartridges	12 Total Ink Cartridges
Ink Cartridges are small	CD Print Tray is nice

As you probably know, I’ve spent a lot of time last year on my printing series which was capped off with the recent release of my Printing 101 eBook. I feel I have a pretty good handle on printing and what’s going on in the market right now, and as much as I love my Canon iPF6300, the Epson 3880 is still the best cut sheet printer on the market. This is why I was super excited when I heard about the PIXMA PRO 1 printer with “pro” inks. Unfortunately I was crushed to find out at the show that it only uses Lucia (not the revolutionary Lucia EX) inks in tiny 36 ml capacities. This means this will be a very expensive printer to maintain from a ink cost perspective, but I was very impressed with the image quality coming out of this printer.

While Canon may have let us down with the ink set, they delivered with the print head technology that seems to be closer to a Epson 4900 than that of a 3880 and its black and white performance (with 5 black ink cartridges) shows. The black and white prints have an insane range and jaw dropping DMax for a printer at this price point. The Chroma Optimizer seems to help to create super rich blacks and vivid colors.

If Canon sends one my way, I’ll be sure to tell you more about it. For now I’d say that for those who are looking for a Canon equivalent to the mighty Epson 3880 that this is a reasonable choice.

Click here to order one today, or click here to visit the dedicated mini-web site for this printer.

Canon s100

I was a bit puzzled when this camera was announced without a replacement for the G12, so I suspected this was just an s95 with some new features like built-in GPS support. However, when I used it at the Expo it seemed to have some impressive improvements in high ISO performance at ISO 1600 & 3200. It’s definitely an improvement over the G12 at those ISO levels, so those debating on the merits of a G12 vs s95 may find that the s100 is the better choice now. I still think the features of the G12 make it the better camera, but better image performance, GPS, and usability improvements in such a compact package make it a very compelling choice as a pocket camera.

To learn more, see my hands on preview here or click here to order a s100 at B&H today.

Canon LV-8325 Projector

I still miss the amazing Canon SX-80 Pro Photography Projector that I reviewed last year, so when I read the press release for the 1280x800, 2500 lumens LV-8325 I was pretty jazzed. Unfortunately this projector was in a Plexiglas case and not on hand for a demo. However, its unique design makes one wonder if it can keep up with the jaw dropping performance of the other great projectors currently sold by Canon. I’m pretty certain this was the 3D projector Canon demo’d last year at its Expo in New York, so if it is then the quality is sure to please.

Visit Canon's web site to learn more.

Nikon 1

The big news at the show for Nikon was the Nikon 1 mirrorless digital camera with interchangeable lenses. With all of the hype Nikon created I was expecting to be blown away. I’ll straight up say right now that this is not a Canon s100 or FujiFilm x10/x100 killer in terms of features or image quality from what I saw. While the colors offered are very cool and the high ISO performance seems to be pretty good, I was very unimpressed with the cheap build quality and limited features. With that on the table, it did offer some nice features like motion capture (the ability to grab a series of frames where it will automatically keeps the best 5 frames). I think mom’s will find this handy with trying to get shots of the toddler. It was certainly fast focusing and performs better than your typical point and shoot, so my opinion might change once I have a chance to use in the real world.

The ability to use interchangeable lenses – including a rumor that Nikon DSLR lenses with an adapter (which seems nuts given the cheap nature of this case) – is certain to make it a popular camera with Nikon faithful. However, everything I’ve seen so far makes me think those who own a G9+, s90+, Lumix series, Sigma DP2+ or X100 camera will probably be underwhelmed by this one. In fact, it reminds me of the Sigma DP1 where on paper it sounded awesome, but in reality it was underwhelming.

I’ll be getting one to review soon so stay tuned for a more in depth review.

Click here order one now, and see some more shots from the show below (including future concept add-ons):

Click here to visit Nikon’s web site for more info on this new camera.

Fujifilm X10

I loved the image quality of the X100, but I hated the usability and performance of the camera. While the X10 doesn’t have the same DSLR-like sensor and build quality found in the X100, it seems to be a legitimate competitor to the Canon G12 and s100 cameras.

Here’s a snapshot of 36x40” print made from a photo taken with the x10. While I wouldn’t say it is x100 quality from my hands on experience, it’s pretty freakin amazing for a point and shoot at this price point:

To learn more, see my hands on preview here or click here to order a x10 at B&H today.

onOne Software’s Perfect Photo Suite

If I had to pick a best in show product for the Expo, this would be a close runner-up to the Canon EOS-1 X. When I read the press release I read some things that made it sound pretty good, but I didn’t really expect to be blown away.

This is a game changing product that I think will cause some people to give up Photoshop Elements in favor of the stand-alone user interface of Perfect Suite. I’ll be doing a video demonstration soon, but I was blown away at the seamless integration of all of the onOne products in one user-interface with layers, masking, blending, and opacity support. In fact, even a healing brush has been added to make this a must own product for those who are using Lightroom or Aperture as their primary photo editing software, but are wanting the power of great add-ins.

Integration was just the tip of the iceberg. Not only has performance improved drastically, I was thrilled to see real-time previews of what all of the filters will do (versus meaningless previews found in PhotoTools).

I haven’t been this impressed with a demo of a photo-editing product since I saw Nik Software’s U-Point controls the first time or Content Aware Fill for the first time. This product is what I have been urging onOne and Nik Software to do for a long time – unify all of their products in one user interface and allow them to integrate with each other. onOne is the first to answer the call (years later), but better late than never.

I’ll be doing a full review soon, but you can jump ahead of me and download the free demo version now. You can also get a 10% discount using the coupon code RMART20. Visit the discount coupon code page for the latest offers.

More To Come…

Check back tomorrow for part II of this article where I talk about more hands on experiences with the cool products at the expo.

Disclaimer

This article features links which may result in a commission if you make a purchase. These commissions come at no additional cost to you and help to support this blog, so please return here and use my links when making your purchase.

Most of the information provided here are my own subjective opinions formed after getting demonstrations and discussing the products with the press contacts of the the companies listed above.