I've been asked to take pictures at a local dance and would like to offer prints to the customers within a reasonable time frame. I know that sending them to MPIX or others will do a better job but, has anyone used a Dye sub or color injet of this nature. I'm not trying to offer a professional portrait but, would like a quality print.
The person in charge was going to use a kodak easy share camera or other P&S but, she asked if I'd help. I did portraits for her family last year with my Canon 20D.
What have others done? Any help would be appreciated.
I own a Canon Selpy CP400 and had owned the CP 200.
The prints are not of high enough quality to sell, IMHO. They are never sharp and the saturation is usually lacking.
I just ordered one of these after reading many reviewers sighting that the quality of the prints is far better than their local labs. It is due to arrive tomorrow.
Epson rates the archival quality of the prints at app. 200 years.
My BIL also ordered one on my reccomendation and he is absolutely thrilled with it. He also owns a bunch of the Canon Selphy Dye Subs which will probably be on ebay soon.
Paul, you really can't beat Epson's newer Picturemate 4X6 printers. I will now have two as they just had a 3 day clearance sale and I bought another. They really do work great and the prints last longer than lab prints.
I use a Canon Selphy ES1 when my clients want their prints directly available on spot (during meetings and trainings).
I get acceptable quality when I use LR to flatten the 5D RAW files before I print them (I use a laptop with Imagebrowser on spot). You must flatten the files, because otherwise the dynamic range is too much and you will get blown highlights and closed shadows very easily. Also, the blacks have a kind of greenish color cast over them (which is logical because blacks are made out of three colors). So I use (fill-in) flash to lighten up the shadows whenever I can.
In about a minute you have one print. Don't expect gallery quality. But for functional use of prints, the quality is certainly acceptable.
I've been using one for over a year now and have zero complaints about the quality. I will say that I've never used any 4x6 paper other than what is included in the Ink packs, but mainly because they look so darn good.
Sarsfield wrote:
Paul, you really can't beat Epson's newer Picturemate 4X6 printers. I will now have two as they just had a 3 day clearance sale and I bought another. They really do work great and the prints last longer than lab prints.
Don't forget the older Epson picturemate personal printer which now sell for under $40. I bought one new around 6 months ago and have been very impressed. I can buy a 100 print ink/sheet kit for around $25 so prints are affordable. Speed is not the greatest so it may not be best for onsite.
I have to throw another printer into the kitty. The HP inkjet 617. It does up to 5x7s and its a pretty decent quality. I was actually impressed and I am picky as hell. lol
Word to the wise: Buy THREE of these printers...at bare minimum two. Run two at a time and have a third in case one craps out on you. In a shooting situation like you will be in, time is a factor. And also the CYA factor of having multiple printers in case something dies on you.
I have done this sort of shooting and printing situation multiple times. I would never go into it without at least two printers running in tandem.
I like the option of upselling the clients a 5x7 in a folder too. Depending on how you set it up, you can easily triple your asking price for the print in a folder. That is price of a 4x6 vs a 5x7.
Thanks for your input. I do have a back up printer if needed but, hope not to use it. I also plan to have an assistant help out with printing/picture taking when it gets busy. A good friend is a photographer/ videographer so, much experience in his camp. I believe that we will use his studio set up also.
Thanks for all your help. I'll look into the mentioned printers.
Paul
