Canon PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II - $149 good?

ZBlack

I'm pretty anxious and wanting to pull the trigger on this, so I may have bought it before I get any replies, but figured it'd be worth a shot and hope for some answers in the next couple hours haha.

Amazon has the Canon PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II on sale for $350 with a $200 MIR bringing the price down to $149 when it's all said and done. Which brings it down to slightly cheaper than most Canon camera owners resell it for.

It would be awesome to be able to produce bigger prints than my run of the mill all-in-one printer with much higher quality. Reviews overall are rather positive from Amazon and B&H reviews. So I am considering this printer at this price point.

Would it be worth it? Any personal experience for better or worse with it? When I helped with a Help Portrait event last December, I believe we used one of these printers but I can't recall if it was this model or not, but I was pretty pleased with the speed, how quiet it was and the quality, but we were only printing 8x10's.

Earache

ZBlack wrote: »

I'm pretty anxious and wanting to pull the trigger on this, so I may have bought it before I get any replies, but figured it'd be worth a shot and hope for some answers in the next couple hours haha.

Amazon has the Canon PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II on sale for $350 with a $200 MIR bringing the price down to $149 when it's all said and done. Which brings it down to slightly cheaper than most Canon camera owners resell it for.

It would be awesome to be able to produce bigger prints than my run of the mill all-in-one printer with much higher quality. Reviews overall are rather positive from Amazon and B&H reviews. So I am considering this printer at this price point.

Would it be worth it? Any personal experience for better or worse with it? When I helped with a Help Portrait event last December, I believe we used one of these printers but I can't recall if it was this model or not, but I was pretty pleased with the speed, how quiet it was and the quality, but we were only printing 8x10's.

I have one and with quality paper (I like Ilford Smooth Pearl for one) I have been very pleased with the results. I paid 200 bucks NIB from private party who got it in a bundle and didn't need it. My only gripe I guess is the number (8) and cost of cartridges - but that depends on the volume of printing of course. Amazon is a good place to shop for those also. 149 is a killer price - I think it's well worth that. It really is cool to print BIG. Good luck to you!

ZBlack

Thanks for the quick reply. Think I'm going to go for it!

Earache

I don't think you will be disappointed - I was just looking at one of my 13x19 prints of roses to confirm my recommendation, and I feel that it reproduced amazing detail (I'm a sharpness nut), detail that I knew I had captured with my Canon 70-200 f4L on a 60D. Have fun!!

hnjngo

Wow thanks for sharing a great deal, I'm seriously concidering buying one myself now. Does anyone know how many prints you can make on a set of cartrages? (Obviously it varries, but a rough number is fine). A set of new ink, according to canon's site at $15 a cartage is $120.... You should almost just buy 2 printers at $150

ZBlack

The full set of 8 replacement cartridges cost about $87 on Amazon, and they say it's good for 230 pages with 5 percent coverage. Not entirely sure what that means haha.

I'm curious if the tanks that come with it are half full like most or if they give you a full set. We printed about 180 8x10's at the minimum with the Help Portrait event and never had to change ink, but that's all the experience I've got with it.

I went ahead with the purchase last night, with plans to use it for a photo booth setup later this month!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2

Earache

Yeah, that's the rub, the cost of expendables. They lure us in with low cost of the printer and then get us hooked on ink. I sorry I can't speak to cartridge longevity other than the different colors will deplete at different rates and although the sets of replacement cartridges are the best deal on cost per unit, I find I have to fill in occasionally with a single cartridge that has emptied ahead of the others.

Edit: As I recall, the cartridges that came with it were full and complete.

sara505

I picked up the 9500 a few months ago - paid a ridiculously low price, maybe $49 or something after the $500 rebate (the rub was, it was a $500 American Express money card and I had to jump through a few hoops to obtain it, plus waited a while - while my money was garnering interest for Canon). Anyway, I digress. I LOVE my printer. I am in heaven with the quality of prints I am turning out. I am using Ilford Galerie Gold and printing primarily 13x19 BWs - more spectacular than I was ever turning out from my darkroom back in the day. As for ink, I've been keeping a list of all inks used and prints created, but I can't make heads or tails of it because, as someone has already pointed out, the cartridges run out at different rates. Maybe I can get an average or something.

Anyway - enjoy your printer.

ZBlack

So I received and installed the printer last night. Printed off 3 8.5x11" prints since that is what I had laying around. The quality and crispness is excellent, but everything seems to be a bit more red than what I see on my screen. Now, my monitors are *not* calibrated beyond the built in Windows 7 calibration which isn't all that accurate. Would this simply be the difference between my monitor viewing and the printer? I have not received any comments about the coloring on the photo's from my post here or others who view them on my website, which makes me think it's a printer thing.

Any good reference points to check out for printer color calibration or is it time to invest in a monitor calibration tool?

sara505

ZBlack wrote: »

So I received and installed the printer last night. Printed off 3 8.5x11" prints since that is what I had laying around. The quality and crispness is excellent, but everything seems to be a bit more red than what I see on my screen. Now, my monitors are *not* calibrated beyond the built in Windows 7 calibration which isn't all that accurate. Would this simply be the difference between my monitor viewing and the printer? I have not received any comments about the coloring on the photo's from my post here or others who view them on my website, which makes me think it's a printer thing.

Any good reference points to check out for printer color calibration or is it time to invest in a monitor calibration tool?

Zack - you MUST absolutely invest in a monitor calibration tool. I use Spyder Elite (not Spyder Pro, which is a mis-nomer), which has served me well for the past few years, but there are many other good calibration tools. If you're serious about printing and getting your prints to match what you see on your screen you must calibrate beyond what Win7 gives you. This is a must, in my opinion, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

paddler4

Now, my monitors are *not* calibrated beyond the built in Windows 7 calibration

End of story. Unless you have a calibrated monitor, the prints SHOULDN'T match what you see on it, unless your monitor is by random luck close to calibrated.

A point of information: the 9500 and 9000 are different. The former is pigment, the latter dye. To oversimplify: pigment lasts longer, but dye doesn't clog.

I have had the 9000II since last December and love it. I've now used it on a wide variety of papers--satin, luster, matte, and canvas--and it handles all of them well. $150 is a great price. I think I paid $250 after a Canon rebate for mine.

Re the complaint that there are 8 ink cartridges: that is an advantage, not a disadvantage. All other things equal, more colors of ink will give you a wider gamut.

If you want to have fun with papers, both Moab and Red River sell sampler boxes that give you two sheets each of a wide variety of papers. I bought both but have not managed to get through all of them yet. Both have ICC profiles online for the 9000II, and so far, these profiles seem pretty good. If you are interested in printing cards, Red River has a wide variety of card stock, most quite inexpensive, and they have a sampler of those too. I am now using Moab Lasal Exhibition Luster, Red River UltraPro Satin, and Red River Polar Matte (for card stock), but the results on some of the other papers were so good with this printer that it was very hard to choose.

One downside: the 9000 requires that heavy stock be loaded from the front, which works fine once you are used to it but is slow and a bit of a nuisance. Each card has to be fed individually.

sara505

Also, don't forget to grab the ICC profiles from your paper manufacturer's web site. These profiles make printing nearly error-proof, once you figure out the paper you want to use. I recommend purchasing some of the sample packs that are available.

ZBlack

Thanks for the help everyone. Amazon also has a light in deal that just started at 6am PST for the Spyder4 express for 80.

Definitely going to get a sample pack of those papers and give it some play time. Lots to learn about the printing side of things

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2

sara505

ZBlack wrote: »

Thanks for the help everyone. Amazon also has a light in deal that just started at 6am PST for the Spyder4 express for 80.

Definitely going to get a sample pack of those papers and give it some play time. Lots to learn about the printing side of things

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2

If you do get the Spyder, make sure it's the Elite, not the Pro. The pro version is mis-named and is more limited than the Elite.

also, as I'm sure you will find out, to use the paper profiles, you will need to turn off color management in your printer and add the profile to whatever printing platform you are using, for example LR or PS.

Have fun.

paddler4

Re Sara's comment: to turn off printer management of colors with that printer, go to printer properties. On the "main" tab, you will see a "color / intensity" check box. Check "manual". Then on the box that pops up, chose "none." Finally, turn management of color on in your software. If you are printing from Lightroom (which has a great print module), you will find a "color management" option near the bottom of the right-hand panel. It may well say that the printer is managing the color. Grab the pull down menu, select your paper's profile as a substitute for whatever showed up initially, and you are set to go.

sara505

paddler4 wrote: »

Re Sara's comment: to turn off printer management of colors with that printer, go to printer properties. On the "main" tab, you will see a "color / intensity" check box. Check "manual". Then on the box that pops up, chose "none." Finally, turn management of color on in your software. If you are printing from Lightroom (which has a great print module), you will find a "color management" option near the bottom of the right-hand panel. It may well say that the printer is managing the color. Grab the pull down menu, select your paper's profile as a substitute for whatever showed up initially, and you are set to go.

Excellent walk-through. And yes, LR's print module rocks!!

tinamarie52

Zach thanks for this thread. I'm looking ofr a printer and a Spyder! Thanks, too, for everyone's very useful input.

Chris