Printer for event/photobooth setups (HiTi P510S)

ZBlack

I have just done a fair bit of reading through some older threads about photbooth setups etc... One thing that hadn't been touched on enough for me to feel comfortable making a decision was the printing side of things.

I have been doing more attended photobooths as of late and have a few more scheduled for this year. I have the computer/software/shooting side of things down for what I offer currently, but the printing side is so slow, expensive and the bottleneck of the whole operation. I use a Pixma Pro9000 MKII which of course provides quality prints, but is so slow and fairly expensive.

With that, I am looking into a better printer for events. As I currently do things, this printer will be hooked up to my laptop and the DSLRBooth software I've got will be providing the template and tethered shooting to send the prints to be done.

After doing some research, the HiTi printers seem to be the most recommended in the more budget oriented range. This price range being $800-$1000. Some of the older Sony printers were highly thought of, but they seem to be non-existent these days.

Does anyone have experience with the HiTi printers? More specifically the P510S?

This is all an attended booth with me firing the shots etc... But I'd love to be able to print faster, more efficiently (cost wise as well) and the ability to cut a 4x6" in half would save a lot of time and make things much easier on my end. Having a better printer for the strips would also allow me to use the Pixma printer to sell the larger prints on site as well if anyone wanted an 8x10 or something like that, and have the Pixma as a backup in case of printer failure. At the moment, all I do is a simply 4 shots per group printed on a 4x6" paper then cut them in half with one half for the group, and one half for the event holers (bride and groom for a book type thing) or multiple copies for larger groups. I haven't offered any prints for sale apart from the strips which just come with my cost of doing the service.

Any thoughts or recommendations on a more budget oriented event printer would be much appreciated. I'm not loyal or decided to HiTi, they just seem the most recommended for my price range and use.

Noelimages

I have owned the HITI P510s for about three years. I bought it from B&H for $850. I made my money back on my first event. First thing its fast and the quality is just a step below lab quality. It prints a 5x7 in 17 seconds. I have no real problems that I couldn't figure out by troublshooting myself. Unfortunately, Customer Service pretty much does not exist so don't expect to call a tech support line if you have trouble. It has card reader slots on the side to print and edit directly from the card. I rarely use this because I like to do light adjustments even on location. It comes standard with an eFrame software that you can load a customized border however, it does not work with Mac's. I'm a Mac user so I just use Photoshop and other event software. It only prints 4x6, 5x7, and 6x9's. Hiti does not make and 8x10 printer. Despite the drawbacks, I still endorse this printer. Your clients will love the photos.