Inside an Epson 4800 220ml inkjet cartridge

Have you ever wondered what the inside of an Epson 4800 220ml inkjet cartridge looks like? Here I have a look at a used cartridge and muse on why Epson does not like re-use…

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It was easy to open up one of these cartridges. I just slit the paper label around the shut line with a scalpel and prised the top off with a couple of wide screwdrivers. The whole lot is simply clipped together with twelve securing tabs, which you can see in the photo.

The result is shown in the photo below (and it was only while I was adjusting it in Lightroom that I noticed the letter heading “The Shame of Litter” in the newsprint…)



Inside is an aluminised plastic bladder with a valve (see close up photo of it below) for the ink to be drawn out into the printer. It slips out quite easily, being held in place by the neck of the valve. There is no connection between the ink container and the cartridge so there is no physical connection with the cartridge’s chip.



This lack of connection means that it would be pretty easy for Epson to re-use the cartridges by simply putting in a new ink bladder and resetting the chip. It would also be pretty easy for Epson to supply re-fills for users to put in themselves, but that would mean that Epson would have to sanction or sell a chip re-setter, which Epson seem dead set against. Epson’s recent aggressive defence of their intellectual property trying to put a stop to third party ink and cartridge suppliers indicates that this is far from their thoughts.

I am very happy to re-use the maintenance tank (see this link for my instructions on how I do that), but refilling a used bladder seems to be too much of a risk to me.

Epson seem pretty set against doing anything “green” that would challenge their current business model of selling a reasonably priced printer and making their money on the ink – of course that might upset us, the users, if we had to pay for Epson’s profit in the printer purchase price – we might not like the numbers that came out – but not re-using something that seems eminently designed to be re-used seems perverse in the current sustainability climate. Read more...

Think Tank Digital Holster 20 review

Recently I went looking for a case to hold my Canon 40D with a range of lenses attached and ended up buying a Think Tank Digital Holster 20 after trying out several in the shop (Morris Photographic in Chipping Norton) from Lowepro, Kata, Crumpler and Tamrac. This review covers my experience of it so far.

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Ever since I stopped using “ever ready” cases with my old film SLRs I have tended not to use a case to protect my camera with lens attached; rather I have relied on transporting them in a camera bag such as my Lowepro Magnum or just wrapped them in a fleece and stuffed them into a rucksack.

Recently I was going on holiday flying by Ryanair and wanted to put my camera and lenses in carry-on baggage. When travelling I try not to look like a photographer so I use a non-descript rucksack with photo gear inside it. Ryanair’s cabin baggage sizes are, however, quite tight, being 55 x 40 x 20cm – the 20cm (4”) restriction being pretty small, so I needed to be more careful than usual about carrying and protecting my photo gear.

I wanted a case to protect my camera with a lens attached (normally an EF-S 17-55 f2.8 IS zoom, but I wanted some flexibility to put a longer lens on if possible) that would take up as little space as possible in a small rucksack, be able to meet the 20cm thickness restriction and weigh as little as possible. Many of the options available did not meet the 20cm criteria, but the Think Tank Digital Holster 20 did. It also had a number of nice additional options on offer (more about them later), so I bought it. The photo below shows it with the 40D in it.



Think Tank Photo is a relatively new kid on the block, in Europe at least, and I had not seen any of their products before. Their mission statement says:

“We are a group of designers and professional photographers focused on studying how photographers work, and developing inventive new carrying solutions to meet their needs. By focusing on “speed” and “accessibility,” we prepare photographers to Be Ready “Before The Moment,” allowing them to capture those historic moments that reflect their personal visions and artistic talents. For some companies, it is only about the product. For us, it is more: It is about supporting photographers doing their job. If we can design products that help photographers travel easier, take pictures faster, and organize their gear more efficiently, then we will have accomplished something beyond the bags themselves.”

At first glance their equipment looked a bit old fashioned, which probably means that it is designed to do a job other than look good in the shop, but when I came to try out all the options the Digital Holster 20 met my needs best.

Think Tank offer a range of five Digital Holsters (10 to 50) which can be seen here. All of them offer their “pop down” feature – which allows the holster to offer two different lens lengths options. Essentially the bottom portion of the holster has a zip around it which holds it in the closed position for the shorter option or you simply unzip it to allow the full length of the holster to be used. The photos below show the holster in the short and long configurations.



The holster is made out of a thick’ish black ballistic nylon type outer material; a relatively thin foam padding down to the “pop down” section, where it becomes a soft pliable padding, and a combination of grey smooth and brushed nylon inner. The whole holster feels solid but not bulky and it can stand up on its end (lens down). It therefore fits inside my rucksack without taking up unnecessary space or weighing too much, while offering reasonable protection against every day wear and tear.

My Digital Holster 20 in the closed configuration holds my Canon 40D snugly (with a Really Right Stuff L-plate fitted) with the Canon EF-S 17-55 f2.8 IS lens attached, with lens hood reversed (it will just take it with lens hood attached, but it feels too tight for comfort). With the holster at full extension it takes the 40D with a Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS lens attached, with lens hood reversed and the tripod ring and Arca plate attached – although it is much easier to fit in with the tripod ring rotated to the portrait position with the raincover taken out to create a bit more space. There is space to take a lens about 25mm (1”) longer than the 70-200 f2.8 IS if need be.

With the internal divider supplied it is possible to place another small lens, extender, extension tubes etc into the bottom of the holster; depending on what lens is fitted to the camera.

I discovered by accident that there is an added unexpected benefit to having this variable holster length option. Essentially when closed the extension material is squashed up into the bottom of the holster and this acts as an excellent impact buffer for the contents. I found this out by accidentally dropping the holster with the 40D + 17-55 lens attached (lens hood reversed) onto a stone floor (I extremely rarely drop my cameras etc as I am normally pretty paranoid about protecting them, but accidents happen…). The whole lot landed lens cap down and I immediately feared the worse. It, however, landed right on the end of the holster where the squashed up extension material was thickest and to my immense relief everything was absolutely fine. It almost certainly paid for itself many times over in that one incident, especially as I had only taken a compact as backup with me on holiday.

The Digital Holster 20 has the following features:

• Variable lens length option
• Detachable seam sealed raincover
• Adjustable LCD protection pad inside the holster
• External pocked for memory cards/batteries etc
• Adjustable internal lens separator
• Carrying handle mounted on the lid of the holster
• Zipped clear compartment inside the lid
• Clear business card holder underneath the external handle
• Rotate or lock mechanism for use with Think Tank speed belt
• Comes with a removable shoulder strap
• Comes with a “No rhetoric warranty” see here for details

Key measurements (note these are somewhat different from those quoted in Think Tank’s literature and are measured from my own Digital Holster 20):

• Width: 21cm (inc buckles & pocket)
• Length: 24cm (closed) to 33cm (extended)
• Thickness: 14cm (With 40D + RRS L-plate inside)
• Weight: 535g complete
  400g exc. the shoulder strap
  340g exc. the shoulder strap and raincover

Comments on features:
The raincover sits neatly inside the holster in its own Velcro closed pouch, attached to the holster with a ribbon fixed with a Velcro tab, so it is easy to remove and fit or simply to leave behind to save weight (it weighs 60g) and space inside the holster (it does take up quite a bit of room inside, so if space is tight taking it out may help). It is made from a thin black rip-stop nylon type material and has two elasticated draw strings secured with toggles to seal the cover in place. It is, however, not the simplest cover to install that I have experienced – I guess it has to accommodate the holster in its two length configurations, so it is a bit more complicated than it might be. The toggles make sure that there is a snug fit over the lid protecting the zip, and covers the whole of the front, sides and bottom of the holster, but leaves an uncovered patch at the back (presumably to allow attachment to the speed belt?), much like the cover on my Lowepro Magnum. So it will protect from rain but not dropping into water; not surprising since it calls itself a “raincover” and does not claim to be waterproof. Below are front and back photos of the raincover in place with the holster in its closed configuration.



I would recommend trying the raincover out before using it in anger as it took me some time to figure it how best to fit it the first time I tried it. The All Weather cover on my Lowepro Magnum is much more intuitive and easier to fit with its elasticated edges and Velcro fastening.

The LCD protector flap also allows you to stow something else above the camera, such as a camera strap, inside the holster without it rubbing directly on the back of the camera/LCD display.

The external memory card/battery pocket is useful. It is outside the foam padding of the main holster but if you overfill the pocket it will intrude into the body of the holster. I found that it would comfortably take two spare 40D (Canon BP-511/512 type) batteries in it, either side-by-side or end-to-end. I keep spare memory cards in the pocket inside the holster’s lid.

I tend to leave the shoulder strap off this type of bag (in fact I left it in the shop when I bought it to take on holiday and only got it back when I returned – Morris Photographic kindly rang me to tell me that I had left it on their counter) and use the carrying handle or if I really want a shoulder strap I use the one fitted to the camera – in my case an Op/Tech neoprene strap. In due course I might fit a couple of Op/Tech’s quick release tails to the D-rings on the holster so that I could transfer the strap from the camera to the case if need be.

Since I did not buy the Think Tank speed belt at the same time I can not comment on the ease of use or usefulness of the Rotate or lock mechanism.

Conclusion
The Digital Holster 20 is thoughtfully designed and well made, without being bulky. The versatile variable length “pop down” feature allows me to use it for a wide variety of camera/lens combinations.

It does everything I asked of it and most probably saved a lens and/or camera body when I dropped them on a stone floor – I am very happy with my choice.

Note:
I have no connection to any of the suppliers or retailers mentioned in this posting other than being a happy customer. Read more...

Epson Stylus pro 4800 inkjet printer error codes

Recently I had a "Service Req." message come up on my 4800. There have also been a few questions on Forums about what various error messages mean, so I thought I would post a listing that I have for the Epson 4800. This is not an official Epson listing, but it appears to be accurate in the few cases that I have had to use it

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Firstly please excuse the lack of formating of the listings below, but it would take me too long to put it into pristine formatted text and it would never arrive - I think anyone looking for the info should be able to find it here.

There are two types of error codes. Those indicating a maintenance issue that can usually be sorted out by resetting a counter or checking something is still OK after its nominal end of life. The second set are service errors that may need a technician to fix them, although many of them seem to respond to a certain amount of informed and sensible "fiddling" about; in some the descriptions indicate the action that should be taken to resolve the problem.

Error Codes (Maintenance)

0002 Carriage Motor / Ink Tube end of life (Clear Carriage Motor Counter) 0004 Nozzle check error 0008 RTC error (Real Time Clock) (Check the Battery and reset the Date and Time) 0010 Multi Sensor Error 0020 Print Head life counter (Reset the Head counter) 0040 Cleaner Unit end of life (Clear the Cleaner counter) 0080 Date is not set (Set the date and time (RTC)) 0100 RTC Battery low (Replace the battery, and reset the RTC) 0200 Paper feed roller life (over 75,000 sheets) (Reset the ASF counter)

Error Codes (Service)

00000088 RTC (Real Time Clock) data is corrupted 00000101 Carriage Motor life (Reset Carriage Motor Counter, check for leaky ink tubes) 00000103 RTC (Real Time Clock) battery is defective 00000105 Print Head end of life (Inspect print head and reset head counter) 00010000 Paper Feed Motor encoder check error (Check Sensor and Timing Disk) 00010001 Paper Feed Motor out of step 00010002 Paper Feed Motor overcurrent (Check for mechanical binding of the feed rollers / motor) 00010003 Paper Feed Motor in-position time-out 00010004 Carriage Motor encoder check error (Check sensor and Timing Disk) 00010005 Carriage Motor out of step 00010006 Carriage Motor overcurrent (Check for mechanical binding, If not replace motor) 00010007 Carriage Motor in-position time-out 00010008 Servo interrupt watchdog time-out 00010009 System interrupt watchdog time-out 0001000A Carriage home position error (Check Sensor and mechanical components) 0001000C Platen Gap home position error (Check Sensor and mechanical components) 0001000F Carriage Motor PWM output faulty 00010010 Paper Feed Motor PWM output faulty 0001001B Head driver (TG) temperature error 0001001D Carriage servo parameter error 0001001E Paper feed servo parameter error 00010020 CSIC read / write error 00010022 Ink type error 00010023 RTC (Real Time Clock) (Reset RTC) 00010025 CSIC ROM communication error 00010026 RTC (Real Time Clock) communication error 00010028 Head error 00010029 Unidentified NMI 0001002A Carriage ASIC ECU error 0001002B Paper feed ASIC ECU error 0001002D Cleaning Unit end of life 0001002F 360 DPI writing time out error 00010030 Multi Sensor failure (1. Check sensor, 2. calibrate sensor, 3. replace sensor) 00010031 ASF (Auto Sheet Feeder) home position error (Check Sensor and mechanical components) 00010032 ASF (Auto Sheet Feeder) Drive Switch error (Check Sensor and mechanical components) 00010033 Exit Roller home position error (Check Sensor and mechanical components) 00010034 Eject Roller lifted (Customer Safety Sensor on the eject roller) 00010035 Pump Home Position Error (Check Sensor and mechanical components) 00010036 Type B 1394 (Firewire) board installation (Remove Firewire Card / not allowed) 00010037 Print Head thermistor error 00010038 Head Driver thermistor error 00010039 PG adjustment value NVRAM error 0001003A PG adjustment value NVRAM error 0001003B Carriage Lock / Cutter Error 0001003C Carriage Lock / Cutter Error 0001003D Carriage Lock / Cutter Error 00020000 NVRAM error 00020002 SDRAM error 00020003 BOOT program SUM error 00020009 Flash memory SUM error 0002000A Program load error 0002000B Internal memory shortage error 0002000C Review error 100000E0 CPU address error (load misalignment) 10000100 CPU address error (storage misalignment) 10000180 CPU reserve command code exception error 100001A0 CPU slot illegal command exception error 100001C0 AC disruption (AC Power) (Unplug and wait 30 sec., then plug back in) 100005C0 CPU DMA address error 0003xxxxx – 0Dxxxxxxx CPU error

Read more...

Epson 4800 Error message - Service req. 100001C0

I was printing quite happily on my Epson 4800 one evening recently, but the next morning the automated nozzle check sent by Harvey Head Cleaner did not print and there were a couple of flashing red LEDs and the printer’s LCD display was saying “Service req. 100001C0”. What to do?

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I was about to set off for the day job so I just had to leave it flashing away as I had no idea what to do, but fear the worst...

I did a quick web search that evening and found very little, but a couple of posts seemed to think that turning off the printer was the solution.

I had a look at the Espon Field repair guide that I have and found the following in the error codes section:

100001C0

AC disruption (AC Power) (Unplug and wait 30 sec., then plug back in)

I have the printer plugged into a power surge protector block so there should not have been any problems and no other equipment was saying that there had been a power outage, but...

So I turned off the printer and left it for a day while I got on with the day job again. When I turned on the printer there was a lot of whirring while it went through its “auto something or other” routine (see previous postings for my thoughts on this) which I watched with a lot of trepidation as this often converts a perfect nozzle check into one with one of more colours completely missing.

Eventually it told me to press pause and then went into it’s “Ready” mode.

I ran a nozzle check and it came out perfectly, so all was well again. Read more...

Review of the Giottos MH 1302-655 ballhead used with a Gitzo GT1541T Traveler tripod

For some time I have known that the best way of improving my on-the-move photography was to use a tripod, but I have always balked at carrying my normal tripods and at the cost of the specialist lightweight travel tripods such as Gitzo’s Traveler range. This year I finally decided to take the plunge, but was not sure about the ballhead.

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Gitzo offer three traveler tripods (full details here) – the GT1541T and the GT1550T are the ones that interested me. They are about the same weight (1kg), with the GT1541T having a four section leg configuration; the GT1550T has five section legs, folds slightly smaller (35.5cm long vs 41cm) and comes with its own miniature ballhead (G1077M), while the GT1541T does not come with one. With the G1077M head the maximum load capacity of the GT1550T is only 2kg, although the legs on their own seem to be rated at 4.5kg. The rating for the GT1541T is a much greater 8kg.

With my normal tripods I use either Kirk BH-1 or BH-3 ballheads with Arca type quick release platforms and plates – I equip my DSLRs with L-brackets from either Really Right Stuff or Kirk (RRS by preference, but they don’t have an importer in the UK, whereas Kirk does, and customs duty and “fees” add about a 30% price premium to buying direct from RRS) and have a selection of camera and lens plates, and quick release platforms from Wimberley, Kirk & RRS – so one key criterion is that the travel tripod must be Arca compatible. Below is a list of my key criteria for choosing the tripod/ballhead combination:

• Arca quick release system compatible
• Maximum load capacity of at least 4kg
• Lockable panoramic rotation capability
• Adjustable friction control for the ballhead
• Side notch to allow the head to flop over if necessary
• Tripod socket of 3/8”
+ as light and compact as possible

The G1077M fails on several of these criteria: it is not Arca compatible; it’s maximum load capacity is only 2kg; it has a rotating base but it is not lockable; there is no friction control on the ballhead – it is small and light, but it does not do what I wanted.

Also I am happier with a four section leg tripod than a five (quicker to set up and less spindly) so I chose the GT1541T Traveler tripod (accepting that it is slightly less compact than the GT1550T). I was, however, not aware of any suitable ballhead to partner it with. The smaller Kirk ballhead I use, the BH-3, weighs in at 560g so is hardly the ideal partner for the lightweight GT1541T.

My search was pretty fruitless until I received a “Birds as Art” bulletin from Art Morris extolling the virtues of the Giottos’ MH 1302-655 ballhead – if you go here and scroll down the page to the section titled “The Perfect Tiny Ballhead for Wimberley and Mongoose Users” you can see Art’s review. Essentially it met all the criteria and was as compact and light as I could imagine. Failing to find one for sale anywhere in the UK (there were some with non-Arca platforms) I bought one direct from Birds as Art in the US, which arrived in about 10 days – pretty good and great communication from them as well.

Details can be found on Giottos’ web site here.

The ballhead designation is MH 1302 with the 655 part being the Arca compatible quick release platform. It is rated at 8kg, weighs 320g, is 92’ish mm tall and has all the functions I wanted. It also has a bubble level in the platform and the tightening knob

The first thing I did was remove the safety stop (with a 2.5mm Allen key) as I wanted to use all the Arca plates I have and they will not work with the stop in place – this was easy – and then play around with it on the GT1541T. Below is a photo of the set up.


Installed on the Traveler the whole lot weighs 1.3kg.

One of the unique features of Gitzo’s Traveler tripods is that their legs fold through 180° making it just a bit shorter. Gitzo’s diminutive G1077M ballhead is designed to fit inside the legs when folded – does the Giottos?

Well, not really. There are three control knobs on the MH 1302 (ballhead tension, friction control and pan lock) which are set at 90° to one another (you can clearly see this in the photo above).

Since the ballhead sits inside the folded legs of the tripod at least one of the knobs rests against one of the legs (see photo below) – they would have to be 120° apart to be able to sit between the legs of the tripod. This is OK, but it of course means that there is a chance of damage either to the ball head of the tripod leg if they are crushed. I have decided to either travel with the ballhead dismounted, attaching it (which takes no time at all) when I want to use it or to not fold the legs back in transit.



Does it produce a stable photographic platform with the Traveler?
In a word – yes. I recently took the rig on holiday to Tuscany where its light weight and portability meant that I had it around when I needed it in low light dusk situations, as well as using up as little as possible of my luggage allowance. I also took with me my new Canon 40D, which I equipped with a generic Wimberley plate until I get around to buying an L-bracket.

The photos below show it in use in both horizontal and vertical mode, with the tripod centre post at full extension. In all the cases I used it in it performed perfectly. I have not experienced any slippage, so when I tighten the head the lens stays pointing where I intended it to.




Conclusion
The Giottos MH 1302-655 ballhead partnered with a Gitzo GT1541T Traveler tripod makes an excellent travel set up. The load capacity is fine and the kit produced excellent results with the lenses I have used (up to 200mm on a Canon 40D).

To make it just that bit better Giottos could space the knobs out at 120°, or some other mix of angles so that allows them to fit between the tripod's legs, and make them a bit smaller perhaps to fit in between the tripods legs with they are folded back – that really would make a magnificent combination. Read more...

English manual for a Canon macro twin lite MT-24EX

I recently bought a used Canon macro twin lite MT-24EX flash system, it was in mint condition and came with a manual, but unfortunately (for an English speaker) it was in French! I thought that it would be easy to find an English version on line but Canon do not seem to offer it. This is where I eventually found two.

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I initially searched for a MT-24EX manual and could not find anything other than other people looking for one. Eventually I twigged that if my manual (see image of the cover below) was for both the Macro ring lite MR-14EX and as well as the MT-24EX and that the MR-14EX came first in the heading I should probably search for the manual for the MR-14EX as well.



Using this search strategy I did manage to find two copies.

One 11mb pdf manual at: http://akamaipix.crutchfield.com/Manuals/280/280MR14EX.PDF

And one at around 25mb at Safemanuals:
http://safemanuals.com/user-guide-instructions-owner-manual/CANON/MACRO%20RING%20LITE%20MR-14EX-_E

Both indeed only mention the MR-14EX in the download title. But sure enough both cover the two macro lites (MR-14EX and the MT-24EX) and are in English.

The 11mb manual is more neatly copied at one page of the manual per pdf page whereas the 25mb version is a straight (well actually it is often quite un-straight) scan of an actual printed version of the manual with two pages per page in the pdf.

The 25mb version is (not surprisingly) much higher quality in terms of image and print reproduction, but there is quite a lot of print through from page to page and the pages are quite skewed at times, although not losing anything significant. The 11mb version is pretty poor for image reproduction, but much neater and the text is easy to read.

Below are copies of the same page from the two versions for you to compare, although the conversion from pdf via Photoshop to a jpeg (required since blogspot does not support pdf file uploads) has not done the larger version any favours as it looks much lighter in the jpeg than in the pdf:

Extract from the 11mb version

Extract from the 25mb version

Conclusion
So for speed of download and neatness go for the 11mb version. For ultimate reproduction quality, but less neatness, go for the 25mb version Read more...

Does Printer Jockey’s channel flushing function clear nozzle clogs?

When I reviewed Printer Jockey recently (here is the original posting) I found that it did not recover total ink channel loss on my Epson 4800 inkjet printer, but I did not know whether the idea that single channel flushing might be able to solve the odd nozzle going missing would work or not. After a couple of months of trying it out here are my conclusions.

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Originally I found that even running selected channel flushing several times at its full intensity it did not cure the complete loss of single or multiple ink channels that I have experienced. I was not sure, however, whether channel flushing would be able to restore the odd clogged nozzle without having to resort to a full cleaning cycle. It has to be said that I was really hopeful that it would as this would potentially save quite a bit of ink.

In the last couple of months I have had a few instances of the odd line of the nozzle check going missing and each time I have tried to use Printer Jockey’s selected channel flushing mode to clear it. Sadly it has had no effect in the all the cases I have tried it on – around half a dozen. In each case a small number of lines (1 to 4) in the nozzle check were missing and I tried to flush the affected colour on its own. I have tried different combinations of channel flushing in several different intensities and repeatedly, but to no avail.

Unlike the experience I had with completely lost ink channels (where no ink was used at all during channel flushes of the affected channels) channel flushing with just the odd clogged nozzle does certainly print the selected channel/s and plenty of ink comes out on the page, but this does not clear the clogs.

In each case a single running of the standard cleaning cycle cleared the problem.

Conclusion
So my conclusion is that, sadly, Printer Jockey’s channel flushing mode does not clear nozzle clogs at all. I am disappointed as I really hoped it would work… Read more...

Is humidity the key to avoiding nozzle clogging on my Epson 4800?

Recent experience has told me that 40% humidity is the bottom end of acceptable to keep my 4800 running relatively nozzle clog free - I try to keep my 4800 at 50%, along with a routine of printing a little often - see this posting for details.

I recently had to go away without leaving the computer on for 10 days so I could not use my normal regimen – so what happened?

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Because I could not follow my tried and almost trusted regimen of printing a little often along with keeping the humidity at around 50% I had to come up with an alternative to try to keep my printer clog free.

I puddle soaked the print head to make sure that the print head in its capping station was humid/wet; I added a pot of water inside the printer cover to the usual wet sponge in the paper tray and really wrapped up the printer in its cover, including wrapping it under the paper tray, and turned off the printer.

When I came back the humidity inside the machine was reading 72% (according to the max/min function on the weather station I use, 73% was the maximum that it reached in the 10 days I was away), with 73% in the paper tray - the room reading was around 50%.

When I turned on the printer it ran an auto cleaning cycle (I have called this an "auto something or other" before, but this time I watched the print head move around and the following nozzle check showed that it had used 9.6ml of ink since I turned it off, so I am pretty certain that it is auto cleaning, despite this function being turned off via the LCD panel...). This would normally cause a whole ink channel or two, or three, or four… to drop out, but the following nozzle check was perfect and I then ran a batch of 30 A4 prints without a hitch.

During this the fan inside the printer reduced the humidity to 43% so I put the water pot back inside the print cover to raise the humidity to 50% again as quickly as possible... leaving myself a note to remind me to take the pot out before turning on my computer or Harvey Head Cleaner would initiate a nozzle check automatically with nasty and expensive results.

Strangely the printer also ran an auto clean before the auto nozzle check first thing the following morning – why? The printer had been recently used the nozzle check was perfect etc. Luckily the following nozzle check was also perfect.

Anyone who has looked at the rest of my blog postings will see that I have had lots of problems with nozzle clogging on my 4800 and this episode just makes me think even more that humidity is the key, along with a really all enveloping cover and printing a little and often. Read more...

Two different types of Costco / Kirkland Signature Professional Glossy Inkjet Photo Paper tested

For some time I have used Costco’s own brand Kirkland Signature Professional Glossy Inkjet Photo Paper as one of my draft/proofing (before committing ink to an expensive paper) and contact printing papers and for prints for friends & family with my Epson 4800, and before that on my Canon 9000S. I have been very happy with it, but noticed recently that the box had changed and whereas all the paper I had used before was made in Switzerland, the latest batch was made in the USA. So are they the same? If not, what’s the difference?

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According to the gossip on the web Costco sell several papers under their Kirkland label, with the paper made in Switzerland being rumoured to be made by Ilford and the USA made paper being made by Kodak. There are also some stories about it being made by Epson as well.

For several years I have bought A4 Kirkland paper in the UK mostly via eBay as I do not have a Costco account and until recently it always came in boxes containing 125 sheets and was made in Switzerland - below is a scan of the box top. Initially the paper was rated at 260gsm (69lbs), but this changed to 255gsm (68 lbs), although both were 10 mil thick and had the same product code: 77755 (circled in the image below). Since the rumours had it being made by Ilford and that it was the same as Ilford’s Smooth Gloss Paper I did try it with Ilford’s SGP ICC profiles – the results were OK, but I decided to get a bespoke profile made; which unsurprisingly was better still. The two different weights of paper seemed to look identical (or so I thought – see below) so presumably used the same paper substrate and ink receiving layer coating.



The most recent batch (May 2008) came in a 150 sheet card wallet rather than a box, and said that it was made in the USA, and although the same weight and thickness, it had a different product code: 80623 - below is a scan of the front of the wallet, with various key clues to its difference circled I red.



So before using it in anger I put it through my normal paper test process (If you want to know how I test papers I wrote about it in an earlier posting here) to see which if any of these papers it behaves like.

The Comparison
First off I was quite confused for some time in this test as my perceptions changed each time I looked at the prints, until I realised that the Swiss made Kirkland papers I was using were different – some from the 260gsm box and some from a 255gsm box. I thought that they were interchangeable until I realised that the 260gsm paper was whiter on the coated side than the 255gsm paper; or was it the other way around?

I compared sheets in Northern morning light from the Swiss (the whiter one was actually used) and US made batches of Kirkland papers with a sheet of Epson Premium Gloss, and Ilford Smooth Gloss and Omnijet papers (I have never used any Kodak paper so do not have any to hand to compare with).

Looking at the coated sides shows that the Ilford Omnijet is the most cream coloured, with the Swiss Kirkland the whitest, with the other two looking extremely similar; but slight variations of light shifted my perceptions. The less white Swiss Kirkland looked much the same as the US Kirkland and the Epson.

Looking at the back of the papers, however, showed up significant differences (besides having Epson printed all over the back of the Epson paper). The USA made paper was whiter than the other four, and the Ilford Smooth Gloss looked whiter than the Swiss made Kirkland, which looked much the same as the Ilford Omnijet; the Epson was the most cream coloured and had a more glazed look to it and was smoother. The Epson and US Kirkland had the most fibrous looking backs in certain lights.

Since the USA made paper was rumoured to be made by Kodak I looked for a generic profile to try and the only one I could find was for their Professional papers (the same profile seems to cover both gloss & lustre papers) @
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/member/photoPrinters/ICCProfiles.jhtml

I made the following test prints through Qimage:

• The Swiss made paper with its bespoke profile
• The USA made paper with exactly the same settings as the Swiss paper (profile, printer driver settings, rendering intent, black point compensation etc).
• The USA made paper with the Kodak Pro profile with all the settings as per Kodak’s instructions; most notably with black point compensation (BPC) turned OFF.
• The USA made paper with the Kodak Pro profile with all the settings as per Kodak’s instructions; but with BPC turned ON (because I do quite a lot of printing from Lightroom 1.4 and, as far as I can see, there is no way of turning BPC on or off in Lightroom).
• The USA made paper with standard Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper (PGPP) settings, using the Pro4800 PGPP profile – in case it is actually made by Epson.

I let the prints dry for 24 hours and then examined them.

In the Northerly morning light the most striking difference is between the B&W prints made with the Kodak profiles and the rest. Both the Kodak prints have a distinctly less neutral look to their B&W renditions, looking much warmer - on the yellow side. The other three look pretty similar with neutral B&Ws. With its whiter base the Swiss Kirkland looks cooler with there being very little to choose between the bespoke Swiss Kirkland and canned Epson profiles on the US Kirkland paper. The bespoke Swiss Kirkland profile probably makes the closest rendition of B&W images on the US paper to the Swiss paper, but the Epson profile is pretty close.

In the colour images things are a bit different.
The main difference is between the Swiss made Kirkland with the bespoke profile and the rest. The blues are more solid and skin tones are better, but the differences are pretty subtle. The Prints made with the Kodak profile look a bit brighter and thinner than the others. The mountain range image (in the multi-image test print I use) looks brighter with slightly less dense shadows, but skin tones look a bit washed out and greens look yellower.

Viewed in isolation they all look pretty acceptable, and friends and family were quite happy with prints from all of these combinations and even viewed side-by-side no one picked one over another consistently.

Even looking at the colour bars at the bottom of the test image nothing was clear – I had to look pretty carefully and stare and shuffle strips around to see any difference. Changing the light made much more difference than the profiles.

I could not see any effect of turning the BPC on and off with the Kodak profiles, so printing through Lightroom should be fine if I chose to use this profile.

I might have been able to see some numeric differences between the profiles’ actions if I had looked at the per channel ink usage information that the Epson LFP Remote Panel utility produces, but by the time I had thought of that the data was overwritten by subsequent prints. Perhaps another time, but I do not plan to redo the prints just to gather this data.

Conclusions
As is often the case B&W images show differences in printers, papers and profiles better than colour. The Kodak profiles clearly produce a warmer, slightly sepia look, while the others produce a more neutral, cooler image.

So assuming that colour rendition is not absolutely critical for contact printing or friends & family prints then the US Made Kirkland paper looks pretty good with a range of profiles – I’ll probably get a bespoke one made in due course just to be sure. In the meanwhile I’ll use the bespoke profile made for the Swiss made Kirkland as it is easier just to treat all the Kirkland papers the same to avoid confusion.

Unless the real difference in B&W rendition is deliberate then I do not think that this batch of US made Kirkland paper is made my Kodak, or the profile I used (which is the only one I could find on Kodak’s web site) is for a completely different paper altogether.

In any case I am quite happy to continue to buy Costco’s Kirkland paper for non-critical prints whatever the source is. Read more...

Testing inkjet papers to use with an Epson 4800

This posting is about how I test new inkjet papers for use on my Epson 4800 inkjet printer; in future postings I will go into what papers I currently use for my for B&W and colour printing. Since I only use gloss paper, partly because that is what people seem to like and partly to avoid having to switch between the Matt and Photo ink cartridges with all the ink loss that that incurs, I can only share my experience of printing on gloss papers. I also include sources for several printer test images available on the web.

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I bought the Epson 4800 so that I would be able to print images onto all sizes from A4 up to 17” width roll paper. I want to be able to print B&W prints as well as colour and I have three basic print modes; Exhibition, draft/proofing and friends & family prints. The criteria for paper choice clearly vary considerably from Exhibition prints needing excellent quality and longevity, through draft/proofing prints needing to represent what the final exhibition print will look like as cheaply as possible, to friends & family prints looking about right first time at a sensible cost.

I have never been one to blindly use the papers that the manufacturers sell as they are almost never either the best quality or the best priced solution. So when I got the 4800 I got hold of samples of all the likely candidates available in the UK, along with any ICC profiles that were available to use with them. As new papers have come out that look interesting I have tried them out as well.

I am not going to go into technical aspects of paper properties such as Dmax etc as I do not have the test equipment nor do I really understand what the technical results mean! I am most interested in how the prints look – there are plenty of technical paper tests around the web and published in magazines. I tend to have a look at them before trying a new paper just to see what professional testers think of them.

I test a paper by printing out known test images and comparing them in the light that they are most likely to be viewed in with a library of competitor papers prints that I have created and keep stored out of the light.

Over the years I have accumulated several printer test files that I use to evaluate new papers. These represent a wide variety of images on one sheet of paper, for both B&W and colour images. I have also collected some specialist B&W images to use. If I like the test prints I then use some of my own “keepers” to finally decide whether I want to invest in a new paper or not.

There are quite a few printer test files available on-line and I have listed some below:

Multi image B&W and Colour from Neil Barstow
http://www.colourmanagement.net/downloads.html

B&W multi image and tone gradient file from Northlight Images
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/black_and_white_test.html

Both a multi image B&W and Colour file and a B&W and toned images file from Marrutt
http://www.marrutt.com/print.php

A B&W Tonal range printer test chart and a multi image colour file from Tim Grey
http://www.timgrey.com/books/ccdownloads.htm

Three multi image B&W and Colour files from Imageplace
http://www.imageplace.co.uk/testfiles/downloads.html

Multi image B&W and Colour from Digital Dog
http://www.digitaldog.net/tips/

Three multi image B&W and Colour files from InkJet Art
http://www.inkjetart.com/custom/

The printouts that I find give me the most information are the first two: the multi image B&W and Colour file from Neil Barstow and the B&W file from Northlight Images (both shown below). I also use the B&W tonal range file from Tim Grey to check likely shadow and highlight detail properties for a paper.




Over the last two years I have tested dozens of gloss and semi-gloss/satin papers from manufacturers such as Permajet, Lyson, Fotospeed, Tetenal, Ilford, Harman, Epson, HP, Da Vinci, Olmec and Fuji as well a own label products from Costco (Kirkland), MX2 and 7dayshop etc etc, with prices ranging from 7p per A4 sheet to £1. You can pay a lot more, but I tend to research the cheapest source for papers (nearly always on-line) before trying a paper and I nearly always find widely varying pricing.

I always leave the prints to dry for at least 24 hours to make sure that they are fully dry - I have noticed that some papers seem to have a magenta tint at first which disappears on drying and some also look "fuzzy" before drying. Read more...

Lowepro D-Pods 30 case for Ricoh GX100 compact digital camera

A couple of months ago I posted my experience of the Lowepro D-Pods 30 case with my Canon G9 - Click here to read it. Recently I have been able to play around with a Ricoh GX100 compact digital camera, so I thought it would be useful to report on my experience with it and the D-Pods 30 case, and to compare it with the G9 as well.

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Description and specifications
The D-Pods 30 was designed by Lowepro for small digital cameras. It is made from a black stretchy, water-resistant fabric; it has a Velcro secured belt/SlipLock™ compatible loop on the back, a battery/accessory pocket on the front of the case and a memory card pocket in the inside of the front flap. You can also slip something under the memory card pocket (as shown in the photo below). It also comes with a removable shoulder strap and the table below lists the dimensions. In the UK it costs around £7.99.

	Interior - Inches / cm	Exterior - Inches / cm
Height	4.9 / 12.5	5.4 / 13.8
Width	2.8 / 7.0	3.2 / 8.2
Depth	1.4 / 3.5	2.5 / 6.3

Lowepro D-Pods 30 case with the Ricoh GX100 in it, along with a spare battery in the front pocket and a spare SD card in the memory card pocket. The GX100 has the supplied wrist strap fitted.

What is it like in use?
Well the good news is the GX100 fits nicely into the pouch; it is not nearly as tight a fit as the G9 and it is easy to get the camera in and out. Being a looser fit means that you can not really feel any of the buttons, dials and flash bracket through the case that you can with the G9. This is also partly because the GX100 has a smoother body outline with fewer protrusions than the G9.

You certainly can not use the case with the VF-1 electronic viewfinder attached to the GX100, but it fits OK into the bottom of the case without the VF-1’s supplied case; but I feel that the “naked” VF-1 might well get damaged in transit. With the VF-1 in its supplied case I could fit it in at a squeeze with the Velcro closure tab just making contact, but I felt that it was just as likely to damage the VF-1 as protect it. I suppose for “gentle” transport situations it would be OK – at least the viewfinder would not get lost – but not for carrying on the belt or hanging off a rucksack strap.

The Ricoh DB-60 battery for the GX100 (I also use Hähnel HL-005 batteries with the wide range of Panasonic, Leica and Fujifilm cameras that use the same battery) is much slimmer (10mm vs. 16mm) and lighter (26g vs. 43g) than the Canon NB-2LH battery used in the G9, (as shown in the photograph below) so it fits into the front pocket very neatly without making the whole package too bulky, as you can see in the photo above. In fact I did not really notice the battery in the pocket at all as it fits in nicely just below the GX100’s lens bulge in the case.

The Canon battery on the left - the Ricoh on the right

A SD card fits neatly into the memory card pocket, which is made from stiffer material than the stretchy outer case. If, however, your camera takes Compact Flash (CF) cards then it might be worth knowing that the memory card pocket is not big enough to take a CF card. CF cards will slip in behind the memory card pocket, although it is not as secure as the proper pocket and might easily fall out. The front pocket takes a SD or CF card in a protective case quite securely.

The weight of the whole package (camera, strap, spare battery and SD card, and VF-1) comes in at 386g. Without the VF-1 it weighs 364g. By comparison the G9 weighed in at 500g.

I found it much easier to slip the GX100 in and out of the case when on my belt than the G9.

I have not used the neck strap so have no comment to make on it other than it looks like the standard one that Lowepro supplies with most of its small cases.

Conclusion
All-in-all it is a pretty good choice for a Ricoh GX100. It is a good fit; slipping in and out easily. It is no bulkier than it needs to be and gives good enough protection against accidental knocks and abrasion that occurs when these things rattle around inside bags, glove compartments and sundry other places day-in and day-out.

There is, however, no room for any much larger accessories such as wide angle attachments or with a viewfinder attached (although it can take the dismounted VF-1 at a pinch) – for these you will need a bigger case. Read more...