Help me pick a printer

  • Thread starter sp74Supra
  • 7 comments
  • 421 views
I just got my Canon Powershot s500 Camera yesterday and its fantastic. I need a good printer to go with it and print some of the pictures I took. Im going to France again this summer so I really need something good. It should also have a scanner.And for the price range no more than $300 if possible. So if you have any suggestions or tips I would greatly appreciate it thanks.
 
It's a 5mp camera so the largest print size will be something like 12x18. That said, just get the highest quality printer you can find. Look for a very high DPI and if it's possible, grab a 6 color printer. Just avoid Epson's 6 color one since their ink doesn't work well with photo paper that's not their own.

Check the Canon Pixma IP5000. Retail price of $199USD and it hits a sweet 9600x2400 DPI. It's a 5 color printer
There's also the Lexmark P6250 which retails for the same but it's a 6 color printer and has an onboard scanner. It'll print at 4800x1200DPI

Of the two, the Canon will probably be better for photos. Still, don't pick until you go to a good store that has display models and print samples for you to see. Most photography shops will carry them :)
 
Can i suggest that you choose epson over hp and lexmark, as from my experience of them, lexmarks and hps tend to be a bit touchy, in comparison to epsons. When using hps, i have found that if you cancel the printing job, and afterwards turn off the printer, that when you do turn the printer on later on, it decides to print around 20 pages of strange symbols and smiley faces. Lexmarks, tend to get a bit annoyed if you forget the paper.
 
The reason I didn't point out any Epsons is because we bought Epson's top of the line large format printer some months back. We ended up returning it because the ink would go all runny on any photo paper that wasn't Epson's. Seeing as how they don't let you buy their stock in bulk and that we bought it for bulk photo runs for a modeling agency, we had to return it. 👎

Aside from that, they're pretty good printers
 
Well from reading this, ill probably got for a canon or HP. My uncle printed some photos from my camera on his hp printer and im really impressed. I was surprised when he said this that printer isnt one of the best from HP. But thanks again for all the replies. At this point im leaning towards an hp but it might change in a few hours ha. I hope it doesnt print 20 or so pages like you said if i cancel the print and it decided to print all that junk, it would be really annoying :)
 
My mother-in-law's Epson RX500 prints pretty good photos ... She uses Epson photo paper, though, so I'm not sure about how well it prints on generic photo paper ...

Very solid build quality, I might say ... Definitely not a Lexmark ;)

Only problem I have with it is that it's quite slow ...

Personally, I'd just save the images onto the computer, burn them on a CD, and have them printed off at a local store that prints photos ... I use London Drugs for my "good" photos and Costco for my general photos (much cheaper) ... Costco produces better results than most photo printers I've seen, it's cheaper (18 cents per photo for 4x6s), and you don't need to buy a good photo printer, photo paper, ink, etc. ... You might want to look into that if you're just a casual photographer ...
 
Back