Contact us: +44 116 291 9092
Title Image

A visit to IPEX 2010

  |   Article, Articles and reviews, Canon printer, Colour management, Photography news, Printing, X-Rite   |   No comment


Site update: Keep up to date with all Keith's work
...Get our Newsletter for new articles/reviews and please subscribe to Keith's YouTube Channel
...Keith's book about how to use tilt/shift lenses is now available.
Our site contains affiliate links - these help support the site. See our Advertising policies for more

Canon iPF8300 | i1Profiler | HP z5200ps

There is a lot of new and big stuff at IPEX – I’m not a great one for trade shows, they are great for visiting a few key people, but the larger ones can quickly feel a bit of an ordeal.

This blog covers a few products I went to see…

IPEX at the NEC Birmingham (UK) is vastly bigger than the usual shows I visit there and fills all the main halls.

It’s about print – mostly the sort of print I have relatively little connection with here at Northlight.

Things like this vast flat bed printer:

Large flat bed printer

Large flat bed printer

This is just outside of the HP hall, where I’d gone to look at the z5200ps printer – announced today by HP.

HP z5200ps printer

HP z5200ps printer

It’s a 44″ 8 colour printer, and aimed very much at the printshop market, rather than the fine art side of things that I’m more interested in. Design is like the z2100ps, although speed is said to be up to that of the z6100ps.

Last year I wrote a longish review of the z3200ps which uses more inks – I had wondered if today’s new printer from HP was to be a z3200 replacement, but not for a while yet (it is a photokina year though).

Note the way the Ink cart covers stick up – this is because the z5200ps supports larger 300ml cartridges.

larger ink cartridge capacity in the z5200p

Larger ink cartridge capacity in the HP z5200ps

For those like myself, preferring the 12 inks of the z3200, there is this interesting space in the ink cart area at the left.

Inks in LH bay of hp z5200

Inks in LH bay of hp z5200

There are specs for the z5200 at HP

–0O0–

I had a look at the new LED powered viewing cabinet from Just Normlicht

Just Normlicht LED viewing cabinet

Just Normlicht LED viewing cabinet

Although just set to green here to show the range of colours – it’s an impressive bit of kit if you need really precise lighting control

We’ve a GTi PDV viewing light that we use here .

–0O0–

One of the key products I wanted to look at was the preview of X-Rite’s i1Profiler software, that was announced last week.

There was a demo where they are showing of some functionality of the new i1Profiler software, with sample prints. Of course these are prints produced for a trade show, so you’d certainly expect to see differences ;-)

The OBA correction demo (based on the method available in Profiler Pro with the iSis) looked very good, and reflects my own experience in trying it with the iSis.

Unfortunately I can’t at the moment pass on much more detail other than to say that the profile quality looks to be a definite improvement on previous software, and the workflow options look to be very well thought out for a number of different user groups.

The whole operation looks to be a -very much- advanced version of what you get with the ColorMunki, so think refining of profiles by additional images and additional targets plus other stuff – an example would be fine tuning colour profiles for B/W reproduction.

Since the software being shown is still alpha level, I’ll respect X-Rite’s request not to go into any more detail about what I saw, since it might change before it gets released (I’d have taken some photos otherwise ;-) )

Later this year, I certainly hope to have a lot more details/articles written up here on the site…

i1Profiler press info

–0O0–

Canon were also showing their new printers – in particular the iPF8300. We hope to have a closer look at the iPF6300 before long, to follow on from the lengthy iPF6100 review I wrote up last year.

Canon iPF8300

Canon iPF8300

The new printers have been designed to be an improvement in all areas over the ones they replace, although as I’m finding out in some recent reviews, the improvement on what’s already ‘pretty good’ to ‘better’, does get less easy to spot.

The 8300 takes bigger ink carts than the 6100 I looked at

Ink tanks for the iPF8300

Ink tanks for the iPF8300

The printer display also shows more information than before

iPF8300 printer display

iPF8300 printer display

–0O0–

IPEX is an international show – so in some ways a bit more glitzy than the likes of Focus (the UK’s main photography show) which has more of a church fete feel to it in comparison.

At IPEX you get young ladies offering diamonds for people signing contracts (obviously not to be confused with ‘backhanders’ in any way whatsoever)

diamonds at IPEX

diamonds at IPEX

Unlike Focus, there are plenty of stands offering free food and coffee – I should complement HP, Kodak and Heidelberg for easing my trip round the halls.

coffee

Coffee by Heidelberg

There is some huge equipment set up and working – presses that take up more space than my house and garden, with rolls of paper that make loading my 44″ printer seem trivial.

Anyway, that’s me done for this show – most interesting, and plenty of stuff I expect to be writing more about in the coming year.

-- --

Never miss a new article or review - Sign up for our Newsletter (2-4 a month max.)
More print related information from Keith
...or use the search box at the top of any page
Reference pages and test images
These ads are not served by us - they help support our site
   


Site update: Keep up to date with all Keith's work
...Get our Newsletter for new articles/reviews and please subscribe to Keith's YouTube Channel
...Keith's book about how to use tilt/shift lenses is now available.
Our site contains affiliate links - these help support the site. See our Advertising policies for more

No Comments

Post A Comment