In May, 2006 Canon began shipping the iPF5000 printer. This is a 12 ink, pigment-based, 17" carriage photographic printer capable of printing in 16 bit mode. It is physically large, moderately priced (for what it does), and, as will be seen, surpasses just about every other fine-art inkjet printer yet available, in terms of both image quality and convenience of features.
This review is based on three weeks of almost daily use of the iPF5000. By way of background, over the past 10 years I have been using a range of Epson printers, including, most recently, the Pro 5500, 4000, and 4800 models. These, especially the current Epson Pro 4800 model, will be my points of comparison.
You'll notice that this review in fact makes extensive comparison's with the Epson 4800. The reason for this is that the iPF5000 is so directly targeted at the 4800 that not to do so would miss the clear challenge that Canon has thrown down. (Do you think that the model numbering of this new printer was accidental?)
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Canon Enters the Fray
Canon, being the 800 pound gorilla of the photographic industry, seems to have now made a corporate commitment not to allow Epson's virtual monopoly on professional wide carriage photographic printers to go unchallenged. With the iPF5000 they have taken aim squarely at the Epson 4800, accurately targeting all of that printer's flaws, and in some ways surpassing its well recognized first-rate image quality.
To produce a brand new high-end printer is no small feat, even for a company as large as Canon. It requires the design of news heads, and especially a family of new inks. The level of precision of manufacturing is also exceptionally high. Though it looks straightforward when standing in front of the machine as it chums out prints, the technology going on behind the scenes is considerable.
Specs and Features
Though they are available in detail on the Canon web site, let's look at some of the printer's most salient features and specifications so as to properly set the stage.
This printer is big. Really big. And heavy. Some 90 pounds in fact. And it comes delivered in a huge carton that is attached to a wooden palette. If you're going to pick this up from your dealer, bring a friend (maybe two), and make sure that the dealer removes it from the palette first, or you'll need a forklift. Bring a minivan or pick-up truck. Better yet, just have it delivered!
Canon iPF 5000 in background
with Epson 4800 in foreground, and Epson 2200 to the side
Set-up is straightforward once you have a large enough surface prepared. There are two connections possible to your computer, either USB-2 or Ethernet. The printer comes with a built in Ethernet card, but there is no Firewire. There is a card slot for an optional Firewire board. Interestingly, Epson provides Firewire along with USB-2, and charges extra for Ethernet. Frankly, I think Canon's approach makes more sense, since the advantage of having LAN connectivity outweighs having two forms of otherwise essentially interchangeable high speed serial connections. (A LAN connection is very handy when more than a single computer is serving one printer).
Driver software is provided for both Windows XP and Mac OS X and, curiously, OS 9. (Don't tell anyone in Japan that OS 9 was discontinued several years ago. Or at least that there are only a few dozen people left in the world using it).
Installation is straightforward. There are some additional programs provided, but all except one, the 12 bit plug-in, will not be discussed here. More on the plug-in shortly.
The iPF5000 carries a suggested retail price in the US of $1,995, with the roll paper adaptor costing an extra $250.
Paper Handling
Paper handling is versatile, There is a front loading paper holder that can manage stacks of paper from 8X10" to 17X22". Very heavy paper may also be fed singly from the front, and regular paper singly from the top, as well as from the optional 17" roll paper holder. Annoyingly, the printer won't let you load thinner papers from the front position.
The cassette paper holder is versatile, but unlike the Epson's tray holder, which is unaware of what size paper is loaded until one attempts to make a print, whenever the cassette tray on the iPF5000 is placed into the machine the front panel LCD insists that you tell it the type of paper and the size that has been loaded. This wouldn't be a bad thing, since it's quite easy to do, except that you also need to tell this to the printer driver. More on this issue shortly.
Inks
Inks come in 130 ML cartridges (each slightly larger than the Epson 4800's 110ML cartridges). There are 12 of them; cyan, magenta, yellow, light cyan, light magenta, red, blue, green, glossy black, matte black, light black and light / light black. These are pigment inks, and are named Lucia, by Canon. Lucia meaning light, in Latin.
These are all found in a doored compartment on the left front side of the printer. The set of inks that come with the printer are partial, used for priming the ink lines and getting you started. Even then, they appear to last for quite a while, though I don't have enough mileage yet to know first hand what eventual ink costs will be on a per-print basis. Mark Segal, who wrote the definitive Tracking the Cost of Printing with an Epson 4000 (and later the 4800) is buying an iPF5000, and so once he has some data accumulated we can expect to know the answer to this.
Inks cost US $75 a cartridge (MSRP). OK. Get out your calculator. (12 X 75 = $900). Yes, close to a thousand dollars for a complete set of inks, when local sales taxes are included.
Update: The figures below have been updated based on revised usage data. The original data published here within the first few hours was incorrect. I apologize for the error.
But, this needs to be seen in the proper context. Using figures for the large format W series Canon printers and luster type glossy paper, estimated ink costs work out to 37 cents US for a A3 sized print and 48 cents for an 11X17. This means that the the 1.56 liters of ink contained in the twelve 130ml cartridges in the printer would be able to produce some 2,500 A3 sized prints. So, assuming (as I do) production of about 100 such prints a month, that's over two years years of printing on a set of cartridges.
Of course this isn't the way it's actually going to work, because some carts run out before others (the light magenta and yellows, for example) while other factors such as the subject matter printed will also play a role. Given all of this math (much of which can be quibbled over), I think it's safe to say that buying ink cartridges is not going to be a major financial consideration for anyone that can afford to buy the printer in the first place. And for anyone doing so much printing that ink costs are a consideration, one would hope that revenue from the sale of prints made would be more than adequate to compensate.
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