john_ashby2

I actually did read the review, but I thought it would have enough power to bounce indoors. The SB-800 I have has the power to be useful as a fill flash outdoors, so even with a couple of stops less power the SB-300 sounded like it wasn't too bad for $30. It's got half the guide number of the SB-800, so 2 stops, right? I've only had it a couple of days so I can still return it, but it's just hard to believe it is so bad.

I have a Nikon D90 and an SB-800 flash which I both really like. I saw an SB-300 on sale for $39 Canadian, about $30 US. I figured it would be useful to throw in my pocket when I'm not expecting to need a flash and don't want to carry the SB-800, so I bought it. I first tried using it bounced off an 8 foot ceiling to a subject 6 feet away at ISO 200, F11. The under-exposure light blinked and the picture was severely underexposed. I could not get any useful picture bouncing the light. I tried pointing it straight forward to a subject 6 feet away. The person was well lit, but the direct light was hideous and garish, and it looked like the person was in a cave. Basically every bit as bad as using the pop up flash. So am I missing someone or is the SB-300 a complete piece of junk? I can't see myself ever using it when it's no better than the pop-up flash. It is so cheaply made it doesn't even have a flash test button. If I could at least remote trigger it for CLS it might have some use. $150 Nikon product for $30 and it still feels like a ripoff. What were they thinking?

I printed the color chart sample from DigitalDog and then photographed it with the genuine color chart right next to it so you can see how out the printer is. On my screen, the photo of the card is too brown compared to the card next to it and the photo of the printout is much more brown.

Rodeo_Joe: The print files do match the monitor, they just both look tinted too brown. I'm not sure how obviously grey the grey area looks. To me it looks a lot more neutral with the profile turned off. John_Wheeler: I'm using a 2011 Macbook Pro, so the monitor is the built in screen. I don't have any OSD controls besides brightness and the colormunki software suggests the brightness level to use. It looks like that utility is to print their charts? The colormunki prints one standard chart and calculates a second chart based on what it feels needs a more precise look. I don't think I can use any other utility to print it. I could not figure out how to disable all color management on the mac though, which is why I used windows to generate the printer profile. When I use the spot color feature of the colormunki, the sample patches also look too brown on my screen compared to the object I just scanned, but that makes me think the colormunki actually picked up the object correctly and it's showing too brown on my profiled display. Is it possible the colormunki is defective? Maybe the internal calibration tile is discolored? Even though it was advertised as new from the 3rd party amazon seller, the packaging looked a few years old and something about the seals made it feel repackaged. Inside it just felt handled and like everything had been sitting out for years even though it's all clean and in no way looks marked. It's hard to describe, just a vibe. It also includes a colorchecker card which is a nice bonus, but my understanding is that hasn't been bundled with the device for several years. I paid about $100 less than market price for a new unit. Maybe it's new old stock, or maybe its well used and worn out. Part of me thinks I should just return it, but then I'll never know if it was the device or me. DigitalDog: I do know that like most people I keep my display too bright for normal use, but I'm using it as set by colormunki for this effort. The print is not coming out too dark it actually very closely matches the display but both look way off. It's bad enough that I can show the print or screen image to a relative who doesn't know anything about photography and their first comment is why is it so brown. Since your test image seems to have the colorchecker grid which I just happen to have right now, it might be worthwhile to print your it and compare the grid. If it matters, I'm viewing the prints in sunlight from a window.

The web link helps, I wasn't quite sure what to do with the image files. But I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out what to look for from the instructions, probably because my google translate of the PDF isn't very good. At max brightness (not the profiler's brightness) I can just barely make out the 3 squares in the black rectangle, and at no brightness can I see the 3 in the white.

Hi, I'm using a Pixma Pro9000 MkII printer with a macbook pro. I just bought a colormunki photo with the intention of profiling the printer. I started by using it to profile the monitor and it gave me an unpleasant brown color cast. I tried several times, different versions of the software, positioning the sensor at different angles, etc. All with the same result. I decided to leave that issue aside and move on to the printer. I could not get the mac print driver to not attempt to manage the colors, so I used a windows computer to create the profile which worked well. I copied the profile back to the mac and printed my image. And it came out with a brown cast that perfectly matches the way my display was profiled. The thing is it's image that I've printed through WHCC before and it came back from them looking perfect and very close to my unprofiled display. I used photoshop CS6 autocolor and autocontrast and it looked pretty good without any profiling. The brown cast on my display makes everything including the background of this webpage look tinted. So I don't think it's supposed to be like this and I just have my picture too brown. Is this normal behaviour for a colormunki photo? Is it possible I have a defective unit or I'm missing a setting? I got the device from amazon through a 3rd party fulfilled by amazon, and I'm not that sure it's really a new unit even though it's supposed to be. Also, before I started this little exercise my printer had a strong red tint using non-oem ink. After profiling, as I said, it matches the screen very well using the same non-oem ink. (I know, I know, but the printer has aged to the point where OEM ink has more than doubled in price and it would be more cost effective to scrap the printer and buy a Pro-100 which I will do eventually -- if only I could use that mail in rebate in Canada). Thanks for any help.

<p>Thanks for your responses.</p> <p>Les, I did that, and the brightness is much better but the picture is still very blurry. It looks more like a blurry scan than a bad negative, I don't see any grain pattern. I'll attach another image. The top is straight out of the scanner this time and the bottom is a 100% crop of the pixels at 2400 dpi.</p> <p>Allen, I didn't know I could set the histogram in the scanning program. That is very useful. I'm used to doing black and white conversions with the channel mixer but hadn't thought of that for B&W scans. It may be helpful when I get a bit farther.</p> <p>Mal, No such thing as a dumb question. I did take off the cover. On my Epson scanner, the negative frame is hidden under that cover. The negative frame for my Epson also holds the film a bit above the glass (supposedly at the optimal distance for sharp focus). </p><div></div>

<p>That's a good idea. All my negatives are 20 years old and in my parents basement somewhere so it will probably be a week before I get a chance to dig them up though. I can't think of any i can get my hands on faster.</p>

<p>I am trying to scan a roll of film I just developed and am having trouble getting a useful image. Many years ago, I used to do my own developing and wet printing, but this is my first time trying to scan the film to print digitally.</p> <p>The film is Ilford HP5+ 35mm, expired in 1995 but kept at a fairly constant -20C the entire time. I bought it fresh back when I did this regularly. The film was exposed for ASA 400, and I processed it in fresh Ilfosol 3 (1:9) and Iflord Rapid Fixer (1:4). Because of the age of the film I increased development time to 9 minutes to compensate for possible decreased sensitivity. The film actually looks slightly overdeveloped but not too bad. The Dev Chart suggests 6.5 minutes for ASA 400 and 13.5 for ASA 800. All liquids were at 21 degrees, I used a big bucket of water for everything to ensure the temperatures never changed between baths.</p> <p>When I try to scan the film on an Epson V100, it comes out with a very dark negative so there is not much range for the actual image, and what I have is very, very grainy so there is no detail in anything. I'm scanning in transparency mode with the built-in holder, 2400 dpi, color positive mode (I tried all the choices and this was actually the best one).</p> <p>I'm attaching a sample file. From top to bottom, it shows a full frame as it came from the scanner, the frame inverted to a positive, my effort to correct it, and an actual pixel crop of the 2400 dpi image.</p><div></div>

<p>I looked at the inkpress website and it does say it's "optiminzed for pigmented or dye ink", so if it's fading because dye doesn't play well with the surface, I really should be complaining to Inkpress.</p> <p>Ivo: You may well be right. I know the swellable paper that I liked so much on my printer is a disaster on pigment printers. But if Inkpress says this paper is for dye printers and these results are typical with dye, it's pretty crappy thing for the company to do. I still have 24 sheets of 13x19 and probably won't get be getting a pigment printer in the next year at least.</p> <p>Bill C: It's true, the 100 year claim doesn't mean much for pictures in bright light, but when they say 100 years at all, you have to expect better than 2 months no matter what the viewing conditions.</p> <p>Chad: Thanks for the suggestion. I'll may pick some up to play with, but I really want to find papers I can try out that I can expect to use for a long time if I like them.</p> <p>Edward: The picture looked great when it was first printed. </p> <p>Robin: In my original post, I said it was a Pixma Pro 9000 Mk2 with OEM ink and Inkpress Fiber Gloss paper. I'm not sure what more information I could have provided. </p> <p>Ellis: It's definitely a dye printer. The Pro 9500 was the pigment version.</p> <p>One thing that's interesting is i've used cheap polaroid branded dollar store glossy paper in this printer for snapshots and playing around with pictures I didn't care much about. And it fades the exact same way. I just figured that was because it was cheap paper. This is $3/sheet paper from a supposedly reputable company. </p>

<p>Thanks for your replies,</p> <p>I use a dye printer because one of my favourite papers is the metallic one, and metallic papers don't do as well with pigment ink. But not all pictures look good with the metallic effect and I like to try different papers anyway. The best result I ever got was with a swellable paper, a test print I did 3 years ago has been in bright sunlight ever since and a strip I cut off and kept sealed in the dark is very close to a perfect match. But I don't know of any swellable papers currently available. Are there any?</p> <p>Edward: That's interesting, I hadn't heard that about ceramic coated papers. The fiber gloss does have a squeaky/sticky feel thought I wouldn't have thought to call it that. I also bought some Ilford Gold Fibre Silk that I haven't tried because the instructions in the box said it's not for dye printers. Is this a common trait of fiber papers? What about Baryta papers since I was planning to try one of them?</p> <p>Don: It is a dye based printer, but Canon says the ink should last 100 years on their paper in an album (I know, huge grain of salt). To get as faded as my picture is in 6 months on display, if that were normal for dye ink, there is no way dye printers would be on the market. That fading is extreme, the picture was unusable within 2 months.</p> <p>Stephen: I've heard it's the ink not the paper many times, that's why I posted an example. The only difference between those two sample pictures is the paper. Same printer, same ink cartridges, a few days between the printing, even the same icc profile (per the paper manufacturer recommendation for my printer). And very similar display conditions. The only variable is definitely the paper.</p>

<p>6 months ago I printed the same picture on Inkpress Metallic Gloss and Inkpress Fiber Gloss, and had them both displayed unframed bare paper in rooms with bright windows. They were printed a couple of days apart on the same Canon Pixma Pro 9000 Mk2 with the same ink cartridges.</p> <p>Almost immediately, the Fiber Gloss started fading and the Metallic seems unchanged. The sample pic attached shows both pictures, Fiber Gloss on the left, as they look today. Why did the Fiber Gloss fade so fast? The paper seems completely useless and it was a fairly expensive paper that I still have a lot left of.</p> <p>It's also embarrassing to give out pictures that fade within a few months, and since this was supposed to be a premium paper, it seems there's no way to know what will or won't fade.</p> <p>Thanks</p><div></div>

<p>Bill,<br> I will have to look deeper as you suggest later. But even though it is better it's probably just barely acceptable for an event photo booth. The samples I printed yesterday were from a wedding I shot recently, I'd be embarrassed show the client the prints even with the profile. Maybe I'm expecting too much from the printer and it's just not meant for better than quick and mediocre handouts.</p> <p>Andrew,<br> The costco I go to uses a Noritsu 3411, but my point is even a cheap consumer inkjet on dollar-store photo paper with no color profile beats this dye sub "commercial photo printer". I can't find any information about the color gamut of this printer or other dye subs compared to inkjets. They just make a big deal of the continuous tone giving better image quality.<br> I can choose a profile in an application like photoshop. Most apps don't have such an option (like the hot folder printing utility I'm using). </p>

<p>I thought I remembered reading a long time ago dye subs didn't need profiles because it's an ink/paper/printer kit. But I just looked it up and apparently the print driver did install some icc profiles on my system.</p> <p>I tried printing from photoshop using "photoshop manages colors" with to proper profile and it actually does look a bit better but still not in the same league as costco. But the print driver doesn't appear to have an option to pick a profile. Is it possible it just uses it automatically since there is only one possible paper choice for this printer?</p> <p>I normally wouldn't print from photoshop with this printer since at an event I use software that goes from camera to printer automatically. And that software doesn't have color management.</p>

<p>I recently bought a Mitsubishi CP-K60DW-S dye sub printer for event photography. I was expecting good quality prints but so far I haven't gotten a usable print out of it.</p> <p>I have a profiled monitor and when I print the same photos on my inkjet they look great. When I print on the dye sub, the colors are very muted it seems to lack contract and saturation. The actual color accuracy is pretty decent but the pictures are very dull and don't pop. My wife won't even let me print snapshots on it for her because it's so bad, she waits until she can go to the drug store. The glossy clearcoat looks very dull and this model is supposed to have a gloss or matte finish. The difference between the two choices is so minor, it's hard for me to tell which was used.</p> <p>I've seen dye subs used at events and the results look good. So is this model a bad choice, is the printer (or media kit) defective, or am I doing something wrong?</p> <p>I also had it develop a vertical line on every print within the first 50 prints. Cleaning the printhead fixed that but is it normal to need a cleaning that soon? I've put less than 100 prints on the printer so far, and the quality was crap from print 1. I am still on the first media kit, but all the media I bought would be from the same batch anyway.</p> <p>Can anyone with experience with dye sub printers give me some input?</p> <p>Thanks.</p>