jrsmith

Jordi

I'm afraid it's time to call Epson. But of course the printer is now out of warranty, I suppose?

John

OK. Have you tried printing a graphic or photograph from another application (not CS3) like MS Word, for example?

John

Jordi

since the printer passes nozzle checks and head alignment its mechanical condition would seem to be OK. That leaves us with either -

* Corrupt firmware inside the printer - or

* Corrupt driver software on the PC

The first you can do nothing about on the R2400 (as far as I know), but it might be worth de-installing the printer from your PC and then re-installing the drivers.

John

Patrick

you cannot change cartridges on the R2400 without moving the print heads to the cartridge exchange position. This cannot be done manually because the print head is locked in the park position, power on or power off. Even if you do manage to fool the printer by powering off at the mains when the carriage is moving during the power-up checks, and then move the head manually to the exchange position, the printer still senses that a cartridge change has taken place when you apply power again because it reads up the cartridge chip data. It then runs a purge routine. This is actually all for your own good, because otherwise you run the risk of air bubbles in the print head and dead print nozzles. The only point where we could criticise Epson is that the printer is unable to purge just the print head colour which has been changed, it has to purge all eight. Just be grateful you didn't buy a 4800, where the waste of ink is totally unnaceptable.

John

Patrick

there are fundamental differences between the Epson 2200 and the R2400. I have tried every method I could think of to fool my R2400 into ignoring the ink swap, including powering down during startup etc etc, but it always knows a cartridge has been changed and runs the purge routine.

John

Dear oh dear, great maths - that of course should have read 3x8 = 24%. Too early in the morning for the old brain cells, I'm afraid.

John

Yes, that is correct. The amount of ink used for any cartridge change or cartridge swap is around 3-4% of every cartridge installed. As you have 8 installed cartridges, that is 4x8 = 24% of one cartridge. Here in the UK, a 2400 cartridge is around 10 GBP, so the MK/PK swap costs you 2.50 GBP (around 5 USD). So if you swap to MK and back to PK in one evening, as you might well wish to, it has just cost you a fiver (GBP) or ten USD. Being thrifty, I tend not to do this too often.

John

Chris

I have never found any way around the PK/MK swap. When you do this, the printer purges the ink lines for all the installed cartridges, just the same as if you had changed an empty one. However, here is the trick - it doesn't matter how many carts you change in one go, the purge routine is the same. So, if you time your MK/PK swaps to coincide with an empty cartridge change, and then print on either matt or glossy paper until the next cartridge runs out, you can swap blacks at no additional cost.

John

Eric

I am in the UK, and Speed Graphic have stock -

http://www.speedgraphic.co.uk/prod.asp?i=17591&1=Harman+Pro+Inkjet+FB+Gloss

John

It's here at last!

Yes, I have been anxiously waiting for this Harman FB gloss paper right

through August, and in fact I ordered two packs of it from three different

suppliers this week, so there is advanced faith in the product, if you like. I

actually got delivery of some A4 yesterday, and spent all of the evening

running some tests. Propped up on my desk as I type is one of the prints from

last night, and just to cut a long story short I will say straight off that it

is superb.

My tests were on my Epson R2400 with the standard K3 inkset, all in B/W from

scanned medium format film, and printed via the Advanced B/W mode on the Epson

(I do not use ICC profiles for B/W work). Out of the box, the paper looks and

feels very good - it is crisp, has the right sort of "snap", and the surface

is very smooth with a nice soft gloss. My first trials were via the rear feed

slot as used with the heavier rag papers, but the Harman gloss feeds perfectly

well through the front sheet feed too, as I found out later.

I am fortunate in that I still have a large archive of my own silver gelatine

darkroom prints, many of them on the old Ilford Galerie graded paper, for

comparison with inkjet prints. My first test prints used the paper setting as

recommended by Harman for the R2400 and set to "neutral", which produced quite

a cool-looking print. Toned to "warm" and printed with the dark curve in the

ABW mode, the prints on the Harman FB Gloss are uncannily close in almost

every respect to the old Galerie silver prints.

The nearest paper to my ideal in the recent past was the Innova Ultra Smooth

Gloss 285gsm, which I have used extensively. In my opinion, the Harman is

superior in all respects - it has a nicer gloss, better surface texture, and

most importantly better shadow detail. In fact, the Harman has much better

shadow detail and as good or better highlight separation than any of the

recent fibre-base glossy papers, according to my tests with two very tricky

negatives last night. Bronzing with the K3 inkset is minimal, but there is

inevitably still some gloss differential - however Harman have got the surface

gloss of the paper itself very close to natural gloss of the K3 inks. The only

downside I have found so far is that the surface is quite delicate and easily

marked, as others have noted. Not as delicate as the Harman FB Matt paper, to

be fair, but you will still have to be careful when handling and mounting the

print.

I really hope this paper will be a winner for Harman, because I can see that a

lot of thought, time and craft have gone into it. This could be the media that

makes glossy B/W printing on an inkjet printer no longer the poor relation of

the darkroom.

John

Barry

I have used the Harman FB Matt extensively, both on an HP 8750 with the Vivera photo-grey inkset and on my Epson R2400 like yours. I have had excellent results using the Epson Advanced B/W mode and the recommended paper setting of Watercolor Radiant White. In fact, I found shadow detail and the dark areas to be better than with Hahnemuhle Photo Rag. However, like you I did find the prints look a little "flat" - certainly the Hahnemuhle is more punchy. One issue I do have with the Harman paper is that the surface is very delicate and (too) easily marked, but this is true of very many other matt papers too.

Best regards

John

Q.G. is right. This doesn't look like any magazine light-trap leak I've ever had, and I've had quite a few. It does look as if the auxilliary shutter doors are not fully closed.

John

Willem

I have four magazines. Three of them have matching insert numbers, one does not. I can see no difference whatsoever in image sharpness between the matching ones and the mismatched magazine.

John

Mark

nice one! I hope you enjoy your R2400 as much as I have have.

John

Mark

for the Crane Museo SR and ABW, I use the Premium Glossy paper type, the dark curve for standard image density, and colour wheel settings 2/10 for a warmish image which suits the paper base. Feed the paper via the rear manual feed slot (which Epson calls Roll-Manual, I think, just to confuse you). All you need is a very gentle pressure on the trailing edge of the paper, then the printer picks it up and takes over. I have had no misfeeds so far.

Best regards

John

Mark

I'm probably going to bring down a storm of protest on my head, but here goes anyway -

I use an R2400, print only B/W (mostly with the PK ink), and I never use profiles, only the Advanced B/W Mode. The Dark setting is the most neutral curve (but it is not the default, so watch out). The ABW mode is so good you don't need profiles - you can print Crane Museo SR, Ilford Smooth Pearl, Epson Premium Gloss all on the same settings and the prints will be within a hair of each other. I tried the QTR RIP and found no improvement at all, so I went back to the stock Epson setup. My monitor is profiled using Spyder 2, and what I see on the monitor is what I get on the print.

John

Kevin

I think if Ansel Adams was posting here, someone would pop up and say -

"Quite a nice shot Ansel, but a bit too dark so well just a couple of minutes in PS and I've really fixed it up for you! Hey, it would be really good if you could post the original colour shot, 'cos I think it would look way better in RGB!"

Never mind, eh . . .

John

Stefano

check these cartridges very carefully, see this link -

http://www.photo-i.co.uk/BB/viewtopic.php?t=809

John

Karla

I'm amazed that Hasselbald UK still have parts for this lens in stock. Depending on how much you paid for the lens in the first place, 452UKP might still be a good deal. The 500mm was always a comparitively rare beast, so finding a junker to cannabilise may be tricky. Sixty quid labour to fit the element is a very fair price.

John

Paul

sometimes less can be more. I went on a two-week canal boat trip last year with just the 500 C/M and 80mm lens, and it was a great compact little setup. I took a lens hood, the meter knob, and a yellow filter. I didn't miss the rest of the kit at all. However, when I am out and about photographing architectural stuff I would be sunk without my 50mm Distagon. Here is one of the pics I took on the canal trip with the "point-and-shoot" kit -

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Errr

Excuse me chaps, but over here in the UK the HP B9180 is actually not $500, but more like 500 GBP, which is roughly $1,000 USD.

John

Tommi

1000 USD is a steal, I wish I could find one at that sort of price here in the UK. Are you based in Finland? If so, you may know of a photographer called Marjukka Vainio, who is a friend of mine from many years ago.

John

The 'C' lenses tend to generate very polarised views. While some hate the ergonomics of the coupled aperture and shutter speed rings and the narrow, stiff focus ring, if those aspects don't worry you (or if you see them as positive) there is a lot to admire. These lenses must have been horrendously expensive to build. Apart from the complexity of the DOF indicators (and what a magnificent feature!) there is the build quality itself. There is no plastic anywhere. The outer anodised aluminium case conceals the main body of the lens, which is machined from a solid brass billet. And in the middle of this magnificent optic sits the Syncro Compur shutter, a mass of tiny gears and springs the equal of a Swiss watch. These things were built to last a lifetime, and many of them are now nearly fifty years old and still going strong.

John

Zeev

my old Rollei 2.8F was all over the place on frame spacing, but they never overlapped, which is all that matters. I just carried on shooting.

John