Epson 2400 printer for negs and dig output

[Donald Miller]

I have been trying to determine which Epson printer to purchase for the combined uses of enlarged digitally produced negs and also for digital color and black and white print output.

I have narrowed my choice down to the 2400 at this time because of the smaller drop size and the broad ink palette. I have heard that the 2400 is a bit of a hog when it comes to ink consumption. This prompted me to contact Ink Village and they indicated that they have no plans to support this printer since they are slowly extricating themselves from the desk top printer market.

Ink Republic does have a bulk ink system.

I have several questions. The first is does anyone have experience with this printer for color and black and white output? If so how does it compare with a conventionally printed film based print?

The second does anyone have experience with this printer for producing digital negs? If so does the smaller 1.5 PL drop become an issue?

Does anyone have experience with Ink Republic's bulk ink system? What have been your experiences with this system?

Please understand that I am a novice in this area. Any and all information will be appreciated.

If the 2400 is not a viable choice, does the 3800 seem to be the logical alternative?

Thanks for you insight and help.

[guillaume Zuili]

Hi Donald,
I do use a 2400. Quality of print is impressive if you don't compare it to a fiber print... especially when I look at your amidol prints !
But where it stands is with digital negative. This is quite impressive and easy to get good results. I printed from various negative size, 35, pola 665 and it's amazing. I want to try some 8x10 and 4x5 first to be able to dodge and burn accordingly and second to protect the original negative.
The only limitation of the 2400 is the max size output. In fact, soon enough you desire to print big. And with that machine this comes very, very soon.

Best,
Guillaume

[Joe Lipka]

Hi Don. I have a R2400.

I use it for black and white output only and digital negatives. I use the epson K3 inks, well, just because. I think I might have fewer issues with the manufacturer produced inks than with a third party product.

As for the ink hog reputation, I can't comment on that because I have no basis for comparison. It does seem that I replace a lot of ink cartridges, but there are quite a few of them in the printer and they are pretty small. IIRC the R2400 was created as a high quality low volume machine.

I really bought this printer for making digital negatives. I use the Pictorico OHP material with the gloss ink as recommended by Dan Burkholder. I have done over twenty different negatives using the R2400 and I am quite pleased with the results.

I do not use, nor plan to use a bulk ink system for this printer.

[dwross]

I am very happy with my 2400 negatives made with matte black ink (good news because I use my printer with both Pictorico and Epson Enhanced Matte paper). (caveat: There may be different responses by the various alternative processes - it would be interesting for us to stage informal group comparison tests.)

[sanking]

I know several people using the 2400 for making negatives for alternative printing. The colored inks have enough UV blocking density to permit use of the PDN system or some other sytem using color negatives for alternative processes and I know that it prints very smoothly in pt./pd.

The 2400 does appear to be something of an ink hog. A friend who purchased one after her 2200 died reported that it uses a lot more ink. If you are just using it for digital printing I don't think that would be of any consequence.

Sandy

[Donald Miller]

As an update, I purchased a R2400 while here in Italy. I pretty quickly ordered in the MIS replacement inks and recently retrofitted it with the new ink that they have for the yellow slot replacement. This is something that Roark worked with them on in getting the printer to use less colored inks by eliminating the yellow ink and thereby achieve even greater print life. MIS has a write up on their site about this for those who may be interested. This retrofit configures the printer for black and white only but still allows altering the warmth of the print...in other words the printer now has four blacks installed.

My purpose in reporting this is that the print quality is pretty incredible after the retrofit. I use QTR by the way.

[Don Bryant]

As an update, I purchased a R2400 while here in Italy. I pretty quickly ordered in the MIS replacement inks and recently retrofitted it with the new ink that they have for the yellow slot replacement. This is something that Roark worked with them on in getting the printer to use less colored inks by eliminating the yellow ink and thereby achieve even greater print life. MIS has a write up on their site about this for those who may be interested. This retrofit configures the printer for black and white only but still allows altering the warmth of the print...in other words the printer now has four blacks installed.

My purpose in reporting this is that the print quality is pretty incredible after the retrofit. I use QTR by the way.

Hi Donald,

Do your comments apply to digital negatives or ink jet prints?

Thanks,

Don Bryant

[Donald Miller]

Hello Don,

My comments apply to black and white prints. I would imagine that the yellow may be something to retain for digital negs...not sure about that since I haven't gotten to doing digital negs yet.

Sorry for not being more clear.

[amphoto]

Does anyone have experience with Ink Republic's bulk ink system? What have been your experiences with this system?

Hi Donald,

I've been using the InkRepublic bulk ink system in an Epson 2200 for well over a year now and it's worked like a dream - and saved me a fortune in ink to boot. I use the larger cartridges designed for the Epson 4000 etc. and fill the bottles with the ink from these.

Cheers,

Angus

[Donald Miller]

I have switched from Epson inks to MIS inks in refillable carts on the 2400...everything was working like a dream until I had a light magenta cart run dry today...after refilling it I got magenta into ever region of a print where one of the black inks should be printing...I have the cart installed in the proper slot...everything is the same...same profiles...same image...but pink as hell.

Anybody run into this? What did I manage to do here?