Ink for Canon Pro 100

I bought a Canon Pro 100 last year to replace my old S900 that had gone belley up. Got a great deal, printer for $48 plus had to buy one box of Canon print paper. I am quite impressed with the printer and the quality it produces.
However, something strange seems to going on with regard to the Canon CLI 42 replacement inks. At the time of purchase a set of 8 was about $95. It increased to $99, then $111 and now $115 at B&H photo. However, it has been on back order for some time, same thing at Adorama. In the past you could get the set from Amazon for about the same price. Today, when I checked Amazon the set of 8 was $248!!!!
Has something happened to Canon to cause this to not be available? Or is simply a supply and demand issue?
I'm curious if anyone else is having trouble getting Canon replacement ink cartridges.

Sounds like Canon isn't making the ink, either in enough quantity or not all.

Mark a printer for 48 dollars? You want what from that investment? I'm not trying to be glib here but honestly at 48 dollars you get nothing from anyone. Maybe image specialists has your inks if your willing to buy refillable cartridges. Ink is not all that expensive really and your are getting gouged as you say ... but on a 48 dollar printer?? Can you afford a real printer? What are you printing right now---8 colors and dye??? Dye fades. Get a pigment printer and then I'll tell you on how to cut your ink costs down to 1/7 th of what others have to pay. And no I am not making a dime on sharing the info...


Paul

http://www.staples.com/canon+cli+42/directory_canon+cli-42


http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_6?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=cli-42%20ink&sprefix=cli-42%2Caps%2C286

Staples often has 15 -20% off sales, and if you turn empty cartridges in at store you get money back.

This is very interesting. Two days ago, my link to amazon showed the only available replacement at $248, not the current $111.
Thanks for the links.

Mark just noticed this at Adorama. They are closed until the 10th for Passover but looks like they have an 8 pack for $111.45.
Canon CLI-42 Ink 

And Paul if you read this I would not be so quick to bad mouth the Canon Pro-100. It may only have a 30 year rating according to Wilhelm Imaging Research instead of 60-70 for most pigment inks but in a side by side comparison conducted by Imaging Resource the Canon Pro-100 surpassed every pro model Epson (with UltraChrome HDR inks) and even Canon's own large format printers in color reproduction quality, accuracy, and tonal depth. It may make some turn their nose up simply because it is not a "pigment" ink printer but it produces extremely high quality prints. The Chomalife100+ inks don't seem to be the old dye ink sets most think of.

Thanks Brad, I have ordered it from Adorama. I can attest that Canon dye inks from the old S900 have been in direct sunlight at altitude here in Colorado with no signs of fading for over ten years. Just because I got a great deal does not mean the printer is of low quality. We all know we really pay for printers when we buy ink, just didn't understand the strange pricing and lack of availability of a few days ago.

bradmangas wrote:Mark just noticed this at Adorama. They are closed until the 10th for Passover but looks like they have an 8 pack for $111.45.
Canon CLI-42 Ink 

And Paul if you read this I would not be so quick to bad mouth the Canon Pro-100. It may only have a 30 year rating according to Wilhelm Imaging Research instead of 60-70 for most pigment inks but in a side by side comparison conducted by Imaging Resource the Canon Pro-100 surpassed every pro model Epson (with UltraChrome HDR inks) and even Canon's own large format printers in color reproduction quality, accuracy, and tonal depth. It may make some turn their nose up simply because it is not a "pigment" ink printer but it produces extremely high quality prints. The Chomalife100+ inks don't seem to be the old dye ink sets most think of.

I wasn't knocking the printer so much as pointing out at 50 bucks your not  likely to get much in the way of support and you shouldn't expect much. Your reaction is a bit off the mark. Yeah dye looks a bit brighter and saturated but now let me tell you something.....I had a dye printer, the 1270 I believe it was, and after only  two years the prints were fading and after five they were trash. Don't think that wasn't embarrassing when customers brought them back. And yeah epson advertised 50 or whatever it was years of longevity and testing was done to back that up---so they said. I figure that's why all the manufacturers came out with the pigment printers that just about everyone now uses...because those dye prints were only good for a few years ...especially if displayed anywhere near window light. Even the new and improved dye inks and the special dye paper they dropped on us didn't last and the seemed to  move on to new formulas..

But hey...maybe they got it all worked out now and dye does give one 50 years. I'm still not sure I would ever take the chance if selling prints. Honest there's not much worse to a printer guy than a customer shoving a faded purple off color print in your face after you told them the print was archival.

But I could be all wrong about the dye inks now... so good luck with your printer....

A thought for you....maybe make a print, and then take two or three layers of typing paper, and lay those on top of your print and set it out in the direct sun for a few weeks and see what happens. When you lift the typing paper you'll see right off if there has been any fading comparing the covered side with the uncovered side. You got little to lose and might have more confidence in the inks then. If  you can get a pigment print do the same and lay it side by side with the dye print experiment. I'd be very curious to hear what the results were..and I'm sure others would too.

Paul

The Epson 1270 did have a fading, orange shift issue. That was 15 years ago. I also had one. It was bad news. 

I don't think that is useful data to base decisions on current technology. 

jrhoffman75 wrote:The Epson 1270 did have a fading, orange shift issue. That was 15 years ago. I also had one. It was bad news. 

I don't think that is useful data to base decisions on current technology. 

I think it is useful data jr. Not to be combative...and...I might be so wrong about today's dye inks and papers. I admit I do not know for sure.  But the facts are ink and printer companies have overstated their claims before and real world testing I think is the only way to be sure. If your not selling your prints this is no problem...if you are then you must be sure of what reality is as far as print longevity.

Now we do know that pigment is solid particles suspended in the ink like little lumps of coal. Inert and rather indestructible. Dye on the other hand IS the suspension solution itself on the molecular level and is totally hanging it's arse out to the uv rays of light. Just think about any article of clothing whether it be a shirt or curtain or car upholstery that was dyed, the uv of light eats it up in chemical reactive processes, and they fade very, very, fast. I do understand chemistry as this was my major in college bye the bye. Pigment inks, particles held in suspension, are like rocks there, and just take huge amounts of UV rays to degrade. But dye not being a suspended particle, and a being of molecular nature, is extremely sensitive to light and UV because those forces can directly tear apart those molecules. These are hard facts that are pretty much impossible to get around. On top of that, claims were made about longevity with the 1270 and they were absolutely false. Maybe even lies. So I would just say be cautious.

What has canon done to stabilize their dyes against molecular degradation? Well I don't know for sure but probably a UV protectorate of some kind. Don't trust Wilhelm and other lab tests either. They all use artificial accelerated bulb testing and I repeatedly have found their results to be wildly inaccurate even with pigment inks.  Doing your own home grown tests with some prints won't take any effort and could be quite telling.

Do I hope I am wrong? ...You bet I do. Dye definitely rocks for all the things one wants in a print as far as saturation and detail and smooth gradation, but if Canon claims light fastness, they would need to prove that one to me. Or I would need to prove that to them. Either way dye is going to fade fast compared to pigment in my opinion FWIW every time.

I'm thinking my 1270 was only ten years or so ago. I'm surprised I'm stil with Epson for that matter really...


Paul

MarkoPolo wrote:Thanks Brad, I have ordered it from Adorama. I can attest that Canon dye inks from the old S900 have been in direct sunlight at altitude here in Colorado with no signs of fading for over ten years. Just because I got a great deal does not mean the printer is of low quality. We all know we really pay for printers when we buy ink, just didn't understand the strange pricing and lack of availability of a few days ago.

Just for fun Mark how would you know those prints have not faded in ten years unless you could compare those ten year prints to a freshly made one, or one kept in the dark?? They might still look ok but as you know the eye can be easily deceived. I'm aware this might all be moot depending on ones level of expectations or standards. But if these dyes are to die for why isn't everyone selling their pigment printers. Maybe I should!!

Paul

I read the review at imaging resource.I'm not impressed. Well maybe on a couple of things especially this one:

"Katsuichi Shimizu made in an interview with Dave at the Pro-1 launch.Today's dye technology, he said, has "a 300 year lifespan, and the fading durability is almost identical to pigment."

300years?? Really? If that be true why on Earth do they only advertise 30 years? If you invented 300 year non fade inks wouldn't you be shouting it from the roof tops with a bull horn? Or was that a typo I read?

That just builds a little suspicion in my mind.. But glad to see new technology anytime with printing.

In the one image type where they say the dyes shine and they have always done so, is with bright saturated colors.

You can't see it as much here maybe but the top is the dye and bottom is the pigment. The saturated colors pop more for sure, but for me what I always disliked is how the blacks go to jet black in places especially on the gloss and luster papers. If you close down the blinds in a room and all the curtains then look around there are no jet blacks..unless the object is already jet black. jet black is quite unnatural to my eye and jumps out at me as if saying plastic or fake. I'm not saying that it's conscious, it's rather subconscious. If one didn't know better one would not know what is wrong, but still something still looks wrong. So that always had an unnatural look to me. Made everything look cooked and subtly wrong. At least to my eye.

- Printing on matte papers with dye isn't going to happen to often so count that out according to the review.

- The comparison prints showing skin tone demonstrates what I was getting at about the flowers above in that it looks unnatural. In the skin tone arena the pigment printer beat the pants off the pro 100 dye according to the review.

- Then all the dye prints showed lack of detail in the highlight and bright areas compared to pigment. This is major bad to me as a lot of nature images incorporate sky are and water reflections. again according to the review

I'm not impressed......

But certainly things sound better for dye. I always thought dye would be great for commercial imaging where one needs screaming bright color. One other thought is we can now coat certain papers that have a pigment printed image on them and pick up a huge amount of saturation. I do this on hubble and other space images I sell. Talk about deep, deep jet black..but space is jet black so there it's ok.

I used to love my dye prints as they came off the printer back in the day, but now I look at them as rather garish, unnatural. To each his own of course, but as one prints over many  years one evolves in awareness and vision, and what seems to be over picky to many is glaring and loud to that person after they have been at it for a while.

Paul