Printer News

Mistubishi Electric’s new CP‐W5000DW duplex dye‐sublimation color printer is designed to be a compact, versatile, and reliable printing machine that can output high-quality two-sided photo prints in a snap. The new CP‐W5000DW photo printer, which can shoot out duplex photo prints in standard sizes from 4 x 6 inches up to 8 x 12 inches, can fit on a small table or desk and weighs just under 64 pounds.

As part of our coverage each of our reporters were asked to pick out what they considered the Best of Show product, service, or idea. In most cases it is the item that caused them to reconsider how they worked or that sparked their imagination. While each reporter had their beat, this category was open game for all, and most "crossed lines" to find their pick.
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The DSLR Wheel Of Filters: Would you like to change filters without having to fumble with color gels and multiple lenses? The DSLR Wheel of Filters makes it fast, easy and fun to create different effects with the 18 different filters and prisms that you can change with the simple turn of a wheel. Just mount it directly onto your DSLR body, snap on one of the two rotating wheels and enjoy. Wheel number one has colors, dual colors, and color surrounds. Wheel number two has lenses that include kaleidoscope, macro and more. The Holga base-lens is responsible for its distinctive lo-fi toy camera look and you can shoot video through it, too. The DSLR Wheel of Filters is available for Nikon or canon cameras and the retail price is $41.99.

Here’s one of the better photo deals we’ve seen recently. B&H Photo is offering a sweet $250 rebate on the Canon Pixma Pro-100 wireless professional printer, which has a retail price of $380. So, you’re essentially getting this 13-inch, 8-ink pro-level printer for $130, which is something of a steal.

Our show report this year is an amalgam of product news and trend spotting, which pretty much reflects what photokina has stood for in our minds. The sense of a United Nations of photography still prevails at this increasingly European-directed show, but the image and its uses is still the universal tie that binds.

While HP did show a number of consumer-oriented printers, perhaps the most interest was generated by their new HP Designjet Z2100 and Z3100 models. Both use HP Vivera pigment ink technology (introduced with the HP Photosmart Pro B9180) and have built-in color management with an embedded spectrophotometer. According to HP, the use of the Vivera pigmented inks yields 200+ years...

PMA 2008 is not going to go down in history as the year of the new printer. Unlike past years where every major company had multiple new product announcements, this year was relatively quiet on the inkjet front. That does point to a maturing category, one where the existing quality bar is already very high. Indeed, you could take any of the top three (Canon, Epson, HP) and have...