Choosing between the Canon PRO-200 or PRO-300 13" desktop photo printers

hi my name is keith cooper from northlight images and in this short video i'm going to have a look at what the differences are and whether they mean anything to you between the canon pro 200 and the canon pro 300 now i've got detailed reviews of each uh there are videos and much more detailed longer articles and there are other articles to go with the reviews as well covering printing different aspects of how you'd actually use the printers but this is relatively unusual for me because i don't do comparative reviews but these two printers both from canon both new printers are so similar that people are asking me should i get this one or should i get this one well let's start with a quick look at the basic printers themselves and um as you're probably guessing they're virtually identical physically weight wise there's very little difference between them as well the 200 is a pixma pro 200 and the 300 is an image program 3 pro 300 200 300 i get mixed up if i got them both next to each other the difference you can see is that these two plastic panels have a different finish on this printer they're a grooved plastic whereas this there are sort of bubbly leatherette effect plastic um there's really no other obvious differences between the two they weigh virtually the same internally just open up the print path here this is the rear feed the main feed rear feed is at the back they're identical as well this is the same as this both take same sorts of paper on both of them i can print a wide range of borderless and i can do panoramic prints double a4 and i can do custom sizes up to just short of a meter long but the real difference between them comes inside and i'd love to say you can see this obviously but you can't they're the same in here as well the difference is this is an ink cart for the pro 200 it has a dye based ink and this is an ink cart for the 300 and it has a pigment based ink now having tested both of them extensively produced hundreds of samples pictures and things they are very similar however this one is depending on where you are in the world is somewhat or quite a bit more expensive than this one um i don't keep track of of prices i don't actually sell printers or anything like that i'm an architectural commercial photographer but they both support disc loading and they both produce very nice prints so the simple question and people say is why should i pay extra for the 300 um certainly not the finish the size the bulk the speed or anything they're broadly similar between both of them this one has 10 ink cartridges one of those ink cartridges is a color a clear color optimizer coat this has eight ink cartridges all normal colored inks grays and colors so between the two of them what differences are there that you'd actually notice let's take as an example this glossy color print it's a borderless print i could have printed it on either however in and this is something that's really difficult to show um on a video um there is no gloss differential on this now gloss differential is a subtle effect that you get on some glossy papers where if you look at a shallow angle and get the light right you'll see an actual variation in feel as the with the ink sitting on the paper with the dye based inks that this was printed on this was printed on the 300 i could look at the print and i could tell it was done on the 300 so glossy prints particularly shiny ones like this the 300 gives not quite as good results as the 200. however the range of colors that the 300 as you can see i have to remember which is which what i'm saying is the 300 gives you a slightly wider range of colors particularly in deep colors and in blues in greens the dye based inks here work better for and it's it's quite slightly effect in oranges yellows light colors warm colors so there we have it there's a slight difference there so in that respect one up for the 200. however pigment-based inks last longer so if you're concerned about your prints not fading being fine in 50 years time then the choice would be for a pigment ink based printer now these dies are improved canon's has a new range of inks for this particular printer and i'm going to say that prints on either of these in reasonable conditions would certainly probably outlast me it's not a problem but if you're interested in prints that are going to last go for a pigment based ink that's color if i look at other images here's a black and white print now black and white is not as simple for the printer to produce well as color it seems a bit counterintuitive but with the dies you're more likely to get a subtle variation in tint to grayscale images under different types of lighting than you are with pigments so if you're really into black and white photography i would pick the 300 the inks are a better suited for black and white photography now you doesn't mean you can't get good prints from the 200 it means you just have to be a bit more careful about which papers you use so if you get a 200 and somebody says oh yeah you want to try paper brand x it's absolutely superb it may be superb on their printer but you need to test it so if you want to do black and white on the 200 you really need to do a bit more experimenting now i've written an article about this goes into all kinds of details about what may and may not matter to you but it is a distinct difference between the two both print fine on disks but hardly high quality imagery you're looking for printing on disks [Applause] here's a color print produced on a watercolor paper this is a matte paper and in looking at this what immediately strikes me is how black the blacks are and the 200 gives you blacker blacks on papers like this now that doesn't mean they give you black or blacks and therefore they're better for black and white prints because those blacks and near blacks can have slight color tints in them under different types of lighting now we near very rarely notice such things when is bright colors in the image but when you're looking at a black and white image the color tint is much more obvious so for printing on this sort of paper and this is a as i say watercolor paper it's not a thick waterproof but it's quite quite stiff paper once again i'd pick this unless of course i'm selling the prints and i want to say how long they last and the accuracy of setting them up i'm going to pick the 300 so it's quite tricky really to work out which is which i've got loads more prints and i'll not go into all the details of this but suffice to say i was really impressed by the 200. now that means that i have to have a good reason for wanting the pigment inks which give tremendous results to spend the extra money compared to the 200 now the 200 if i'm making prints just to hand out to people that i don't expect to have any particularly you know requirements for longevity i just want prints that are going to look good nice bright colors and people go oh that's nice um the 200 is probably a better choice for it if i'm putting pictures into exhibitions and the light and i want more precision it's the 300. now given how similar these are and the price difference i'm minded to say that if you're going to spend that much more money and it varies how much it is around the world it's i don't keep track of prices as i said if you're going to spend more and buy a pigment ink printer perhaps you might consider spending a bit more and getting a 17 inch one now at the moment these are two uh canon's two new printers the next one up is the pro 1000 which i have tested i don't have a video of it but i've tested it a few years ago when it first came out and that's an excellent printer what it says to me is that if you want nice bright glossy color prints pick this if you want archival prints if you want a better underlying quality particularly with brighter papers and some of the heavier semi-gloss luster type papers the inks look better on the 300 but then i'd go do i want 300 or do i want to spend a bit more and perhaps buy a pro thousand now the pro 1000 is a few years old that's not really a problem but if you're looking at printers like this this is one where i might seriously think of moving up to 17 inch it's the same as when i recently looked at the epson p700 and p900 for the difference in price i would pick a p900 for similar reasons that if i was looking at pigment inks great as this printer is i might look at a slightly bigger printer with bigger ink cartridges and that reduces the ink costs but anyway there you are as you probably guessed um the choice between the two is nowhere near as obvious as it might as you might think um i would keep this one for making prints to hand out that look great to people for presentations um yeah so yeah basically prints with impact if i'm selling prints excuse me if i'm selling prints it's that one but anyway have a look at the reviews i've done have a look at the videos i've done um by all means contact me directly at northlight images if you have any specific questions because this is actually quite difficult for me to choose because the nominally better printer is sometimes less useful than the cheaper one depends on what you want to do with it anyway i hope this has been of some help to you do check out the other stuff i've done and thank you

Channel: Keith Cooper

Views: 47,013

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Id: fFmJcPK7KRw

Length: 13min 14sec (794 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 16 2021