It's Official - aftermarket Inks much inferior

[measekite]

More than enough stuff has been thrown into Onondaga Lake over the
years, most of it from the Solvay Process chemical plant. I don't
intend to add to it. I'd rather it was restored to the pristine beauty
of Skaneateles Lake, but that's not likely in my lifetime. It's better
now than it was in the sixties, but there's a long way to go. It will
never look the way it did when legend has it that Hiawatha created the
Iroquois Confederacy on its shores.

I must compliment you on one thing, Measekite. Your capitalization,
punctuation, spelling, and grammar are much improved in this thread. I
notice it particularly when you are replying to Ron about photography,
and not ranting at us about your opinion on our choices. I now see
that can be used as a measure of your respect for the poster you're
replying to.
;-)

The more you respect
;-)

him, or perhaps the more you want to impress somebody, the better you
write. In this post and thread, of course, you're not expressing
respect for me,


for you have none. You're trying to impress Ron and retain your
credibility with him.


And I'll bet I should only use Panasonic batteries in my Panasonic
portable radio, because Eveready and Duracell batteries could leak.

I think you should only use Sony batteries in anything you use that
requires a battery.

OEM is not better for all purposes in ALL respects. It's definitely
not better in price, as you have admitted.

do not have to admit that. i have said oem prices are too high all
along. in the case of wide format printers both the printer and the ink
is too high. so if i do not want to pay than i do not play.

If I had to use OEM, I'd not print a tenth of the stuff I do, because
I couldn't afford it.

there is nothing wrong about spending less and getting less but at least
you should admit it.

admit

the results are not as good as oem

the print has a greater tendency to fade over oem

the generic ink has a higher risk of clogging your printhead and ruining
the printer

in your case you just throw the cart away and not the printer so the
risk is less.

there have been a few cases here in this ng that people purchase
integrated refilled HP carts and they leaked. they had a real mess.

 

[measekite]

G'day Measekite.

I have never cleaned the senson of my nikon D70 DSLR camera, it has one dust
spot that shows up in some photos but very easily removed in any digital
editing program. I have made numerous lens changes while taking photos.
Perhaps some digital cameras are more susceptible to dust, ie. poor sealing,
higher static charges on their CCD's or CMOS (in the case of canon cameras).
In many cases attempts to clean dust from a sensor can make it much worse.

Since the D80 and the Canon XTi are very comprable, the Canon is $200
cheaper and the lenses appear similiar in price, the money difference is
not important if I think the Nikon is better for me things boil down to:

in favor of the Canon

a dust removal system
a spot meter

in favor of the Nikon

the grid composition guide (rule of 3rds)
maybe beter feel (I have not seen them yet)

If the choice boils down to the dust removal system vs the grid, which
do you think is more important. How important is the spot meter.

Also one thing I want is both a focus lock and a meter exposure lock so
you can lock both if they are in different places. If you hold the
shutter button half down and lock the focus how can you then meter on a
different area and then compose on a still different area?

You really cannot go wrong in purchasing either a nikon, canon and the soon
to be released 10MP pentax K10D.

I am not sure about this model Pentax. Even in the days of the
Spotmatic (a great less expensive camera with screw on lenses) Nikon and
Canon were above with Nikon the leader of the pack. Then the pecking
order seemed to be

Nikon
Canon
Pentax, Minolta
Miranda and others

I have a Pentax point and shoot that produced good results but the
batteries were expensive. The reviews of the previous Pentax digital
camera were not all that great while the reviews of Nikon and Canon are
great. It is hard to get personal opinions on the two since most Nikon
owners and most Canon owners think of their cameras as a religion.

My friend who has an F5 and who has shot Nikon for years (he also used
at one time the Canon F1) likes the Nikon because of the way it feels
and works over Canon but he says that if he takes a bunch of photos with
each camera and prints them on his printer he could not tell the
difference between them to make any statement on which produced better
results. Maybe the same might be true of the Pentax K10D.

Meanwhile I thing I would take many more photos with the Panasonic FZ7
since I would be inclined to take it more places becaue of the
convenience. I think I should be able to get a decent 8x10 out of it.

The new pentax K10D has some advantages
over the other 2 equivalent camera brands. The pentax has dust removal, anti
hand shake compensation, any of the old pentax lenses from years ago can be
used on it,

will the all autofocus and auto meter wide open? Since I do not have
any of those lenses that feature will not affect me.

unlike the canon and nikon D80. Second hand pentax prime lenes
are some of the sharpest and cheapest lenses with incredible bokeh and they
were extremely well built. This new pentax is strongly rumoured to sell more
cheaply than its main rivals - an attempt, with its partner samsung, to
recapture a good share of the market.

As for the forthcoming wide format canon printers it will be extremely
difficult to decide which one to purchase. My opinion is that canon has not
released them by their announced dates because they want to nail longevity
of prints and give the epson 2400 a real shake for its money.

That may be true of the 9500 but the 9000 uses the same inks as the
IP4200/5200. Have you seen any test results regarding fading on those
inks? While I have seen but not compared the results of the IP4200 and
IP4000, they both look about the same, and that is very good.

Like I said, archiving notwithstanding, dye ink producing a nicer print
on more papers than pigmented ink.

If I could possible get some time off work I would attend night classes in
learning how to frame and cut mats etc.

What type of place can you get those kind of classes?

May have to purchase a good book on
it and learn to do it that way. From my limited reading Logan makes some
great mat cutters - another item to add onto my shopping list.

While I was aware from the beginning,

Any chance, of you asking your friend, that does wedding photography, to let
you assist him? - the best way of learning the ropes.

That is not what I have any desire to do. I do not really want to do a
hobby professionally. I just want to freelance around and take a few
photos of what I feel like at the time and hang them on the walls. If I
ever get an accumulation of great stuff then I might consider showing them.

Don't know about that
USA, but here in Australia wedding photographers are in huge demand and make
top dollars.

Here there is a great supply of them. Some make large profits while
others do not.

A friend of mine checked out wedding photographers here in
Canberra, for her daughter's wedding early next year and everyone is booked
out. She wants me to shoot the wedding, which I will do without charging her
or her daughter.

Once you switch to a digital SLR you will be chuffed to have that extra
quality and control. I was recently looking at a web site that did a
scientific comparison between the cheapest nikon DSLR, the nikon D50 and the
much more expensive upmarket nikon D200 and the D50 image quality proved to
be better noise wise

That is another point in favor of the Canon Xti, the Canon family seem
to have lower noice above ISO800. Below both are fairly comparable. As
for Nikon, it is said that other than FPS and the more rugged body, the
D80 is a junior D200 and you spend about $900 less. If you treat you
camera well and do not need the speed it is just foolish to go for the
D200 unless you prefer the size, weight and baloance better.

 

[Burt]

G'day all. I was reading in a recently released photography magazine that
aftermarket inks are far inferior to the branded ones. The official tester
stated that fading of prints will occur in a short period of time. I am
not trying to start a flaming war. I have extensively used aftermarket
inks but the results are now in. The guy whom was quoted in the article is
the one who extensively conducts print lifes of printers and various print
papers. This is of some concern to me as I sell prints of my photos,
fortunately I had the foresight to have my prints professionally printed.
Sorry if I have disappointed you all.

Cheers
Ron from Downunder

Having read the whole thread from this original post and having read every
relevant thread in this NG and the Nifty-stuff Forum on this issue for the
past two years plus I feel fairly knowledgeable on the subject of OEM vs.
aftermarket inks. I also have had two years of experience with three
aftermarket bulk refill inks for Canon printers. I am a proponent of their
use for most inkjet printing projects with certain exclusions based upon the
shortcomings of all dye-based inks and particularly aftermarket dye-based
inks. Greeting cards and invitations, web page printing, photos for
yourself or friends that have no archival significance, prints you wish to
display decoratively in your home and change periodically, and documents
that have a short-term use are some of the projects that are well suited to
printing with aftermarket inks.

The only aftermarket inks I use and suggest to others are reported by actual
users to have excellent color response and are safe to use in their
printers. Contrary to the heated arguement against aftermarket inks that
have been too prominant a feature on this NG, such inks are available. All
of the inkjet printers have software utilities for unclogging nozzles. Such
is a fact of life in the inkjet world. OEM and quality non-OEM inks seem to
fairly equally pose this problem. I've come to this conclusion based on the
reports of individuals on this NG who sell and/or repair inkjet printers and
from reading the questions of partipants who have experienced clogs that
don't clear with the printer cleaning cycles. For the record I have never
had a cartridge I've refilled leak into my printers or cause any type of
damage to them.

If one is seeking archival quality in photo printing under any viewing
situation, lab processed photo prints are probably the best solution.
Having said that, I have seen color photo prints from custom labs fade over
a period of time when exposed to ambient room light and especially when
exposed to UV light. Willhelm's earlier evaluation of inkjet inks indicates
that the best longevity for inkjet photo prints is with pigment based inks
used by Epson printers. That opinion is also supported by a fairly simple
evaluation done by participants of the Nifty-stuff forum last year. One can
draw the conclusion that anyone who wishes to sell his/her photo prints made
on an inkjet printer should use the high end Epson printers with
pigment-based inks. Willhelm also concluded that Canon OEM inks, prior to
the most recent generation of their printers, were most prone to early
fading of prints of the OEM dye-based inks. The Nifty-stuff evaluation of
aftermarket inks as compared to OEM Canon inks showed more fading of
different specific colors of the various aftermarket bulk refill inks that
were tested. OEM Canon inks appeared to be the best for resistance to
fading under UV light by some measure.

It is difficult to apply what these accelerated fade tests under intense UV
light mean to the potential fade resistance of photo prints protected in an
album or framed under glass in a home environment. Several participants in
this NG, Taliesyn and myself included, have reported no observed fading of
framed aftermarket ink prints that have been displayed in frames for several
years in our homes.

The more recent testing by Willhelm has been of inks that are not used or
suggested by those who report positively on the aftermarket inks they use on
this NG or the Nifty-stuff Forum. The same is true of the reports that have
come from PC magazines or Consumer magazine. Without delving into the
possibility of ulterior motives by these reviewers, I would welcome their
reviews of the specific inks that our NG participants find to work well for
them.

In my opinion there is some value to the conclusions Willhelm has drawn, but
I temper it with the conclusions drawn by actual users of aftermarket inks.
Ron has used aftermarket inks and has concluded that they are not suitable
for printing photos intended for sale. Based on what I have read, I would
agree that, at the least, aftermarket or OEM dye-based inks are not to be
used for prints intended for sale. HP OEM dye-based inks may be the best
for fade resistance at this time, and future evaluation of the new Canon
dye-based inks may show them to be equal to HP's products. It also remains
to be seen if the newest Canon pigment-based ink printers are equal to or
better than Epson's top consumer grade printers.

In conclusion, I don't know why this has to be an emotionally charged issue
on this NG. The individual who most vehimently attacks these products has
never used them and, therefore, has no credibility. Although Ron quotes
Willhelm's article as the source for his disparaging remarks about
aftermarket inks, he states that he still uses them in working with photo
printing prior to the final printing for sale. This is not a blanket
indictment of all aftermarket products that we see from Measekite. On
reflection, I would suggest that the title to his initial post was
overstated and a bit inflamatory. Based on my eperience I would say that
selected aftermarket inks are NOT "much inferior". Some can match the
beauty and color repsponse we expect from OEM inks and make great prints.
Some are as kind to the printer as OEM inks. Let's try to take the heat out
of the arguments and be objective.

 

[TJ]

Burt wrote:

In conclusion, I don't know why this has to be an emotionally charged issue
on this NG. The individual who most vehimently attacks these products has
never used them and, therefore, has no credibility. Although Ron quotes
Willhelm's article as the source for his disparaging remarks about
aftermarket inks, he states that he still uses them in working with photo
printing prior to the final printing for sale. This is not a blanket
indictment of all aftermarket products that we see from Measekite. On
reflection, I would suggest that the title to his initial post was
overstated and a bit inflamatory. Based on my eperience I would say that
selected aftermarket inks are NOT "much inferior". Some can match the
beauty and color repsponse we expect from OEM inks and make great prints.
Some are as kind to the printer as OEM inks. Let's try to take the heat out
of the arguments and be objective.

Fine with me. I'm tired of the whole subject, anyway. Positions stated
and restated, and nobody, including me, willing to give so much as a
millimeter. What a colossal bore it's become!

TJ

 

[measekite]

Burt wrote:

The above poster is associated with nifty forum that is basically a
generic ink forum and he at one time was the moderator. He is
representative of the fundamentalist view on this subject. Many other
posters have posted problems (fading, clogging, and poor results) using
the same generic source for ink that he claims he uses. Notice I said
generic source and not the same generic ink because they will not tell
you what they are selling and they may even have multiple sources
themselves so one really never knows what they are getting. One does
not have to have ever used any ink, OEM or generic, to be able to
research published information about them and also read the postings in
the ng where users complain and submit problems on generic ink.

Fine with me. I'm tired of the whole subject, anyway. Positions stated
and restated, and nobody, including me, willing to give so much as a
millimeter. What a colossal bore it's become!

You have at least admitted that you print junk content using junk ink on
a junk printer. But there are HP printers like the 990 that use HP
integrated carts and they are just great. I have one and use it for all
non photo printing. Most of the printing is in the great draft mode, a
notch below the Canon standard mode.

 

[TJ]

The above poster is associated with nifty forum that is basically a
generic ink forum and he at one time was the moderator. He is
representative of the fundamentalist view on this subject. Many other
posters have posted problems (fading, clogging, and poor results) using
the same generic source for ink that he claims he uses. Notice I said
generic source and not the same generic ink because they will not tell
you what they are selling and they may even have multiple sources
themselves so one really never knows what they are getting. One does
not have to have ever used any ink, OEM or generic, to be able to
research published information about them and also read the postings in
the ng where users complain and submit problems on generic ink.



You have at least admitted that you print junk content using junk ink on
a junk printer. But there are HP printers like the 990 that use HP
integrated carts and they are just great. I have one and use it for all
non photo printing. Most of the printing is in the great draft mode, a
notch below the Canon standard mode.

I don't consider the HP PSC 2110 "junk," but you're entitled to your own
opinion on that subject. As I've stated before, I inherited it from my
brother, part of my "fee" for acting as Administrator of his estate. He
had purchased it as a factory-refurbished printer, and used it only
about three months. The original factory-supplied ink carts were still
in it when I started using it.

I'm already sorry I used the word "junk" in an earlier post. At least
I'm honest about it. Do you ever print anything that doesn't require
top-of-the-line ink and equipment to do the job? I'll bet you do, and
frequently - but you don't have the guts to admit it.

TJ

 

[frank]

I don't consider the HP PSC 2110 "junk," but you're entitled to your own
opinion on that subject. As I've stated before, I inherited it from my
brother, part of my "fee" for acting as Administrator of his estate. He
had purchased it as a factory-refurbished printer, and used it only
about three months. The original factory-supplied ink carts were still
in it when I started using it.

I'm already sorry I used the word "junk" in an earlier post. At least
I'm honest about it. Do you ever print anything that doesn't require
top-of-the-line ink and equipment to do the job? I'll bet you do, and
frequently - but you don't have the guts to admit it.

TJ

Meashershithead is a nobody wannabe photographer who obviously has a
very lonely life as this ng is one of the few "relationships"
in his tormented loser of a life.
He is also a ****wit moron know-nothing jackass. He has one printer, an
old canon ip4000 that he prints his horrible photos [sic] on.
Pay no attention to his ignorant, ill informed opinion.
It's meaningless and worthless just like his is.
Frank

 

[measekite]

I don't consider the HP PSC 2110 "junk," but you're entitled to your
own opinion on that subject. As I've stated before, I inherited it
from my brother, part of my "fee" for acting as Administrator of his
estate. He had purchased it as a factory-refurbished printer, and used
it only about three months. The original factory-supplied ink carts
were still in it when I started using it.

I'm already sorry I used the word "junk" in an earlier post. At least
I'm honest about it. Do you ever print anything that doesn't require
top-of-the-line ink and equipment to do the job? I'll bet you do, and
frequently - but you don't have the guts to admit it.

i have printed out stuff from websites. i have also printed out code
that i may use for a couple of hours to a couple of weeks. but to buy
an hp refilled carts you may be taking a chance of leaking in as it was
reported here. but for throw away printing if you are going to use
generic ink you have less risk with an HP that uses integrated carts.
as for refilling them your self that is a messy and sloppy pain and i do
not want to support the relabelers.

i will not use generic ink in my hp because there is not legitimate
savings. the most i would not spend is $50.00 a year and i choose not
to risk my printer with ink getting all over. i like the printer.

 

[Burt]

Having killfiled Measekite nearly a year ago I only see his continued
diatribe when it is left in a response to him by another participant of this
NG. He is absolutely correct in stating that I have participated in the
Nifty-Stuff Forum. Because of the harassment from him on this NG I took on
the name "Fotofreek" on the Forum instead of using my real name as posted on
this NG. I am no more "associated with" the forum than all of us are
"associated with" this NG. I participate to learn and to pass on
information I gain through my own personal experience. He states a partial
truth about my being the moderator - I substituted for the moderator when he
was on vacation for a few weeks. This NG and the Forum do a real service in
sharing information and advising, with both positive and negative
experiences, those who have questions about printers and inks. Measekite
does a great disservice in perpetuating his stream of misinformation about
products and vendors he has chosen to vilify even though he has never
purchase or used products from them.

What he categorically lies about is his statement that MANY other posters
have posted problems (fading, clogging, and poor results) with the same ink
I use. Yes, there have been a few complaints about problems with the ink I
use. My experience of two years has proven otherwise.

I have read EVERY post on this NG and on the Nifty-Stuff Forum relating to
problems with Canon printers for the last two years - about the same period
of time that Measekite has posted on this NG. He overlooks posts that tell
about problems with OEM inks. His "complaint count" on non-OEM ink problems
is vastly overstated to support his skewed view. He asks every poster that
has a printer problem if they use OEM inks. Yes, Measekite, there are
problems that occur when exclusively using OEM inks! If ever there was a
"fundamentalist view" on this subject it is his. I believe that my post to
which he just responded was well reasoned, as acknowledged by TJ, and not a
"fundamentalist view." It expressed the shortcomings of aftermarket inks
as well as the positive results. On balance I feel that good aftermarket
inks are suitable for most inkjet printing and fall short when dealing with
archival considerations.

He continues to call all non-OEM inks "generic." There are generic inks
that are sold to be used in several manufacturers' printers. From what I
have read, these are generally to be avoided as there are different
technologies for different printers. The non-OEM inks most of us use on
this NG are especially formulated for the printers we use. The source for
some of them are known (Formulabs from Alotofthings), there is reasonable
deduction about the source of some (MIS from Imaging Specialist), and others
have sources that are not disclosed by their vendors. Nonetheless, some of
them are quite good and should not be regarded as only useful for "junk
printing." On a personal note, I would be a total fool to continue to use a
product if it damaged my printers or produced poor results. It would also
be disingenuous of me to suggest that others use such a product.

To fairly new participants to this NG I would suggest that Measekite's
"fundamentalist view" is highly skewed and to be looked at critically so you
can separate fact from fiction. Don't be fooled by his present civil
writings. You only need to look back to the past two years to see his
previous all-caps, profane, taunting, rude, sometimes-nonsensical responses
to understand why he has no credibility in this NG.

 

[Prime]

Meashershithead is a nobody wannabe photographer who obviously has a
very lonely life as this ng is one of the few "relationships"
in his tormented loser of a life.

I'll bet he had relationships while in prison.

 

[frank]

frank <[email protected]> posted the exciting message




I'll bet he had relationships while in prison.

Oh, now that's disgusting.
Is it true?
Frank

 

[Prime]

Oh, now that's disgusting.
Is it true?
Frank

I don't think we want to know .