Am I to believe that Durst has dropped the Lambda from its lineup? I can't see it anymore on their website. There are many inkjet printers but where is the laser / chemical combo?
Is it true that inkjet technology is now equivalent to the traditional paper / chemical technology? There are certainly some really serious inkjet printers being made by Durst.
can of worms, opened.
Sorry, I don't intend to open a can of worms. Its just that there is a significant amount of energy being put into inkjet from Durst. I have no opinion or experience with the recent print market I do admit so the question is genuine. I hope the responses are objective and factual!!
Steve I will try to be as objective and factual as I own a Durst Lambda76 so I have a bit of experience here- I have not heard that the lambda is dropped from its lineup.. you must know that this piece of equipment is over 15 year old technology but built like a tank to last and be productive. Its very possible that this indeed true as who today would be crazy enough to invest in this wonderful piece of equipment. When they can buy inkjet for under 15k.
The lasers are the key to this unit , every thing else resembles a ferrari and is mechanical .. with that said the price of a lambda is installed and maintained even used more than a house is worth in the Toronto GTA.
They have new solid state lasers which I can buy,(actually stock pile a couple- mental note to self) each laser installed is over 15k to acquire and put in place , these lasers for my purposes last for years of work.
There are three lasers RGB and this machine is a 8bit printer that accepts Adobe 1998 flattened tiff files. My harddrive can only hold 70 gigs of info so you can gage the year the box was designed.
All the new Durst products have the same front end as mine with the exception of more sophisticated hardware and software functions but basically like comparing CS2 to CS6.
The Rhoes and Omegas are Dursts latest products and are flat bed direct ink to substrate, ie dibond and sintra for commercial purposes.
The Omega is being touted as a product to compete with Epson and Cannon for quality with much greater applications for a commercial and fine art market. I have seen the output at a sister
Lab and for my money they are not there yet, but soon and once they are I believe Epson, Cannon should watch out.. ***In fact with out starting any rumours as this is only my opinion, Durst
Equipment would be a natural for Kodak and their dreams of getting back into the inkjet market.. Direct to substrate will be the way of the future for the art market, and even though most will
knock down Kodak , this would be a incredible combination of Italian technology with North American marketing.*** heard it here folks sit back and watch who Kodak gets in bed with to compete
against Epson , Cannon and HP.
The Durst technicians who work at Macula.. in Toronto who service our equipment are young, well paid , well trained and very , very competent at what they do... So for my money the Lambda out
shines lightj et which was out of operation over 6 years ago and Chromira who are owned by ZBE who I would not touch with a ten foot pole. I owned ZBE products and they were
completely useless after one year operation with absolutely no proper response to problems from their tech dept.
I can have and issue today and it is fixed within 48 hours , no questions asked, at $ 500per hour they better be good. We have a great working relationship with them and they are consistant.
Try getting an Epson or Cannon tech- you are in for a can of whoop ass if you live in my neck of the woods.
Regarding your last statement.. inkjet still is a splattering of ink which lays down in a way that upon inspection will show itself... laser exposure is light to sensitized material within an coating.
The laser exposure prints we make are more enlarger photographic quality than inkjet, but the inkjet inks on rag paper are impossible to beat with RA4 material for certain images.
There -fore it depends what do you prefer, If I want a lovely landscape scene with an extended colour range then I will go to a rag paper and inkjet... If I want a photgraphic looking image then
I will go to Lambda and RA4.
FWIW I am exposing inkjet negs using pictorico and I am exposing silver negs using ortho silver film. When contacted on silver paper the inkjets do not hold up anywhere near the silver negatives do.
but for prints on rag paper they can be equal.
This is why I am holding onto my Lambda as the potential for making negatives are impressive... We have paid this machine down, we got into the lambda game late and have not seen the great
financial rewards others with this equipment have, but my 2 cents is that RA 4 in North America is dead , compared to even 5 years ago, the next 5 years will have the people like myself still holding on.
I cannot speak for the rest of the world market but for sure NA is going full inkjet.
Ed Burtynsky owns a lab in my city, he still makes RA4 prints for his work which should say something and he owns both kinds of technology but prefers silver halide images for all his work. I have
seen him use inkjet on some shows but not much.
Bob is one of the best printers in the business and has experience with a wide range of wet darkroom and digital printing methods. What he has written is IMHO a very objective view of Lambda versus inkjet technology.
BTW, Bob, both Sam and I are anxiously looking forward to getting our Lambda prints from Elevator!!
And we found a great place in North Carolina for you and Laura to photograph kudzu. Sam and I went there a couple of weeks ago and were mesmerized by the almost fairy tale look of the place. Sam made this killer shot that put everything I did to shame! It would be a perfect place for you guys to spend a few days if you are interested in kudzu, especially if you get one of those "cheater" cameras.
Sandy
For discussion and information about carbon transfer please visit the carbon group at groups.io
[url]https://groups.io/g/carbon
Thanks Sandy
I did actually record some nice Kudzu . even though I was not using one of your cheater cameras. and screwed up five rolls because I had the damm lens cap on... I am going to solarize using the lambda and put both of you to shame.
Sam's print is done, yours is next we had a corrupted channel issue and I did not get to finish your work, but we are calibrating in the process today.
We are going to get a cheater for Laura but I will stay pure.. we are looking forward to visiting you again in the new year.
Originally Posted by sanking
Thank you Bob. For whatever the reason I can't see the Lambda on the website I'm sure it is another loss to photography.
BTW I see a Durst Lambda 130 on the bay for 30k !
30 k is a nice price... try to buy it and find out all the implications of space, install and maintenance... not to mention lasers... I would say put aside 150 k and you can buy it.
Not to be a dick but one needs to know all the details. I could have bought a Lambda 130 for 25k cash, missing a laser and as well need to move it set it up put a processor at the back end... all things to consider. Rent is not cheap and you need about 1000sq ft to house one of these suckers. Toronto is 25dollars per square ft,, lots of prints need to be done to cover that cost... not for home use, I can assure you of that..
Bob,
Where do we find details about buying Durst Lamba prints from you? The DL is for me the best color print technology available. I have had very inconsistent results with Chromira and didn't like the lightjet results. But as they say, it may have more to do with the printer than teh technology.
PDM
It probably was the operator , as Chromira- think - Burtynsky and Lightjet think - Gursky make some pretty damm fine prints.
All three machines have their strengths.
I chose Lambda (way more expensive) for the available great technicians in my city who can fix the Lambda , Laser power to expose fibre base paper, and now film.
Chromira sits in the 25% space I use and is LED technology. Harmon is trying to get their papers*silver* to be able to expose in these units, as there are 100 Chromiras for every one lambda.
If they could figure this out **and they will to sell more paper**and it runs film as well then I would consider a Chromira printer for our shop if the Lambda was not available.
Its funny , lab owners will talk high bullshit that their digital printing device is better than others, much like some here talk about their drum scanners. I feel all the gear is just tools, some more sophisticated or more powerful than others.
But at the end of the day its how much time does one spend printing and making images that sit on walls.
I am the only enlarger and lambda operator here, and one thing we do different that other labs do not do is - one person (me) scans the film, edits the file, sends to lambda, prints the file and processes the file, as well as QC the process.
This way there is only one direction for finger pointing and over the years the whole process becomes more smooth as I make mistakes, see them and adjust.
We are training others to replace me here at my lab, but they are starting by doing film ring around's in the darkroom, learning lighting ratio , film handling , mixing chem's and how the basics work. Then they start working on curves in PS using the numbers and seeing how the old school and new school technology's compliment each other.
The PRESS GO area of our Lab , is great for me as the finger gets pointed back at you if you make a mistake in your edits or file prep.
I am not involved with this aspect of our labs work other than being the monkey operating the lambda. which really means I PRESS a couple of buttons,,,, and you GO with your prints.
www.elevatordigital.ca is my companys website.....I advise the Press and Go area as 90% of our clients use this service and save $$$ by doing all the PS or LR work and we just print.
If you are completely useless at PS or LR then for $$$ sake take a couple of courses as within a few years this will be the only way to get prints from a service provider.
Custom orders are becoming day rates and hiring a printer to do all the work only makes sense if you are going into gallery's or museums and want that extra experience behind the wheel so to speak. Personally I am reaching the age where I prefer to work on long term projects , my own and a few valued clients. I think that day of labs and custom printers are past us and like the speed of light , everyone is becoming an expert at everything... I think there are apps that will make you a master printer , being promoted for $9.99 by best buy.
The biggest tip I can give anyone wanting to print with these devices is to learn the numbers, whether they be RGB, or LAB, I prefer LAB .
When profiles are being produced our tech is reading the LAB and RGB numbers . With a better understanding on where you need your highlights to be placed numerically rather than visually in a darkened/lightened/blue room you will have the chance to discuss with your service vendor where the paper end point drop offs are happening... each ink , RA4 , fibre and film product has different points.
I will direct anyone to Dan Margulis who is on Kelby Training.. I took his course four times, and it was really painful but what he talks about is the basics behind PS.
This thread is wonderful for me as I get to talk about our services.. big smiley face should be right here.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks