Wow, looks at those smiles! 

(If you have Piclens, click the bottom left hand corner to jump to the virtual gallery.) It was tough choosing under 100 pictures from nearly 4,000 that Curtis and I took on our trip. Click the photo above to jump to an album with of a few of our favorites shots. In case you missed it….you can read more about the trip starting here.

]]> http://www.warrenhenke.com/blogs/seafair-2008-pictures/feed 1 http://www.warrenhenke.com/photography/refillable-ink-and-cis http://www.warrenhenke.com/photography/refillable-ink-and-cis#comments Sun, 08 Jun 2008 02:29:39 +0000 Warren http://www.warrenhenke.com/photography/refillable-ink-and-cis The cost to print photos on your own printer is higher than you probably realize. The money spent on a new printer is peanuts compared to the money that will flow out of your bank account for ink. A set of ink cartridges for an Epson R1900 printer will set you back $125. You’ll get about 40 8×10 prints, or $3 each. Add the cost of premium paper (often $1 per sheet) and you are spending what a professional printing service charges (Shutterfly.com charges $4 for an 8×10). When you consider paper jams, clogged ink heads, color tone mismatches, several hundred dollars for a printer, and the hassle of dealing with another computer peripheral… it makes more sense to use Shutterfly.

If you are not technical and not printing several pages of pictures weekly, I suggest you bypass a photo printer. You’ll save money, frustration, get better results, and you can stop reading right now and go do something more enjoyable. Did you know a simple cleaning cycle on your printer can drain 1/10^th of the ink in your tanks? The truth is, once you add up the costs, photo printing companies are cheaper and easier.

On the other hand, if you are willing to spend a little time and energy doing research and endure a bit of frustration to set up an alternate ink system, you can drive the cost down…waaaay down. By carefully selecting paper and by using third party ink, my 8×10’s run about 30 cents each. Ink is the bulk of the savings. Epson and Canon will tell you that only their inks and papers will produce acceptable results but I’ll tell you right now that’s BS marketing hype. Of course they want you to buy their papers and inks…they are making a killing selling them to you.

Initially, I rejected the thought of refilling my own ink. The syringes and bottles of ink looked more like a drug lab than a home office. My cousin, Lou, convinced me to begin offering a refill service at the computer store we both were trying to get off the ground. He made it look simple; people brought in empty ink cartridges and we saved them over 80% and still turned a profit. In the end, bottles of ink and syringes became as common as motherboards and hard drives in our back room and nobody ever even accused us of running a drug lab.

Over the past fifteen years I’ve tried different inks and refill devices on Epson, HP, and Canon printers. I’ve had good and bad experiences. To increase your chances of a good one, you need to consider three important requirements:

1. Customer support (first and foremost)

2. Reliable hardware (refill kit or inking system)

3. High quality ink

When it comes to using a 3^rd party ink you have two options: refill cartridges or a Continuous inking system (CIS). Refilling usually means a syringe is used to put ink into an empty cartridge. A CIS is a device that sits outside your printer and has tubes running from ink tanks into your printer. Each has pros and cons.

I researched the market, combed the newsgroups, and have picked three companies that appear to meet the three requirements. I have seen and tested CIS devices from each of them for the Epson R1900 and will be posting reviews of them in the near future. Based on my early results, each of these companies offers a reliable product with the potential to save an avid printer like myself hundreds of dollars. I will add detailed information as I continue to use their products.

Before you go down this road, there are pitfalls. Using these methods is not as easy as popping in an ink cartridge from Epson or Canon. Initially, give yourself several hours to get set up. Stay organized, read the directions completely, and clear off a good workspace. Take it slow and make sure you contact support if you have questions or comments (you’ll save yourself time and headaches). If you run into problems my research has found that you can rely on these companies to take care of you. Then, once you get your system setup, it will run quietly in the background with minimal effort to maintain (other than filling the external tanks or cartridges with ink). My dad has had the same CIS on his Canon printer for nearly four years now and I’d guess he’s saved over $5,000 in ink (he prints a lot).

When I use these inks I am completely satisfied. Photos are vibrant and although I haven’t tested for longetivity, others have claimed they stand the tests of time. Everything I have printed has held up well but it’s tough to do a 20 year test without a time machine. Now, having said that… if I compare side by side to Epson inks, I can see the difference. Epson has slightly better color. Not by a long shot, but it is noticeable when you compare them directly. To me, the minimal increase in color doesn’t justify the massive increase in price. And I have three teenagers who love to print and I’d never let them if my printer was stocked with liquid gold from Epson.

Here are the three companies I recommend if you’d like to trek down this path. If one doesn’t support your printer, try another.

www.efillink.com Ronnie at efillink.com excels at customer service. My experience and the comments on the newsgroups support this claim. He is willing to talk with you on Skype (in fact, he will make sure he is available if you schedule in advance with him and can walk you through your first refill or CIS setup), send you free replacement materials if his products have issues, and responds quick to requests for assistance. If you buy from Ronnie, you can expect follow-up emails asking if everything is running well and making sure that you are satisfied. In addition to a CIS, he sells the only refillable cartridge option for the R1900, which I prefer. Based on my output, I only have to refill every 3 weeks. He uses ink from Image Specialist and is having custom profiles built which may help prints rival those of the Epson ink.

www.inkjetfly.com Leo has also been quick to offer support and answer questions, even before I began testing his ink systems. His “Bigfoot” system has my favorite external tank design (a long and narrow set of tanks that easily sits next to the printer). Initial tests indicate that his ink has slightly more vibrancy than the Image Specialist ink, but not quite as much as the Epson ink. I have heard of another photographer who uses Inkjetfly ink but sticks with the Epson photo black and claims it is almost identical to a full set of Epson inks. I haven’t tested this yet.

www.inkrepublic.com They seem to be the largest organization of the three, but I could be wrong. They sent me a solid system, included directions, and so far everything has gone smoothly. Comments on newsgroups are generally high when it comes to their products and support. They also use ink from Image Specialist.

For three years now we have spent Memorial weekend camping at the San Juan County park on the San Juan Island. These islands are a short ferry ride out of Anacortes, WA and are excellent for whale watching. The first two years, several pods of whales swam right past the beach 2-3 times each day. I started to think that it was normal and expected the same thing this year but it didn’t happen. Luckily I had booked us a whale watching trip (we had never done this before) and on our 3 hour boat ride we saw plenty of Orcas and I was able to get pictures that were much better than I had in previous years.

If you want to camp on the islands, you have to make reservations early. Every year I call the day the reservation line opens (usually around St. Patrick’s day). This year I had 2 phones on redial and I sat for an hour and a half dialing constantly before I finally got through (and the camp was already half filled for Memorial Weekend). I know one of these years I won’t end up so lucky and the family will be disappointed.

Our trip usually starts early Saturday morning. The wait for the ferry can be long, so we leave at the crack of dawn and catch an early one. The kids have become quite skilled at sleeping in the tight back seat. In the past year alone we have logged over 150 hours of driving together on our trips to Utah, Minnesota, and other smaller trips. We have our moments, all crunched in a tiny space for so long, but the driving is one of the most memorable parts of the trip. In addition to an occasional fight, we laugh, tell stories, they watch movies (while I listen to them), and we listen to audio books. Once on the ferry, the kids usually wake up and we’ll play games or harass the other passengers. One year I had the kids go on a scavenger hunt collecting names. They had to go around asking other people their names and cross them off their list in order to win the ultimate prize (candy). They had fun and the other people on the ferry seemed to get a kick out of it too.

All of the kids are a huge help when we arrive to the campsite. Everyone pitches in to get the tent and canopy set up, arrange chairs, and organize the food. It’s not like the old days when in addition to setting up the camp was the job of tending three little kids wanting to play and run around. I miss those cute little kids, their silly jokes, and the endless questions but camping with teenagers does have its benefits. Less work for me, jokes that are really funny, some good football and Frisbee, and even deep conversation around the campfire…intermingled with plenty of silliness from everyone, of course.

This year was especially fun, although I tend to think that every year. I really had a fun time with Sandi and the kids. I consider myself a lucky father to have three teenagers that are a lot of fun to hang out with. Don’t get me wrong, we have our moments, but there are tons more good times that hard ones. And this year our camp was packed full of great memories.

After the work is done, it’s time to have fun. One good thing about the islands is that even though we have left rain in Seattle, we arrive to sunshine. This year I was extra worried that our trip might be spent in the tent playing games (and I was determined to have fun if it came to that), but it didn’t. There was plenty of sun and even a few sunburns (although I didn’t have the patience to give Curti a racoon eyes tan as you can see in the picture below).

When it’s time to come home, the kids are just as much help packing up the tents, rolling up sleeping bags, and cleaning up the campsite. I have to be honest, there is usually a small amount of complaining but I can understand why…nobody wants to leave. But even though they’d rather stay, everyone helps out and we head out early Monday morning to make sure we don’t have to wait six hours for a ferry. We’ve made the mistake of leaving camp at 11 thinking we’d catch the 2:00 only to find out we were even lucky to get on an evening ferry. So we leave camp by 8:00 am and are able to catch the 11:15 ferry out of Friday Harbor.

The ferry ride home isn’t filled with the energy and enthusiasm as our trip out. This year Sandi and Curti managed to stay awake, but the girls and I crashed for the entire ride. When we got home everyone helped unload the car and put everything away before taking showers and cleaning up. Then Aubree volunteered to make us all a nice dinner, which was fabulous (Italian sausage soup). Aubree scored another point when she picked out a movie for us, Bella, which was a really touching show.

We had a blast. I’m grateful to have such fun kids and a sweet wife. I know it sounds too good to be true for a family camping trip, but what can I say. All the credit goes to my wonderful kids and wife. The only drawback now is that we don’t have another family vacation scheduled. I have individual trips with each kid for the next couple of years and I’m not sure when we’ll all make it back to Minnesota and Utah. At least we’ll do a few camping/backpacking trips over the summer to help fill the gaps.

If you want any information on how to plan a trip to the San Juan Islands, feel free to message me with any questions!

Kim got a new kitten and the kids brought her over for a day of kitty-sitting. It was tiny and cute…and since I put off taking pictures of Elphie too long (our cat is no longer a kitten), I decided I better shoot now or never. Her name is Bella and she loved napping in Sandi’s purse. She lives with a German Shepherd 50X her size. From what I understand, they get along well. A picture of the two of them together would be interesting.

I don’t know if somebody is freaked out by it or what, but it irrigates me that someone at my office thinks they can just take my stuff. If they have a problem with the picture, they should ask me to remove it. If they would like a copy, I’d be more than happy to print them one. My buddy at work says I should set up a webcam and us a motion sensor program to find out who it is. I think I might do it. Haha, then I should post the video here!

I took this shot a few years ago. Any guesses?