Canon PRO-1000 Printer Review: Our ‘printer of the year’ combines great features with excellent print quality

 

 

With their new 17"-wide imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 desktop printer, Canon has pulled out all the stops. The first printer in a new series of professional inkjet printers from Canon has an extensive feature list that is topped only by its print quality.

Selling for $1,300 USD, the PRO-1000 represents an excellent value for photographers looking to make large prints up to 17 x 22". The PRO-1000 also comes with a full set of 80mL inks, which with the printer using twelve inks (eleven at any given time), this is a significant value.

As someone who has printed my own images for over five years, I was very interested to test the Canon PRO-1000. The PRO-1000 immediately exceeded my expectations in terms of quality and performance. With its signature red stripe across the front, the new Canon PRO-1000 also looks great. 

 

 

The new air feeding system in the PRO-1000 is particularly interesting. Using vacuums to keep media flat, the PRO-1000's new 1.28" print head is able to print on a flat surface and maintain a consistent height between the print head and the paper. This consistent height allows for more accurate ink drop placement, which means higher print quality.

My favorite feature has to be the automatic and seamless black ink switching system that the PRO-1000 uses. Both photo black and matte black inks have their own dedicated nozzles, which means that you can print on photo and matte papers back-to-back without having to wait for the printer to switch inks or worry about the printer consuming ink during a switch. This, along with the large print head, help to make the PRO-1000 a very fast printer. The PRO-1000 can print a 17 x 22" bordered photo in as little as 4 minutes, 10 seconds.

 

Close-up of a print on Canon Semi-Gloss paper taken with Sony A7S II and Sony 90mm f/2.8 macro lens. Image exposure and white balance adjusted to approximately match how the print appeared to me. No sharpening or other adjustments were performed on the RAW file before exporting it as a JPEG file.

Excellent print quality, a great list of features, and a fair price make the Canon PRO-1000 a great printer (our printer of the year, as a matter of fact). For much more information on the printer's features and print quality, head on over to my Canon PRO-1000 review.