The Canon Pixma Pro-200 is around 15% smaller than the previous printer.

I think the closest thing we have today to a digital darkroom is the printing process. But most people don’t print their photos. I hope that the new Canon Pixma Pro-200 changes that. One of the biggest problems with printers is expensive inks. But this printer’s ink only costs $13.99, and they’re around 12ml each. I’d be shocked if this printer isn’t part of Canon’s bundle packages this holiday season. The company typically bundles cameras, lenses, flashes, and printers together at a solid price. Most of the time, people don’t end up using the printers. Though at the price point, you’re going to get more life from your camera and your photography.

Canon Pixma Pro-200 Tech Specs

• a3+ printing
• 8 color system: Magenta, yellow, photo magenta, cyan, photo cyan, black, gray, light gray.
• Black and white photo print mode
• Lan, USB, Wifi
• Skew correction
• 3 inch LCD panel
• 85% size of the previous Pro-100
• $599.99
• Inks are $13.99 each

If you’ve read The Phoblographer for a while, you know we test all our cameras with the printing process. We print with the Canon Prograf 1000 and Canon paper, and the photos are at ISO 6400 and printed on 17×22 inch paper. The Prograf1000 is targeted at a higher-end audience. Setting it up was difficult. Macs and PCs offer far different experiences when using it. With a Mac, it will download all drivers automatically to provide full support. On a PC, you have to do that yourself. And if you know nothing about printing, you wouldn’t even think to do that. Then there’s the use between Adobe Lightroom and Capture One. I used to adore Adobe’s interface until I got accustomed to Capture One and what it does.

The Canon Pixma Pro-200 and others are going to probably confuse lots of folks. When I first seriously got into printers years ago, things were always beguiling. Even when I had asked Canon Inc. about why something was done a certain way, the sense of self-superiority shone through.

I think the Canon Pixma Pro-200 has a lot of cool things going for it. It’s smaller, so it won’t take up much space on your desk. But to print bigger you’re probably going to have to unfurl many extras to accommodate the paper. The printer can take up to 13×19 inch sized paper, which is what a3+’s designation is. You also get the skew correction feature, which is great if you’re using Epson’s paper. I’ve rarely seen Canon paper cut crooked. Plus, there’s WiFi connectivity. I feel like $599.99 is a fair price point for all this.

There’s still a lot Canon could have done otherwise, though. Adding in Bluetooth, I think, is a big extra feature that should’ve been considered. Sending photos from your phone or tablet to the printer via Bluetooth is sometimes a better route. In fact, it doesn’t even work with the Canon Print App. In the same way that Canon cameras can connect to phones, they should set that up with Printing. But I’ve always found the way that they do it very antiquated. Further, there’s no touchscreen. It’s almost like they don’t want the newer generation of photographers to print.

With that said, I still hope photographers end up taking a closer look at this printer. But the Prograf 1000 is still our tried and true option despite even that having problems.