Buying a photo printer for a trip to Africa

[vimak]

Hello, I am posting because I need some advice.

In may I will be traveling to Uganda for three weeks. One of the projects I hope to work on is taking and distributing pictures. My plan is to take pictures of families, or whatever people want pictures of, and printing it out on photo paper (4 pictures per page).

We will be traveling with a laptop and a generator. It would be very convenient if we could print without running the generator (just by hooking the printer to the laptop)

I am looking for a color printer that is reliable and durable. In the end, I only plan on printing a few hundred pages of colored photos but cant really afford it breaking. Im less worried about finding photo paper, since I dont think that quality varies that much, but I am open to any recommendations.

The printer cant be too large, but size isn't a great concern. The budget for the project is around two hundred dollars, including the paper, ink and printer.

Any ideas or tips? It would be greatly appreciated.​

 

[kundalini]

This reminds me of a story on NPR (The Story with Dick Gordon) I heard recently. The difference was the photographers used a Polaroid camera to take the photos, then a photo of the person holding the resultant photo.

The Other Afghanistan

No advice on the printer, but good luck.

 

[vimak]

This is great. Thanks for sharing. I looked into the Polaroid option, but it costs around a dollar per picture. I am hoping with a printer I can get the cost lower.

 

[gsgary]

Not sure how big you want to print, my first eventing printer was a Hiti 730ps HiTi PhotoPrinter 730PS
on ebay they are very cheap, paper comes in a box with a ribbon 8x6 max surface is water resistant and the printer is very light

 

[Dao]

My wife wanted to get this one a year or so ago.

Amazon.com: Polaroid CZA10011 PoGo Instant Mobile Printer: Electronics

 

[BullockPhoto]

Just got back from Tanzania a few weeks ago, where we were living amongst the Maasai tribe and making photographs... We brought a Canon Selphy printer with us and it worked really well... One of the things that's cool about it is that it makes four passes on each print - lays down the CMYK one layer at a time and is really fun for people to watch - kind of magical! Downsides - it does require a standard wall outlet (not USB powered) and you also have to bring along the ink cartridges which can take up room in your pack. If you will be staying in a more conventional setting, it might work well, if you are backpacking, probably not. The last day of our trip the power went out as it often does and we were unable to make our final batch of prints that we had promised, but we did managed to distribute many during our time there, and it was a big hit... Good luck and happy travels...

 

[vimak]

Wow, its exciting to hear that someone has done this before and that it worked out. How many pictures did you end up printing? How much time did you spend on it?

Unfortunately, I think all these printers are either too expensive themselves or too expensive to operate (the paper or ink).

I was looking at conventional color printer around 100 dollars and saw they can print 300 pictures with a 30 dollar ink cartridge. At 10 dollars for 100 sheets of photo paper, I could print 1200 pictures for less than 200 dollars.

When I say "conventional printer" I mean something like this: HP Deskjet 6940

There are just so many printers out there, and I want to make sure that I get the most durable one. So, any suggestions on regular printers?

 

[2WheelPhoto]

Hope you have better luck with your deskjet i have the HP Pro 8550 and its JUNK.

Sanford and Son won't even come get this POS scrap heap

 

[gsgary]

Wow, its exciting to hear that someone has done this before and that it worked out. How many pictures did you end up printing? How much time did you spend on it?

Unfortunately, I think all these printers are either too expensive themselves or too expensive to operate (the paper or ink).

I was looking at conventional color printer around 100 dollars and saw they can print 300 pictures with a 30 dollar ink cartridge. At 10 dollars for 100 sheets of photo paper, I could print 1200 pictures for less than 200 dollars.

When I say "conventional printer" I mean something like this: HP Deskjet 6940

There are just so many printers out there, and I want to make sure that I get the most durable one. So, any suggestions on regular printers?

The new Kodak printers are one of the cheapest to run, HP used to be very expensive to run