A review by Andy Boardman

Well, having had a good look at all the available options and since I have used a dye sub printer in the past, I thought it was about time to have another look at them. I have recently got involved with vintage motocross racing, taking shots of the riders in action, so with the help of Steve Pointon of Fuji UK Ltd I arranged to have the use of an ASK 2000 for a big RDH twinshock racing weekend. Here I could put it to a real world test. We sell them here at Bob Rigby’s and have one out on demo in the showroom, but there is no better way of getting to know a printer or any other gear than by using it on a real job.

The ASK 2000 weighs in at around the 25Kg mark, excluding media, so is not the lightest printer for lugging around by hand, saying that it is a metal body so is far less likely to attract dust through static than some of the other plastic bodied printers that are on the market & it should also stand up to more everyday use and abuse. It is also pretty compact taking up an area on the desk of only 30 x 41cm. It is capable of producing up to 600 6x4" prints from one roll and can use alternative media to produce prints up to 6x9". Setting it up is an easy job, load the software which is both Apple Mac & Windows compatible and plug in the USB 2.0 lead.
I ran the printer and an Apple iMac computer via a petrol generator & both ran without any problems at all throughout the 2 days of the event, they were plugged in via a surge protected extension just in case.

Why the Fuji ASK2000 ?

In terms of build quality I have yet to find better, it is definately built to last , the speed of the printer is very impressive, approx 15 seconds for a finished 6 x 8 inch print. So when the riders were viewing the images shot, we could select, open, print & mount the prints quicker than they could get their wallets out, which is what it is all about at the end of the day !

The other great thing we found that as some might know, a motorcross track has to be one of the dustiest places you can visit & not one print came out with dust spots on. A point that must be noted is that we were near to the track so could not hide from any dust floating about, so no loss of money due to re-printing either.

The unit cost of the prints is very low & a big advantage over inkjet printing is that the prints should not fade and you only have to wait seconds rather than minutes for a print to appear thus increasing sales from the waiting crowd.

Would I recommend this printer ?

You bet I would & hope to have one for myself very soon, I worked out that it could possibly pay for itself in about 3 or 4 meetings so some event photographers could get their investment back even faster depending on the subject being shot.

Overall I can say that if you are into event photography of any kind this has to be the way to go if you want to progress to the next level.

 

Any questions you have please feel free to contact me.

Andy Boardman

01625 575591

http://www.twinshockpictures.com