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The Canon S9000, and the i9100 and i9950 which came after it, all used Canon’s BCI-6 inkset - in the i9950, i990 and iP8500’s case extended from 6 to 8 colours with the addition of red and blue cartridges. these dye based inks have the standard dye ink advantage of bright colours - to some eyes a bit too bright - but also the disadvantage of poor fade resistance. Originally Canon claimed a 25 year life for the BCI-6 inks with Canon’s own Photo Paper Pro, but some tests I’ve read rate prints from the Canon as very poor for stability. In my own experience, although not as good as Epson’s dye inks, the difference isn’t great.
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Of more immediate importance is the printer’s relatively poor Dmax - the darkest black it can produce. Prints from the Canon emerge slightly flat, almost milky looking, and over 15 minutes or so, develop before your eyes. Blacks get darker and highlights clear - with Fuji papers a strong magenta cast also clears. Even after time to fully dry, the Canon’s blacks look weak if you compare them to the same image printed with an Epson or HP photo printer.
All of this makes it sound like there’s not much to recommend the S9000 and it’s successors, but in fact they have been and still are among the best you can buy for two reasons. The first is output quality with glossy papers - if your ideal inkjet photo printer would produce prints impossible to tell apart from conventional, or online lab prints then the Canons get very close. Results look great and feel like real photographs. The second plus is speed - when the S800 then the S900 and S9000 were released they were in a class of their own. At that time we were all used to waiting 15-20 minutes for Epson or HP photo printer to complete an A4 print - the S9000 can produce a full size A4 print on Canon Photo Paper Pro in about 90 seconds. For professionals producing 50 or so prints a day that’s a saving of over 11 hours - every day. Canon sold a lot of S9000’s to pro’s, and I for one, have been well pleased with the printers performance over thousands of prints.
This is a printer at it’s best with glossy papers - especially Canon PR-101 Photo Paper Pro, Ilford Galerie Smooth Glossy or Fuji Multijet Premium glossy.
Although the Canon S9000 is now part of the history of digital photography, the Canon iP6000D and iP8500 printers still use the BCI-6 inks and produce much the same results. If you want fast, glossy prints the S9000 and it’s successors are still among the best there are.
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