Gear for the phone snappers

 

Gone are the days when taking photographs involved careful preparation and considerable expense. Nowadays, we click pictures of whatever we fancy, whenever we feel like. All it needs is a swipe on one's phone. Since all of us are amateur photographers in some way, the author looks at three devices that could prove helpful for phone snappers

Epson L455 (Rs 16,999)

Let's clear the air first: Epson doesn't sell this multi-function device (MFD) as a photo printer. The L455 is identified by the ink tank on the right. For the uninitiated, an ink tank printer has the ink in a tank, unlike other inkjets where the ink is contained in the cartridge. This results in savings over the long run, as one only needs to refill the tanks. The L455 comes with four tanks - black, cyan, magenta and yellow. Epson claims they are good enough for 4,000 black and 6,500 colour prints. After this, refills start at Rs 320 per ink.

The L455 takes some time to "charge" the ink before for the first time. In the meantime, I downloaded the Epson app and when the printer was ready, chose a photo of swans I had snapped at the nearby park. The results looked quite good on ordinary paper, taking a shade below three minutes to print; the same snap on photo paper at best quality took a long time coming but blew my mind.

Another feature I liked was the SD card slot. Just plug in your camera's card (or your phone's card, using an adapter, see the photo on the colour screen and hit print! I loved this printer but what I didn't like was the ink tank sticking out.

Canon Pixma G3000 (Rs 16,795)

The first thing you notice about the Canon Pixma G3000 is how compact it is. No, it isn't tiny, but despite being an ink tank printer, it roughly takes up as much space as any medium-sized multi-function device (MFD).

I set up the printer and downloaded the Canon Selphy app on my phone. Next, I chose a photo I snapped early in the morning of the spice market at Delhi's Chandni Chowk. For a 4" x 6" print in standard mode, the G3000 took around three minutes; but the moment I tried printing it in high quality, the time taken to print it nearly trebled. But I must say the output made it worth the wait. Standard quality prints are quite good as well and works well with documents (which print quite fast by inkjet standards), but if there's a photo you need to print for posterity, go the high quality way and use photo paper.

The G3000's USP, besides its printing prowess, is of course the cost savings. Canon claims the printer is good for 6,000 black prints or 7,000 colour prints. And once you're out of ink, each cartridge costs Rs 499. If photography is your hobby, it makes sense to go for this printer, despite the initial hassles I faced in connecting it to my home Wi-Fi network.

SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick 200GB (Rs 9,990)

One complaint most phone snappers have is how easily the photos eat up storage on their devices. For such users, it makes sense to transfer their photos/videos to external storage; but then, that takes time. But the wireless stick is here to help.

The first thing I did with this wireless dongle-sized device was charge it. Then I downloaded the SanDisk Connect app on my Android phone, iPod and iPad, set it up and connected them to the Stick after switching it on. Connecting on an Android device seemed easier than on my Apple devices.

Once connected, I could easily push photos and videos to the Stick's storage, saving space on my mobile devices. Another interesting feature was being able to stream videos or photos to all my devices. A caveat: One needs to place the stick either in a central location or one could carry it along when indoors, so one doesn't face connectivity issues. Outdoors, I could stream videos to my phone, from the Stick kept in my backpack, but the battery is good for only about four hours.

The SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick is a good backup option for the snap-crazy. But for such convenience of 200GB, one needs to fork out money equivalent to a 3TB external hard drive.