22 October 2006
Drawing much interest on the ILFORD Photo stand at Photokina was the Durst Theta 76 BW digital printer built around ILFORD Photo digital paper. The Theta 76 BW demonstrated the incredible print quality, which can now be achieved by using the new ILFOSPEED RC DIGITAL paper.
It was in the wake of a second successful year for its Theta 76 and Theta 76 HS printers with close to 180 installed units since it's introduction in April 2005, that Durst decided to extend its Theta 76 family to meet the specific need in the marketplace for a specialist black-and-white printer.
ILFORD Photo, however, had already identified the need in the market for a black-and-white photographic paper which would create the bridge between digital and the benchmark quality of real silver gelatin black-and-white prints. Consequently, when discussions began between Durst and ILFORD Photo, there was already a common view of what the market needed.
The Durst Theta 76 BW is the first digital LED lab for true black-and-white printing. Using Durst's proprietary designed Fibre-Optic printing technology for continuous printing on ILFORD Photo digital black-and-white papers such as ILFOSPEED RC DIGITAL, the system's flexibility, combined with it's new black-and-white capability, extends the range of applications and imaging service opportunities which make the Theta 76 family an attractive multi-format digital printer/minilab system.
'he main reason for pushing the Theta 76 BW project was that several markets approached us with the need for a digital wide format black-and-white printer,'says Helmuth Munter, Durst Phototechnik's segment manager PHOTO.
'e assessed that there is sufficient potential for true black-and-white prints, specially in the US portrait market segment, but also in the UK and some European countries. These market segments require a more economic digital black-and-white printing device at a justifiable investment level than the currently available laser-based printing systems.
'he reason for approaching ILFORD Photo as our 'first choice' cooperation partner is that it is simply the leading provider of digital black-and-white paper. Thanks to the very good relationship we enjoy with ILFORD Photo and its professional support, the project went smoothly and without major problems. The result is the world's first digital LED lab for printing on true black-and-white media from ILFORD Photo.'
Input from ILFORD Photo to the project came via Neil Hibbs, digital paper product manager, and Peter Rose, R&D. Both worked with Durst at its plant in Brixen, Italy, testing different machine configurations and paper combinations.
'his was no simple task,'declares Hibbs, 'ut fortunately we did not need to redesign anything. We will, however, be incorporating the knowledge gained through this exercise into our next generation of black-and-white digital papers.'
Unable to work properly with other manufacturers' black-and-white paper, the Theta 76 BW was developed and built to accommodate ILFORD Photo's exacting quality control standards. The printer is very sensitive to variations in black-and-white paper quality, and much less forgiving than those used for colour papers.
Full details of the Durst Theta 76 BW can be found at www.durst-online.com and information about all ILFORD Photo products can be accessed at www.ilfordphoto.com
