Little Round Pond Winter Cattails. 3 shot 'shift pan' made with my 24 ts-e.

Today I'm Wicked psyched to have just met the UPS guy out in the street to receive my new pack of Epson Exhibition Fiber 17"x22" paper. I'm like woot! See, ever since I first heard about this "Signature Worthy" paper, as Epson calls it- I've wanted to try it bad, real bad. I knew I would love it but it's particularly premium expense made it a little hard to justify using. Usually I like to print any 'serious' work on Epson UltraSmooth Fine Art Paper- John Paul Caponigro talked me into that choice and I still love that paper and would still rather print some images on that vs this Exhibition Fiber paper but this week I found a sweet sale on the EEF paper at B+H here: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/528348-REG/Epson_S045039_Exhibition_Fiber_Paper_for.html for about a third of the price that it normally is (99.00 American bucks versus the typical 150.00 American bucks) -so that was a "shoe in". 

The description on the box is: "Designed to have the look and feel of revered silver halide, F surface, air-dried prints, this paper offers the highest Dmax and a wide color gamut for stunning color or neutral black-and-white prints." -Sounds sweet!

Now the one big reason I like the Epson UltraSmooth Fine Art (USFA) paper is that as a matte paper there are never any reflections coming off the print from light sources, it's the most archival of all Epson papers (therefore arguably the most archival of any paper period), there is hardly any texture which gives it massive detail, and I'm really familiar with using it so I can get predictable results. The biggest downside to the USFA I think is that it's really a pretty fragile paper so handling is a real concern and it's only safe after being properly put behind glass. Not to say that the EEF is a paper that I would dance on after making a print on it but it seems to me that the surface is a little more resilient. There is a low gloss surface on the Exhibition Fiber that could reflect light sources (unless it's behind that anti-reflective museum glass) but after making the first few prints the blacks are off the chart and the prints just really have a classic look and feel to them. The one thing that did initially disappoint me (especially in that this is such a premium and expensive media) is that the first sheet I took out of the box did have at least 5 "inclusions" of specks of schmuck in the paper- nothing that is visible after printing the first black and white prints but still, the USFA is 99 percent perfect in my experience so this is a little off putting but sometimes I guess maybe I should just relax and let the world be the world. Nonetheless it's not wrong to expect perfection when you pay top-dollar (yeah yeah it was a big sale but still this is their most expensive paper, so come on!) if Epson were here they would have given me a new sheet that's for sure. Anyways- perhaps I'll talk on this more later but for now I'm going to go fume up the room and make some more prints! Yeehaw! 

Reminder: 30 percent off all my prints until May 1, 2013- get em while they're cheap! 

And have a good one, Nate from Maine, Usa.