i950

The Canon i950 is a desktop photo printer with a nine-tank appetite: the BCI-6 Black dye line — BCI-6 Cyan, BCI-6 Magenta, BCI-6 Yellow, photo cyan, photo magenta, red and green, each rated at about 280 pages — for images, and a pigment BCI-3E Black, rated at about 420 pages, that takes care of documents alongside them. Every tank is individually replaceable.

Photo printing never drinks evenly, and the i950 teaches that lesson faster than most: a run of seascapes empties cyan and photo cyan long before yellow wakes up, while a portrait session leans on the magentas and barely touches the greens. Owners who learn which colors their own subjects burn through — and keep spares of just those tanks — spend less on ink than owners who restock the whole row on a schedule, and their printer is never down waiting for a color it uses twice a year.

Ink Cartridges for i950

Which cartridge should you buy?

Let your archive decide. Landscape shooters should hold spare cyan and photo cyan; portrait work argues for the magentas; the document black replaces on its own slower clock. Singles are the precision tool, and they are how this shelf is meant to be used. Sets serve the reset moments: the BCI-6 Set of 6 for a core refresh, the Set of 14 when photo colors need spares too, the Set of 18 for the complete eight-color shelf, and the mixed Set of 11 when both the dye row and the document black are tired at once.

Ink, chips and everyday use

There is no chip in this arrangement to fail or to reset: the i950 reads its tanks directly, so a compatible tank is judged by the printer the same way as any other — by the ink it delivers. Keep the machine dust-free, print through the quiet weeks rather than letting the heads sit dry, and read the page ratings as the estimates they are: 280 pages of mixed documents and 280 pages of full-bleed photographs are very different amounts of ink, and your subjects, not the calendar, set the replacement dates.

Frequently Asked Questions

What ink does the Canon i950 use?

Nine tanks: the eight dye colors around BCI-6 Black for photographs, and a pigment BCI-3E Black for documents. Each is a separate cartridge with its own rating.

Why does one color always run out first?

Because your subjects choose the ink. Seascapes and skies spend cyan and photo cyan; portraits spend the magentas; a color tied to subjects you rarely print can sit nearly full while its neighbor is replaced twice. The printer is not leaking — it is reporting your archive.

What is the difference between the two blacks?

The BCI-6 black is a dye tank that prints with the colors in images. The BCI-3E black is a pigment tank for documents, rated at about 420 pages against the dye black's 280, and it keeps paperwork off the photo budget.

Should I keep a full spare set?

Only if you print everything. Most owners do better holding spares of their two fastest colors plus a document black, and ordering the rest as singles when the printer flags them.

More printers that use the same cartridges

Other printers drinking from the same shelf include the following Canon models: MultiPass F60, MultiPass F80, MultiPass MP700, MultiPass MP730, Multipass C755, Multipass F30, PIXMA MP750, PIXMA MP760, PIXMA MP780, PIXMA iP3000, PIXMA iP4000, PIXMA iP4000R, PIXMA iP5000, PIXMA iP6000D, PIXMA iP8500, S400, S450, S500, S520, S530D, S600, S630, S750, S800, S820D, S830D, S900, S9000, i550, i560, i850, i860, i865, i900D, i960, i9900, BJC-3000, BJC-6000, BJC-6100, BJC-8200, MultiPass F50