The Lion Park, one of Gauteng’s leading tourist attractions, has installed an Epson SureLab SL-D3000 dry lab photo printer in its new Photographic Centre, a facility installed to complement the comprehensive services it currently offers its visitors.

The new Photographic Centre will allow visitors to print photos and photo books onsite after their visit to the park, to take away as a memento of their experiences there. After capturing images of the Park’s extensive variety of wildlife, visitors can download their images via self-help kiosks, order prints in various sizes, or design and order photo books.

“The Epson SureLab SL-D3000 makes it possible for the Lion Park to stand tall alongside other tourist facilities worldwide,” says Andre Lacock, project manager of the Photographic Centre. “Visitors are now able to take home photos of their favourite pictures captured at the Park, sharing them with friends and family as mementos of a wonderful day.”

George Rosa of ImageMed, an Epson specialist reseller, recommended the printer to the Lion Park. “The Photographic Centre needed a robust, reliable and easy solution to print larger prints than usual for use in photo books, without the hassle of conventional minilab machines that use complex chemistry, and are labour intensive to operate and maintain,” he says.

“The printer has a very small footprint, is fast, reliable, and easy to use,” says Lacock. “The unit is also environmentally-friendly, energy-efficient, does not require water to operate, and doesn’t use toxic chemicals.”

The Epson SureLab SL-D3000 printer leverages Epson’s core technologies and original inks to deliver high-quality print production on glossy, matte and lustre media, and is ideally suited to print shop owners, studios and professional photographers. It can produce prints up to 30.5cm wide, including photographs, greeting cards, invitations, flyers, banners and promotional leaflets.

The Lion Park has also placed an order for a new Epson SureLab D-700 printer; a six-colour compact photo printer that will provide additional capacity for peak periods at the park. The printer has the same media capabilities as its big brother, the SureLab SL-D3000, but is more suited for small to medium runs, or kiosk printing. It combines high quality, great flexibility, and an impressively low cost of ownership.

“The Epson brand is synonymous with the highest quality in professional printing, and these two SureLab printers respond directly to the Lion Park’s goals to provide its visitors with the best possible experience,” says Vernon Mellors, business account manager at Epson South Africa.

“Both models are ideally suited to tourist environments, as well as to professionals such as school photographers and other high-volume, instant demand photography environments.”