The guys at zazagallery.com contacted me about a month ago and offered me a free canvas in trade for a review (just to be completely honest). I said sure (who doesn’t want free stuff) and ordered a 30″ x 20″ 3/4″ thick gallery wrap of one of my favorite shots from 2010. The canvas itself is a very high quality product. If you haven’t printed on canvas before, stop reading this right now, click that link and go order one immediately!!! Canvas prints are just amazing to look at. I hung this up in my office for the day and people were blown away by the quality and non photographers can’t understand that it’s a photo (in a good way).
Zaza also turns the print around quite quickly and ships it fast as well. I ordered one canvas from zaza and another from canvas on demand on the same night and the zaza arrived two days earlier to me in Rhode Island. I did NOT ask for any expidited services, so I’d bet both can be faster, but using their default options Zaza got me my canvas earlier which is never a bad thing.
Packaging wise, both are adequately packaged and I’m sure neither have issues with damaged products unless something bizzarre happens in shipping, but the CoD box is setup much better in terms of protecting the canvas. The CoD box is actually larger in all dimensions over the Zaza box even though that canvas was slightly (27″ x 18″, also 3/4″ thick) smaller.
The other thing I noticed is Zaza cropped my shot (or wrapped it behind) a bit more the CoD does. Check the images below for the original file as well as pictures of the edge of both canvases. Granted I DID NOT print the same image on both, but the rocks that are NOT clipped on the edge of the file I sent Zaza (the B&W shot) but they disappear around the back of the canvas. I knew they’d wrap around the edge, but you don’t actually see them anywhere on the canvas. The other issue I have is Zaza adds a second wooden bar on the back of the canvas frame. While this is great for making it stiffer, it makes it very hard to hang. Add to that the fact that Zaza does NOT include any hanging hardware for their canvas and it’s a 2 nail in the wall with a level endeavor to get it hung where the CoD canvas not only has a flat wooden rail at the top allowing you to use a single nail, it also includes hanging hardware if you think you need it.
Price wise the Zaza beats CoD’s normal price. CoD wants $124 for their 20×30, Zaza wants $99. But CoD has a “pro” side to their site, if you qualify you can get their 20×30 for $93. So assuming you can get into the pro side of COD the prices are very close. If time is short, I wouldn’t hesitate to go with a Zaza canvas, but personally I prefer the CoD canvases as they hang easier, are cheaper (for me), include all the hardware and are packaged slightly better. Add it all up and I just can’t see a reason to switch.
