[jumbleview]

What the difference between these two scanners regarding final image quality. Is 850 indeed three times better (as difference in price suggests)?

[MadBill]

The v600 is a nice general purpose scanner with the ability to scan 135 and 120 film at a reasonable price, but it is not really adequate for getting full detail from film. I use it to do a quick scan of film and then use a camera to digitize any images worthy of further work.

[Jlesalvignol]

Test report film-flatbed-scanner Epson Perfection V850 Pro transparency unit: experiences report; image quality, scanning slides, medium formats

It's all there.

[tuco]

Price per scan resolution is not linear. It is exponetial similar to stereo equipment quality. Per the above link the V850 has both a higher effective scan resolution (2600 ppi vs 1560 ppi) and a higher DMax density range (4.0 vs 3.4) than the V600. While scanners advertise up to 6400 ppi scan resolution, these are interpolated resolutions that scale the image up but do not grab any more detail off the negative than the effective scan resoltuion. 135 cansister film has such a small film area that it takes a high quality scanning optical path to achive the best results from that size film.

---

Last edited by tuco; 06-04-2023 at 04:51 PM.

[vector]

I switched to scanning with the Nikon ES-2 adapter that holds the 35mm negative in front of my FA50 macro lens. The level of detail surpasses what my Epson v550 could do and you get a raw file to work with. Converting white balance can be a challenge but the end results are far better. Otherwise I couldn’t tell the difference between scans with my Epson v350 vs v550 so I seriously doubt the v850 is capable of better. Those scanners just have limits on what they can deliver in quality film scanning. That’s not to say they are terrible, they do work and deliver nice results with minimal effort. Converting raw negative shots is time consuming and for some old negatives it is worth it for me.

[Rico]

The v600 is a nice general purpose scanner with the ability to scan 135 and 120 film at a reasonable price, but it is not really adequate for getting full detail from film. I use it to do a quick scan of film and then use a camera to digitize any images worthy of further work.

This is the best solution especially if you have lot of film to scan. Batch scan at 4K resolution to make a digital archive which makes it easier to search through all the images.

The keepers Pixel-shift them. Takes way less time and provides all the benefits of a DNG file along with pixel-shifts accurate color and no moire etc. The output file gives you an image that prints very large for 35mm film.

Any scanner will do that fits your film sizes best as you don't really need to scan any larger than 4k to view them on screen. You could have a service do the scanning at 4k to save the time of having to do it yourself.