[stevebrot]

I have used an Epson V500 and have never been satisfied with the output. Results are not sharp at all and with colour film it's extremely difficult to get accurate colours. Others here will disagree - Colton (Swift1) gets excellent results from his Epson scanners - but I have been unable to replicate them despite hours trying.

The V700 and V750 are in a completely different world from the V500 in terms of performance. I believe Colton has a V750, IIRC.


Steve

[Swift1]

The V700 and V750 are in a completely different world from the V500 in terms of performance. I believe Colton has a V750, IIRC.


Steve

I have both a V500 and V750, and I still use both.
The real world scan quality difference between the two is not actually as big as some say, and actually the V500 is capable of better results than many give it credit for. If you leave Epson Scan "as is" when installed, the V500 won't give great results. With careful setup, it will give good results.

This is a scan of a 35mm Ektar negative that I scanned on my V500.
Top is the entire frame. Bottom is a 100% crop from the original 2400 dpi scan.
It won't compete with a Nikon Coolscan 5000, but I wouldn't hesitate to make a 10"x15" print from this scan.

[Ranchu]

I also have a coolscan v ed, but I like the tonality of the epson more. I sharpen on low in the scanner software, because I think it's too soft without it. If I had bought a v700 I'd probably use that, but resolution doesn't mean much to me, and I'm not sure results w/o sharpening would be much different anyway. Like I said, I have a coolscan that doesn't get as much use as the V500.

[LesDMess]

Continuing to use the Nikon Coolscan and Nikonscan on a Windows Vista PC. Over 40K frames of various films used to date and it continues to provide very good results. ICE (dust and scratch removal) works on all film types except for true b&w film. Here is an example of a particularly distressed frame of color negative film - courtesy of very poor lab handling, that shows it's effectiveness. I also DSLR scanned it and shows my attempt compared to default automatic settings from the Coolscan. However, I was not going to attempt to clean it in post, especially since it only takes about 50 seconds for the Coolscan to deliver a color correct and clean result!

[From1980]

I have been considering acquiring a flatbed scanner recently and I've done some reading and comparisons at blogs and sites. Can anyone here give impressions and opinions regarding the Epson 600. It's still available at very low prices compared to the Epson 800 and others. My needs would be med res scans of 35mm and 120 colour neg, slides, and B&W. I would expect to have to pay for a higher quality scan if I'm ever to desire very large prints.

[abruzzi]

Still, I feel that DSLR scanning is the future for digitising negatives as scanner technology is very old and is no longer being advanced due to low demand, while DSLR scanning is moving with digital camera technology.

The key issue for me is this. The best scanners out there seem to be 15 year old scanners that require SCSI or FireWire, and modern computers have or are abandoning those tech. I may break down and buy a flatbed eventually (though I have no space for one) but I really want to go all in trying to get DSLR scanning working for me since I know in the future I’ll be able to get new cameras.

I sort of surprised that the third party scan software vendors like silverfast haven’t integrated DSLR processing. I’m fine with B&W, but color negative, I really need something to handle the conversion.

[goddo31]

I use the V700 for both 35mm and 120. I find that with a good negative I can get fairly decent quality even from the 35mm and have printed up to 10x15 without issue.
Still I would prefer a better scanner for 35mm if I could justify the cost.
I use the Epson scan software and scan to tif files with minimal adjustments and USM turned off. From there I import into Lightroom, sharpen, adjust contrast etc and output as jpg.

For me the biggest challenge is film flatness with 120. I find that getting uniform flatness across a film strip is hard with either the stock V700 120 film holder or even with the Better Scanning one. There are methods to combat this however it can be quite fiddly.

Below is a recent example, scanned at 2400ppi (6x6 so it's 120 film). A sample at 100% is attached too.

Attached Images

 

[h.butz]

For the time being I am using a local place to do the processing but going forward I am thinking process the negatives (or positives) at home and then scan in for post process work and possible printing.

I've gone thru several flatbed scanners (SCSI, Firewire, USB) and a negative scanner. I'm satisfied with an analog front end (film) and a digital back end to print (jpeg's). My work flow runs thru North Coast Photo, which is on the West Coast of the U.S. I'm still confused as to why they call themselves North Coast Photo, but - I digress. They do developing with "enhanced" scans of 3390 x 5035 from 35mm B&W and color. @150dpi that gets you 22x33" enlargements. They also return the negatives to you so you re-scan at a higher resolution from the negs in the future if you need larger.

[old_manual_guy]

DSLR scanning (using a DSLR and macro lens to photograph the negative and then inverting the results) provides far sharper results but for B&W it can be very difficult to get good tones. For colour it's even harder as colour films have an orange mask that is very difficult to account for in the processing of the resultant image files. There is a LR plugin called Negative Lab Pro which is designed specifically for this purpose and I have seen very impressive results from it but have not used it myself. It costs $100 but of course you need to also pay for Lightroom. Look on Facebook for the group "Negative Lab Pro Users" to see results and discussion.

Still, I feel that DSLR scanning is the future for digitising negatives as scanner technology is very old and is no longer being advanced due to low demand, while DSLR scanning is moving with digital camera technology.

Do you need a light source like a light table/tablet for DSLR scanning? If so any recommendations?

[stevebrot]

The best scanners out there seem to be 15 year old scanners that require SCSI or FireWire, and modern computers have or are abandoning those tech.

Hmmmm...I am chewing on this a bit and am assuming you mean best scanners used at a reasonable price point (e.g. higher spec Minolta or SCSI Nikon or Pakon). One can still get expansion card support for both interfaces, but the issue is operating system driver support for the scanner itself. As for digitization using a dSLR, the utility depends on your setup and the tough parts are in having suitable film holder and lighting and positioning of the original. If one has the ability to quickly and easily put a new frame in place and in focus, one can manage better throughput than batch or continuous processing with most scanners. If not, digitizing a full 36 exposure roll may require an hour or more of fiddlesom tedium.


Steve

[abruzzi]

The Epson 850 series scanners look pretty good from what I can tell, but even they are pretty old. I guess Epson is selling enough to keep making them. The 600 series scanners seem to be too low resolution for 35mm (tests I’ve seen put the real world optical DPI at around 1400 or so, which for 35mm is something like 2.6 megapixels.) I’d prefer something like the Nikon 9000, which has great resolution for both medium format and 35mm. But they are scanners that people keep dedicated computers around to keep running. I’m not saying that scanners are going away, but it seems like the best tech is in the past.

35mm I digitize with my K3ii and a Pentax macro bellows and slide copier attachment. It takes me less than 10 minutes to create 36 raw files from an already developed and cut roll. Now, those raw files require cropping, straightening, inverting and adjusting, but that doesn’t take much time either. I have a process that speeds things along, and I can determine early if a frame warrants spending more time on. So a half hour or so to digitize, quick crop, invert and set curves to one basic setting that lets me decide if I want to spend more time on any of those frames.

Medium format is slower because I don’t have a fixed rail, so it requires a lot more setup, and even then, a roll of 6x4.5 (15 frames) takes more time in the actual digitizing than an entire roll of 35, since I have to manually move each frame, adjust under the camera, then refocus. I think a better device to hold the film would help. Right now I’m using enlarger negative holders.

[stevebrot]

Still, I feel that DSLR scanning is the future for digitising negatives as scanner technology is very old and is no longer being advanced due to low demand, while DSLR scanning is moving with digital camera technology.

Yes, digital scanning and downstream image processing has been a mature reprographic technology for decades. I would not expect any groundbreaking tech that direction. As for dSLR copying, its equivalent is also very mature, that being the devices used for minilab "scans" employ a ccd or cmos sensor capable of instantaneous capture similar to what is in our cameras. The requirements for reproduction are well known and well addressed. What's more, the limitations for dSLR copying remain the same as traditional slide and negative copying using film cameras, that being quality of original, flatness, alignment, and optical path. The capture medium for both at present is not the limiting factor in regards to quality.

I would not expect any groundbreaking improvements in dSLR tech that will directly improve the suitability to task for film copying.


Steve

[LesDMess]

Do you need a light source like a light table/tablet for DSLR scanning? If so any recommendations?

You will need a means to backlight the film. I use a Gepe light box which has a diffused white light source that works very well.

[Russell W. Barnes]

I would not expect any groundbreaking improvements in dSLR tech that will directly improve the suitability to task for film copying.

Would increased megapixel resolution not make a difference, then? I know 'more megapixels isn't necessarily more better', (noise, etc...) but given that the DSLR processing engine seems (to me) to offer less noisy images for increasingly higher ISO it seems this is an improvement. I appreciate that copying a neg can only be as good as the resolution of the digital sensor doing the xopying, but surely a higher resolution sensor will eke more detail from the negative unti a point is reached where all neg detail has been got?

Unless that point has been reached now, of course. I find my Sony RX-100D copies my 6x6 negs to my satisfaction, and my ancient EOS 5D Mk: 1 copies 35mm negs as good as my prehistoric Acer Scanwit SCSI neg and slide copier when coupled to a 'traditional' slide-copier tube adapted for negs. I'd like to compare my 6x6 neg copies off the Sony with those off a drum-scanner, say.

I copy 6x6 negs with the Sony RX100 in a 'one-er' but am mindful that I could copy sections at a time and join them together, should I wish to do so.

[stevebrot]

Would increased megapixel resolution not make a difference, then?

Probably not unless the scale was on the order of the density of sensitized silver crystals on a sheet of photo print paper. Without actually making a print, the test I might suggest is to compare a full resolution crop of a best effort dSLR copy image with visual observation using a loupe of the original negative on the light box. That should give some notion of the degree of inadequacy. I have done such with my Nikon 5000 ED for 35mm and my V700 for 6x7 and 4x5 and the scans are woefully unsatisfactory when confronted with the original.


Steve