Flat-bed scanners

[Donald]

I don't think we've had a lot of conversations on here about scanners. Apologies if we have and I've missed them.

I need a new scanner and am looking to move up from the very basic Canon flat bed I had (documents only) to something that I could use for slides and negs.

The market sector I'm looking at includes such as the Canon CanoScan 9000F Mark II and the Epson Perfection V500 Photo.

The questions are:
Is anyone using scanners from this sector of the market?
and
What are your views/thoughts on performance?

[pnodrog]

Hi Bonald, I have an Epson Perfection V700 and have been very pleased with it. Particularly for scanning large format transparencies. I think the only real advantage over the V500 is it's ability to get more out of shadow detail or dense film. I have an abandoned Canoscan 2720? which was reasonably good but could only scan one slide at a time - I far prefer the V700.

[Shadowman]

Epson Perfection V330 which replaced my hp Scanjet 4370 (only because it wouldn't function with Win&). Both are capable film neg and slide scanners straight out of the box. If you are really into digital restoration consider two of many books:

Tom Ang's Advanced Digital Photography, 2003, 2007
Ctein's Digital Restoration From Start to Finish, 2007
http://ctein.com

[DanK]

Hi Donald,

I have been going through the same thing, as I have a huge quantity of photos and slides to copy and found that my multipurpose scanner is not nearly adequate. I haven't resolved this, but what I have found so far may be helpful. From what I read, one can get a reasonably good epson or canon dedicated scanner for not too high a price that will do well with photographs, but they do less well with slides. For slides, I am leaning toward the Nikon ES-1 slide copier. I don't have the name handy, but you can probably find it by googling. It is a tube that has a diffuser and a holder for slides and one end and screw threads on the other. You screw it on the front of a macro lens.

The one thing you have to be careful about is that you need the right distance from the lens to capture the full screen. I vaguely recall calculating that it would work with one of my lenses without any spacers, but I don't have those notes with me.

Dan

[stuck]

What are your views/thoughts on performance?

Only you know what is acceptable in terms of scanned image quality but for slide/neg scanning you get what you pay for. In other words, the v700 or the v750 at top of the Epson range will perform better than their mid range V500.

However, if you want top quality film scans you need a dedicated film scanner like a Nikon Coolscan, except they don't make them any more and you can pay more than the original price for second hand ones!

Ken

[Donald]

Thanks for all your comments folks.

Re Ken's reply:-

In other words, the v700 or the v750 at top of the Epson range will perform better than their mid range V500.

This was an one area of interest in my questions. What I've read else where is that the fundamental difference between the V500 and these morfe expensive units is not quality, but the ability of the more expensive units to scan more slides/negs in a pass. In other words, the V500 can do 4 slides at a time. The others can do more.

Any further comments on this or indeed more generally about satisfaction levels with units in this sector of the market, would be welcomed.

[LocalHero1953]

I have the Epson V500 and have used it to scan a vast number of family prints, for which it produced more than acceptable quality for me - I was amazed at the detail pulled from a B&W contact print that must have been less than one inch square, and how well it cleaned up the exposure on pre-WW1 prints. I have only used it a bit for negatives and slides - it was OK, but I had a Minolta Dimage Multi film scanner, bought on eBay, which I preferred for negatives (including 120 roll film in particular) and transparencies. For the Minolta, I had trouble with sorting SCSI cable and card for my modern PC, and had to jettison the Minolta software in favour of Vuescan in Windows 7, but once it was set up, it chugged through my archives fairly well.

[Cogito]

Donald, the Epson V500 is a very capable scanner. Indeed, just about all of the Epson scanners are acceptable. But for a lot of work. go better. There's no substitute for better quality and the Epson V700 or V750 will give you better results. This site could be of help....

[stuck]

This review compares the Epson V600 with the V750:
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/int...50/page-1.html
In summary the 600 does a better job with prints but the 750 outstrips it on slides/negs.

Ken

[loosecanon]

I started with a canon film scanner, good but limited to 3700dpi and slow, and scci interface. I bought an Epson V300, ok but not that good, and slides seemed grainy. My canon LiDE 600F is very good for negatives but not mounted slides, handy for portability.
I then aquired cheaply a canon 8400 and the scan quality for slides and film is brilliant, far better than dedicated film scanner, and quite quick. If I was to purchase new now I would definitely go for the Canon 9000F. Much cheaper than the Epson scanners of similar specification and given my experience they are very good, especially if scanning a lot of 35 mm slides.

Of course you can order over the net, and try out when delivered, you have 7 days if it doesn't meet expectations. Try Misco.co.uk - cannot beat for service and rapid delivery, no hassel returns and you can order over phone and check with them that it will meet your requirements.

[loosecanon]

I started with a canon film scanner, good but limited to 3700dpi and slow, and scci interface. I bought an Epson V300, ok but not that good, and slides seemed grainy. My canon LiDE 600F is very good for negatives but not mounted slides, handy for portability.
I then aquired cheaply a canon 8400 and the scan quality for slides and film is brilliant, far better than dedicated film scanner, and quite quick. If I was to purchase new now I would definitely go for the Canon 9000F. Much cheaper than the Epson scanners of similar specification and given my experience they are very good, especially if scanning a lot of 35 mm slides.

Of course you can order over the net, and try out when delivered, you have 7 days if it doesn't meet expectations. Try Misco.co.uk - cannot beat for service and rapid delivery, no hassel returns and you can order over phone and check with them that it will meet your requirements.

[davidedric]

Follolwing this thread with some interest.

I have a Nikon Coolscan, bought several years ago, with the idea of digitising a large number of slides. I din't buy the multi slide holding accessory, but it had a reputation for jamming easily, which kind of defeated the object.

However, it takes probably a minute to scan and process each slide. Yes, it's got lots of features for removing stuff, but I think I can now do most of that more quickly and easily using pp software.

As it result, it is now gathering dust, and most of my slides remain unscanned.

Will the better flat-bed scanners mentioned above scan multiple slides still in their mounts?

Dave

[pnodrog]

Follolwing this thread with some interest.

I have a Nikon Coolscan, bought several years ago, with the idea of digitising a large number of slides. I din't buy the multi slide holding accessory, but it had a reputation for jamming easily, which kind of defeated the object.

However, it takes probably a minute to scan and process each slide. Yes, it's got lots of features for removing stuff, but I think I can now do most of that more quickly and easily using pp software.

As it result, it is now gathering dust, and most of my slides remain unscanned.

Will the better flat-bed scanners mentioned above scan multiple slides still in their mounts?

Dave

Epson V700 will scan up to 12x 35mm slides in mounts. Set it going have a quick cup of coffee all done.

[stuck]

However, it takes probably a minute to scan and process each slide.

My experience with a Coolscan V ED is that it takes at least three mins from inserting one slide to inserting the next and scanning at 14bit depth with Digital ICE as th eonly in scanner processing.

Ken

[davidedric]

Hi Donald,

I hope you will keep us posted on what you decide and the results.

Dave

[Donald]

Hi Donald,

I hope you will keep us posted on what you decide and the results.

Dave

I am glad to.

Having taken all the advice above, I went with my instinct and just got out there and got myself an Epson V500. And love it.

After all that I'd read elsewhere, I was a bit nervous about how quick (or slow) it would be. Now, other migth indeed be faster. But I'm not in any great hurry. I'm copying 4 slides at a time at 2400 dpi, with Epson 'Digital ICE' switched on the tackle dust and scratches and am doing 4 slides in about 4 minutes (and I can be browsing CiC whilst it's scanning). And the quality is wonderful.

Discovering images I'd forgotten about. And noting that way back then (in 1987 at the moment) I actually wasn't a bad photographer. There are some quite good things in amongst all the snapshots.

[GrahamS]

Hats off to you, Donald. I am chugging through my negative archive going back to the early 1960s. It's like dipping into a treasure chest!

BTW, I have an iMac and I tried using the flatbed scanner on my recently purchased Canon MG8250 all-in-one printer. I was very disappointed with the results. No two scans were alike in colour balance, density etc even from the same strip of negs and the scans were "muddy." I have reverted back to my Minolta Dimage 5400 driven by Vuescan, which I didn't want to use for mundane tasks, as spares are no longer obtainable. I may save up for a V500 after reading your comments.