Topic: What scanner you using?

[Faintandfuzzy]

I've been looking at scanners...old and new.  I'd like to hear your thoughts on what you use, what you like....and what you hate in your scanner.

[Indofunk]

I use an old Epson V500, with the bundled Epsonscan software. It mostly works fine for me, except when I try to scan 6cmx33cm (MF panoramas) and 3.5"x4" (packfilm) negatives, because they don't fit, but those are edge cases.

Things I like:
Easy to use software interface
Except for one firmware update that I needed to do, pretty maintenance-free

Things I don't like:
Terrible film holders (there are aftermarket film holders that are supposed to be good, but they cost more than the damn scanner itself )
Relatively poor auto detection of frame borders

Ideally, I'd love an automated scanner that I could just feed an entire roll of 135/120/packfilm/whatever into and it flattens the film and autodetects everything, but that is 1. impossible and 2. super expensive (I'm thinking of those Pakons).

[thatguychad]

For 35mm I have a Pakon F335 and an F135+ as a backup because I absolutely hate scanning 35mm with a flatbed. I’m fine using a flatbed with medium format and 4x5, though, so I have an Epson V500 and 4990. The V500 has a strip too narrow to scan 4x5,  it the LED light source of the V500 and newer scanners has no warmup time.

I wouldn’t say that I hate anything about the Pakon. I don’t mind that need to have either a Virtual Machine or dedicated Windows XP machine (I choose the later because there are significantly fewer compatibility problems), but I do wish it had higher resolution scanning.

Things I dislike about the flatbed are finding good film holders since the ones that come with the scanners aren’t that great (I use a Lomography Digitaliza holder for 120) and the scanning speed. The Pakon has spoiled me with taking 3 minutes to scan a roll of 36 exposures.

[Cadha13]

I have been using a Epson V500 for almost 7 years and upgraded to VueScan because Epson software was doing odd things to my scans. The features and customizations are almost endless with that combination. The film carriers and dust control are annoying to deal with, but I work with it.

I have done image merging to get my 4x5 scanned, but it's a dicey move as each part can end up as different colors.

I don't like scanning black and white films, as the Digital ICE doesn't work and dust, is my enemy. I just want to use the D5-XL enlarger and have no dust. (Just lock me in my room, in the dark, full of chemicals) Color film is the best reason to use these Epson scanners, they just work so well and quality is good.

Scanning Polaroids are also fun, and I haven't seen any Newton rings on the scans.

[Sandeha Lynch]

Still using my Epson Photo 3200 that I bought in 2004. That has to be good craic to get 15 years out of it, though I'm also increasingly aware that its time may be up anytime and without warning.

[AJShepherd]

I used an Epson F-3200 for well over a decade but earlier this year i noticed a line across scans which after cleaning attempts and with a bit of googling I deduced was a fault on the sensor.

So I bought an Epson V800, which while a whole load bigger does do up to 18 frames of 35mm at one sitting (so after the preview you can leave it to its own devices while it's done). The film holders are dust magnets, but making sure one side is cleaned before putting the film in, and the other side cleaned before putting on the scan bed, that's not too difficult to deal with.
Also incentive to clean up the desk more often to keep the dust down in the first place!

[BernardL]

Nikon LS-2000 for 135, and Epson V700 for 120.
Proper (i.e. not overdone) USM is key to rescuing information present in the scanner output in the region of declining MTF.
Wish I had an LS-4000 to scan a roll in one go. On the other hand, the real deal is wet printing.

[Faintandfuzzy]

Thanks everyone.  I was curious.  I still use an Epson V700 with Betterscanning holders....as I thought I would abandon 35 and just use 6x7 and 4x5.  Silly me...I sold the Minolta Scan Dual IV.  Now I regret it and am looking at another. 

[Kai-san]

I've got the Epson V750 which is almost identical to the V700, and I use it in combination with Silverfast 8. For 120 film it's ok, but I find the results for 135 a bit disappointing. I was thinking of acquiring a Nikon 5000 for 135 scanning, but the second hand prices are still very high, and these scanners are getting old and difficult to service. Lately I've been looking at the Reflecta RPS 10M which can be had for around 800 pounds new. It does not use film holders, the film strip is fed directly into it. You can also scan mounted slides. This scanner does not do 120 film though. The resolution is tested to be 5000 DPI which is better than Nikon's 4000 DPI. It also has autofocus and manual focus. If nothing better pops up below 1000 pounds I might go for it.

[Francois]

I'm still with my trusty Epson 4490. While the scanning is slow and the warm-up period is as long as the one in gym class, it does the work.
For 4x5 negatives, I had to make a custom holder and scan the film in 2 passes and then stitch in photoshop. It's a pain but it works.
For 35mm, I work a bit different. Since photo paper is expensive, I use a super cheap instant scanner I got at a charity shop for 5$ and scan every frame at low quality just to make some index prints. Then if there's something I want in good quality, I switch to the epson and re-scan just what I want.

To do the index prints I wrote a batch script that uses imagemagick to make the layout. But I'll have to re-write it some time as the programs I use in imagemagick are now legacy.

[Late Developer]

I use an Epson V750 and VueScan. I like the medium format output better than the 35mm - but that's probably mostly down to the somewhat crappy negative holders (there always seems to be a slight curve to the 35mm film strips and I might have to invest in in one of the Lomography or Better Scanning versions as they seem to be a bit more reliable and robust).

[Francois]

The only thing I don't like about the Digitaliza holders is that you have to manually align them with the transparency light.
Also, they are quite thick.

[Jeff Warden]

Another V700 with Betterscanning holders here for 120. For 35mm I have a Nikon Coolscan IV ED. No complaints about either.

[Kai-san]

No film holders will keep your film absolutely flat unless they have glass on both sides and a mechanism to press them together. I have got the Lomography Digitaliza holder, it's frankly no better than the Epson holders. Believing that a few magnets can hold a curled 35mm film flat is like believing in Santa. I also have the Better Scanning holder for 120, it uses t-bars placed between the frames to press the film down. It will keep the film flat underneath the T-bar, but not the part in between, which is the part you want to scan. In addition it is very fiddly to get these T-bars in the exact position where you want them.
Drum scanners and the scanners that imitate a drum, like the Hasselblad ones, are by far the best solution. But for most filmwasters they are out of reach due to their price range. But if you move up a bit from the Epson V-series there are scanners that have autofocus / manual focus or both. Those are probably the best value for your money if you want good 35mm scans.

[Francois]

I have got the Lomography Digitaliza holder, it's frankly no better than the Epson holders. Believing that a few magnets can hold a curled 35mm film flat is like believing in Santa.

The Digitaliza holders could have been in many ways better than the Epson ones. But the main issue is that they were designed to scan the sprockets, the negatives are thus held by a very thin margin. If they had made them with regular margins, they would have potentially been better than the Epson ones at holding negatives flat.
One thing I kinda like about them is the way you load the film in them.

I will say that having some engineering and designer blood, I haven't found a single film scanner that really matches my expectations. They are all ill designed, overpriced, inefficient in one way or another. Strangely, the one I have that would show the most promise is that cheap instant scanner. But then again they didn't refine the design enough for my taste. But at least they got a lot of things right.

[Bryan]

I'm happy with my digital camera scanning setup.  With my new digital camera, Olympus Pen F, I can scan up to 50 MP, not that I need to scan to that size.  I use glassless negative carriers that slightly crop the image.  With the weight of my light source behind it the negatives are quite flat.  It's probably a slower operation than automated scanners but I've gotten pretty fast at it.  I can scan from 35mm to 6X9, I have a similar process for 4X5 using a glassless negative holder, it just doesn't fit the bellows setup I have so I have to do it in a dark room.

[Jeff Warden]

No film holders will keep your film absolutely flat unless they have glass on both sides and a mechanism to press them together. I have got the Lomography Digitaliza holder, it's frankly no better than the Epson holders. Believing that a few magnets can hold a curled 35mm film flat is like believing in Santa. I also have the Better Scanning holder for 120, it uses t-bars placed between the frames to press the film down. It will keep the film flat underneath the T-bar, but not the part in between, which is the part you want to scan. In addition it is very fiddly to get these T-bars in the exact position where you want them.
Drum scanners and the scanners that imitate a drum, like the Hasselblad ones, are by far the best solution. But for most filmwasters they are out of reach due to their price range. But if you move up a bit from the Epson V-series there are scanners that have autofocus / manual focus or both. Those are probably the best value for your money if you want good 35mm scans.

Kai have you tried the ANR glass inserts for the Better Scanning holder? I recommend them because they hold the film dead flat with glass on only one side. You just load the film with an arch facing up, and the glass flattens it out. The film curl working against the glass holds it flat.

http://www.betterscanning.com/scanning/usinginsert.html

[Kai-san]

For a period of time I used glass inserts for the Epson holders. They were not Anti-Newton glass, but they had one matte surface which goes against the film. I was not at all happy with the results, I suspect the quality of the glass was not first rate. The ANR glass inserts may be better, but for me the 120 format is not the biggest problem. At least the films I use do not curl as much as 135 film. The 4mm thick, heavy glass inserts for 135 was no match for curled film, the glass was left balancing on top of the film. I've tried to put 135mm films under pressure for days, but it does not help much. You just have to wait until the built-in tension of the film subsides. The alternative is to use films with a PET base, they dry really flat. Rollei and Adox use this base in many of their films, but they are usually very thin. Despite that I have not had any problems with this type of film in any of my cameras.
There is one thing about the film holders for flat bed scanners that I think many do not pay attention to, and that is the fact that the height of these holder may need to be adjusted. The Better Scanning holders have very good adjustment possibilities. Even the Epson holders have a type of adjustment, although somewhat crude.

[Sandeha Lynch]

For a period of time I used glass inserts for the Epson holders. They were not Anti-Newton glass, but they had one matte surface which goes against the film. I was not at all happy with the results, I suspect the quality of the glass was not first rate. The ANR glass inserts may be better, but for me the 120 format is not the biggest problem. At least the films I use do not curl as much as 135 film. The 4mm thick, heavy glass inserts for 135 was no match for curled film, the glass was left balancing on top of the film. I've tried to put 135mm films under pressure for days, but it does not help much. You just have to wait until the built-in tension of the film subsides. The alternative is to use films with a PET base, they dry really flat. Rollei and Adox use this base in many of their films, but they are usually very thin. Despite that I have not had any problems with this type of film in any of my cameras.
There is one thing about the film holders for flat bed scanners that I think many do not pay attention to, and that is the fact that the height of these holder may need to be adjusted. The Better Scanning holders have very good adjustment possibilities. Even the Epson holders have a type of adjustment, although somewhat crude.

You say "put 135mm films under pressure for days" ... have you tried rolling the dry roll backwards, tight enough to fit into a canister. That should reverse any built-in tension in a couple of days..

[Kai-san]

Very good tip Sandeha, I will try it next time! 

[Kai-san]

Well, some weeks ago I decided that there was no point in waiting for any new scanners to appear on the market, so I ordered a brand new Reflecta RPS 10M. It's an ugly looking thing, but when not in use I hide it under a dust cover. Knowing that dust is a scanner's worst enemy, that is probably a good thing anyway. What I like best is that is has no film holders, it grips and advances the film by the sprocket holes. This means you can scan a whole roll of film in one go. The insertion of the film is really easy. It has autofocus, and since I use Silverfast AI 8.8 I can also do manual focus. So far I do not see any use for manual focusing. Using Silverfast also produces better images and faster scans than the native software. Silverfast can also do multiple exposures if you want the best quality. Auto detection of frames is so-so, but that is hardly any better on my Epson V750. The Reflecta has a window on top so you can check the position of the frame and adjust it in small increments using two buttons. The scan speed is about 2.5 minutes per scan (colour negative with IR scanning). The Reflecta does RGB and IR scanning simultaneously in one pass, that saves a bit of time. Test shows that the effective resolution is 4300 dpi, the old Nikon 5000ED has an effective resolution of 3900 dpi. You can scan mounted slides as well, but you have to feed them manually one at a time.
So far it's looking good, still trying out the available adjustments to improve quality. For example, I must admit that I did not know that adjusting the orange mask detection tolerance would impact on grain behavior. 
Since this scanner only does 35mm film, I will keep my Epson V750 for other formats. And I must admit that it feels good to have a scanner with two years warranty. 

[Francois]

And it probably feels better when you think you won't have to deal with a SCSI interface card and old drivers

[KevinAllan]

I use the Epson v700, with 35mm, 120, and 4x5 film.

I use the Betterscaning medium format holder with ANR glass and that works well for me.

I may buy the 35mm Betterscanning ANR glass. However, whilst the $30 cost doesn't sound much, that'a just to cover up ONE of the film holders FOUR channels so the number of frames that can be scanned at one go reduces from 24 to 6 (maybe 5 because the glass doesn't go right to the edge of the channel.)

[grit]

I use an Epson V850 to scan 120, 4x5, and 8x10. I love the scanner; I hate the included holders, which have a built-in piece of plastic(!) that serves as a dust magnet. I'll explore the betterscanning.com stuff soon.

[Francois]

I must admit that the Epson film holders have never been great. But as a consolation, I can say that the ones on Canon scanners were worse. They used a physical hinge in the plastic which will invariably cut if you use it too much.

[Moto-uno]

I've used the Epson V600 for a few years now and have to agree with everyone concerning the negative holders .
I position the negatives on the scanners glass and cover them with another thin piece of glass and finalize the
negs position . It works very well and allows better detail scans because it's flat ! On occasion there's a Newtonian
ring , but that's easily dealt with by a slight repositioning of the glass and or negative . Do give it a try. If the scan
comes up with an error simply click on close and then the normal display should open.   Peter

[Faintandfuzzy]

Thanks again everyone