Hi,

I am considering the purchase of a Negative Scanner in the next couple of months, so far I have looked at the Epson Perfection V700 and V750-M Pro, the V700 was reviewed in the latest Black and White Photography mag. Plus I have had a look at a few on-line reviews, all seem to be pretty favourable.

The reason for this is that although I work exclusively in film, having the benefit of scanning images and burning onto a CD-Rom seems very advantagous. Currently I send to a lab and the cost over time makes buying a scanner more economically sensible. The neg range to be scanned will be from 35mm, 120 and 4" x 5", both mono and colour (neg/trans).

As I am not a great computer lover, I know which keys to press, nor have much experience with hardware (frankly I just fined them so boring lol), I was simply wondering what devices APUGers use. Has anyone just bought a V700 or V750? Or provide any recommendations for alternative scanners.

Cheers

John

Anything from nikon

Well if you didn't need to scan 5x4, I'd say get a Nikon 8000 or 9000. I use the 8000 with great success.

Just got an Epson V750-M Pro last week for scanning my LF negatives and positives (got scanner #81). Excellent machine so far when scanning my Fuji Pro 160S 10x8 negatives. Haven't tried it on anything else so far.

Can't tell you more than I've read about the Epson for scanning smaller formats other than there are claims that it matches the results of a Nikon 4000 film scanner. I have no evidence to support that claim.

Just like with cameras, there is no ONE perfect scanner or camera made. They all have their limits.

Good luck.

I have an Epson 4990, I think the model before the V series. It is a very good scanner for transparency, and negatives. It meets most of my needs. I am careful to use as little of the scanner software as possible, usually setting only my black and white points, and do my sharpening etc. in PS.

Have you read this review yet?
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V750/page_1.htm

A lot of these review sites tend to focus on extracting detail and artifacts, but what is really important is the optical quality of the scan. Have a look at second hand Imacon scanners.

I would really love a scanner myself, but can't really justify the cost at present. I would prefer a new lens or two!

The Epson yields scans very close to drum scanner quality at a fraction of the drum scanner's price.

Caveat: It all depends on your budget, expectations and requirements (e.g. output size) in the end.

With that in mind, the V700/750 should be fine for the MF and large format, and acceptable for small enlargements with careful processing for 35mm. For the few shots where you want higher quality still, you can send these out for scanning on a higher end scanner.

You may want to consider a dedicated film scanner to get the best out of 35mm. If you do mainly B+W, the Minolta DualScan IV will do the job fine. However, if you are doing quite a bit of colour, note that this does not have Digital ICE.

I have a Epson 3170 for my own personal use, and find prints up to A4 from 6x6 and 6x9 negatives are fine. Scans from 35mm for web use are quite OK too.

I have an Epson 4870, which may be older than the others mentioned. But it does do up to 4x5 and does pretty well.

The Epson yields scans very close to drum scanner quality at a fraction of the drum scanner's price.

Epson's ARE indead great scanners for the price, and are quite good enough for most of our needs, but the quality of the scans cannot even come close to the quality of a drum scan. Kinda like saying that 35mm comes very close to the quality of 8x10.

Cheers,
Mark