Curving of the film in the MF holders is a problem if you need high resolution/sharpness.
Example, i can see the grain of the film, even of the FP4+, in the corners but not in the middle of the frame, or the other way around, depending where i set the sharpness to be optimal with the little height adjusters.
But this only for the highest magnification.
In general, the sharpness of my scanned images are limited by the film and my technique i think, not the scanner. I have 40x40 cm prints of some BW frames i exposed with my 70 y old Rolleiflex Tessar and they look great and are sharp more than enough.
The 35mm film holders keep the film flat enough for me, and also the slide holders.
The MF frame recognition is worthless. I must prescan the whole thing and draw the frames manually. But for 35mm strips or slides it works fine 99% of the cases.
The dynamic range is good, though for dark areas i wish it would have a bit more power to see through film. I had some kodachrome slides that were gorgeous under a strong background light but the scanner could not extract the details from the darkest regions. Realistically, one should not expect this to be too good, though. It's a flatbed after all.
I like the scanner overall, and it is reasonably fast even at the highest resolution. I never use ICE, though. I tried once just to see, and it takes alot of time. I keep my film quite clean so it's not really needed.
Software: I use epsonscan many times when the scans are relatively simple and when i need batch scanning. The biggest bugger of the epsonscan is it is completely f.. up w respect to colour management. It has options to choose what colour space you use but in practice they don't work. I had to figure out myself what happens with the colour space of the scan and assign it later in PS. Yes i did get the software update, and still the sane dumb problem.
The bundled silverfast has no batch scan that is very annoying but i guess they want to get their $ on the upgrade. But it handles colour negs a bit better, so if it's a critical frame, or difficult light on it, i use silverfast instead.
I tried the demo version of vuescan, but it was too complicated or too stupid. No way between. I did not have time yet to fumble with it and figure out how it works.
So i'd say go for it. Especially if you need it only for MF< it's excellent. Maybe the Doug Fisher holders worth an investment if you need highest resolution.
