Epson V700 Opinions

[irq506]

This is just a whimsical thread to say that I got one of these scanners yesterday after about six months postulating over all manner of scanners after my KM DiMage Scan Dual IV decided to stop talking to the computer.
All I can say is that so far, the results out of the Epson have been unbelievable. For a "high end" flatbed, I thought well its a flatbed so how good can it actually be... ...well Im quite seriously blown away with its capabilities. I dropped all my available resources on it and will suffer for until the next pay cheque but atleast my own personal productivity is back on track and quite possibly will be more productive with this thing.
Ill have examples of scans up on flickr within the next few days.
Joe

 

[__hh]

I have had one of these V700 for over a year now.

I must admit that my scanning process has been basic to say the least. Set in "professional mode", I am only scanning my negs at 2400 dpi with auto level and backlight correction. No other features are enabled. Saving straight to JPG.

I find the results to be good enough for me, but not too sure how good it can get.

Anyone got a good V700 scanning config/tips to share?

 

[maddoc]

I use my Epson V700 since one year now exclusively (sold my Nikon V ED) and find the results quite pleasing. The Epson does a very good job in MF and a good job in 135 but only after I bought the ANR inserts to keep the film flat (the 120 holder does a better job but needs some fiddling). I tested all three height-settings of the film holder but couldn't see any difference so I left it in the "neutral" position.

I usually scan with 4800 dpi, manual exposure, grain anti-aliasing and USM set to "low", everything else set to "OFF" and save as "jpg" file.

 

[venchka]

The Epson USA online store is full of refurbished scanners from the V200 all the way up to the V750 Pro.

ieq506: Invest in the BetterScanning holders. Be more blown away.

 

[Pherdinand]

Im using my v700 for over a year already, quite happy with the quality i get.
Two and a half remarks:
First- As said above, the film holders are less than ideal' luckily the DOF fo the sacanner seems to cover most film flatness issues. Very curved 120 film can be problematic with the original holders (that's all i own).
Second: dark regions of slides (or negs) can produce weird green noise bands. Only if I ramp up the levels to get some details in dark regions...but then it looks weird. At high magnification only (on monitor it's not visible unless heavily cropped).

And finally, the half remark: Mine came with some dust speckles and small fog on the inside of the glass; the fog grew bigger and uglier in the first half year so i decided to tak ethe glass off and clean it. It is MUCH better now, contrast improved a lot and no problems with dust.

Oh and ICE set on Quality works extremely well on slides and C41. Saves a LOT of time (although takes like 5 to 8 times longer to scan a frame than without ICE, it is fine if it's not urgent and u can do other stuff in the meantime).

It's a shame Epson couldn't make a proper colour management in their software. E.g. I set it to scan in Adobe RGB but it doesn't tag the files so i was very confused in the beginning.

 

[Tuolumne]

I use my Epson V700 since one year now exclusively (sold my Nikon V ED) and find the results quite pleasing. The Epson does a very good job in MF and a good job in 135 but only after I bought the ANR inserts to keep the film flat (the 120 holder does a better job but needs some fiddling). I tested all three height-settings of the film holder but couldn't see any difference so I left it in the "neutral" position.

I usually scan with 4800 dpi, manual exposure, grain anti-aliasing and USM set to "low", everything else set to "OFF" and save as "jpg" file.

How do you set the scanner to do grain anti-aliasing?

/T

 

[Kevin]

Fog

Fog

...And finally, the half remark: Mine came with some dust speckles and small fog on the inside of the glass; the fog grew bigger and uglier in the first half year so i decided to take the glass off and clean it. It is MUCH better now, contrast improved a lot and no problems with dust.

Was removing the glass a no-brainer? I already have fog and dust and that's just after two months of use. I don't know if the fog was there to begin with.

 

[maddoc]

How do you set the scanner to do grain anti-aliasing?

/T

I use the Epson software and there is an option for grain anti-aliasing (or reducing ?) in the menu (professional mode) where you can also set sharpening, ICE, dust-removal etc.

 

[fbf]

For B&W, I don't use any of those options... I just do it all in Photoshop.

IIRC, ICE won't even work with B&W negs (or at least produce horrible results).

agree. I normally don't play too much in the vuescan (highlight,contrast,that's it). I do most of work in PS. It doesn't take too much time, especially when you realize that most of the pictures need similar adjustment, so I use Action a lot. It takes me less than 1 min to adjust each picture (b&w). For c41, I normally play around the color balance a little in PS and apply the setting to all the pictures in the same roll. I don't mind the whitebalance shift, as long as it looks nice to me.

 

[Tuolumne]

I use the Epson software and there is an option for grain anti-aliasing (or reducing ?) in the menu (professional mode) where you can also set sharpening, ICE, dust-removal etc.

Thanks. I have that option, too. I just didn't realize it was for grain anti-aliasing. I usually turn it off. I'll try it at low level and see what that does to sharpness.

/T

 

[grainy_shadows]

u have to take off some caps and then undo the screws underneath to take off the top glass

 

[Kevin]

Thanks for the info 😛

 

[bippi]

I use my Epson V700 since one year now exclusively (sold my Nikon V ED) and find the results quite pleasing. The Epson does a very good job in MF and a good job in 135 but only after I bought the ANR inserts to keep the film flat (the 120 holder does a better job but needs some fiddling). I tested all three height-settings of the film holder but couldn't see any difference so I left it in the "neutral" position.

I usually scan with 4800 dpi, manual exposure, grain anti-aliasing and USM set to "low", everything else set to "OFF" and save as "jpg" file.

I was thinking of getting the Nikon V, since i only scan 35mm film, or at least at the moment. Would you say that the epson v700 is equally as good as the nikon with 35mm film?

 

[Eric T]

ANR inserts?

ANR inserts?

The Epson does a very good job in MF and a good job in 135 but only after I bought the ANR inserts to keep the film flat (the 120 holder does a better job but needs some fiddling).

maddoc,
I have had a similar problem with MF scanning on the Epson V700. Where did you buy your ANR inserts? What are they?
I was scanning my first 6x9 positive Velvia 50 photos last night taken on a Moskva 5 I just purchased. It looks promising but I just can't seem to get the film flat enough even after some flattening time in a large book.
Thanks,
Eric

 

[maddoc]

I was thinking of getting the Nikon V, since i only scan 35mm film, or at least at the moment. Would you say that the epson v700 is equally as good as the nikon with 35mm film?

The Nikon V ED has the edge over the Epson V700 with 35mm film (especially with dense negatives) but only (!!) if used with the optional film-holder FH-3 and carefully (manually) setting exposure and focus for every single frame. The Nikon can be focused on a small selected area of a single frame.

If you need to scan a complete 135-36 (as I do), it takes up to two hours (depending on the speed of your computer and memory) to get optimal results. I expose sometimes 30 rolls of film per month, mostly self-developed BW and don't have the time for carefully scanning every single frame.

In case I need very good scans of my negs (or slides), I prefer to go to small photo-shop nearby my university, where they use a Fuji Frontier SP2500 and manually tweak the settings.

On the other hand, the Epson V700 needs to be set up correctly (height adjustment of the film holder) and ANR (anti newton reflective) glass inserts (for example from betterscanning) are a must for 135 film. Under these conditions, the results I got with my Epson were good enough for up to A3 sized prints (135) or 60 x 60 cm (120).

To sum it up, if you have time and don't shoot to much films, the Nikon V ED is the better choice for 135 (with the FH-3 holder), the Epson nearly delivers the same results in 135 and very good results in 120.

Cheers,

maddoc

 

[maddoc]

maddoc,
I have had a similar problem with MF scanning on the Epson V700. Where did you buy your ANR inserts? What are they?
I was scanning my first 6x9 positive Velvia 50 photos last night taken on a Moskva 5 I just purchased. It looks promising but I just can't seem to get the film flat enough even after some flattening time in a large book.
Thanks,
Eric

Eric,

I bought my (135) inserts from betterscanning and got better results with 135 film. For 120 MF film (I only have 6x6 cameras), I use the standard Epson holders

Curly 120 film can be tricky to load into the holder. I usually cut the film in stripes of three frames, insert the stripe into the lower part of the holder (wearing gloves is important to avoid finger prints) and then carefully and slowly close the upper lid step by step until it it is fully latched.

Cheers,

maddoc