Better scanning with the Epson V700 (or any flat bed)

Jamie123 said:
If you look at the shadow from the hand on the glass (upper left corner) you can see that the glass surface is shiny and not dull as it would be an the ANR side. It just looks dull because of the even light.
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Saw that, but it still looks dull there as well. It could be the lighting that's making it look that way. Anyway, I think my question is better answered by the OP, who was actually there (or by anyone else who has the 35mm ANR glass). 🙂 Not a big deal. I'm more curious about whether it is dulled on both sides. I can check betterscanning.com.


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At the price my lab charges, I can have 117 rolls scanned for the same amount of money as a V700 and at a level of quality that effortlessly steamrolls anything I could ever afford for myself.

Sorry about the self-link, but I did a direct pixel-peeping comparison between the Epson V500:

http://nickwarzin.com/2010/07/film-scanner-comparisons-part-1/

Does anybody know how hard it really would've been to give these things manual focus adjustment? Adjusting plastic shims on a $700 scanner seems so bush-league to me.
 
RayPA said:
Saw that, but it still looks dull there as well. It could be the lighting that's making it look that way. Anyway, I think my question is better answered by the OP, who was actually there (or by anyone else who has the 35mm ANR glass). 🙂 Not a big deal. I'm more curious about whether it is dulled on both sides. I can check betterscanning.com.
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I have two ANR inserts for 120 film, one from betterscanning.com and one from Focal Point (which, AFAIK, is where Doug from Betterscanning gets the ANR glass), and none of them have two ANR sides. But, of course, we can let the OP state the obvious.
 
Paddy C said:
I can't disagree. But scanning is a lot of trouble no matter what IMO.

I would love to have the Nikon 9000 (and sort of think I should have splurged for it when I bought the V700), but I have a lot of trouble justifying the price for my needs.
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I got mine from a friend for about the same as a V750 cost at the time and, truth be told, I still had a hard time justifying the price as I was perfectly happy with the results from my Epson 4990. Of course, now that I have it, I love it.
 
Sorry for delay I have some problems getting connected to the www again ...

The ANR inserts are matte on one side and that side has to be in contact with the film to avoid moire. Itlooks only dull in the photo.

I also managed to buy a normal glass plate one-side frosted but haven't tested it yet ...

Buying a 9000ED is a very good idea, BTW !
 
Jamie123 said:
Now that I've visited the link I really feel that one apology is not nearly enough. That has got to be the most obnoxious website I've ever encountered and I strongly advise anyone who might be thinking about clicking the link not to do so.
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May I add this to my "about me" page? It's probably the most passionate "endorsement" I've ever received. Thank you!!
 
Jamie123 said:
That's an awful lot of trouble to go through for a simple scan, though. The good thing about scanning with a Nikon CS 9000 is that NikonScan (which is a decent program despite the naysayers) is that you can save files in the .NEF raw format. This means that you can then use Adobe Camera Raw to make a whole lot of adjustments like white balance, highlight recovery and even get rid of the scanner's color noise.

I know this doesn't help much if you have an Epson but the OP is thinking about getting a Nikon scanner.
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I recently had to buy Vuescan as my Epson 2400 and 2450, as well as the Nikon Coolscan IV ED I'm using no longer had drivers for the version of Mac OS X I've moved to. Getting off of the native Nikon software convinced me to start using the Coolscan IV ED, and I'm able to scan to a DNG file if I want. The downside being I then loose the digital ICE feature on the Coolscan. Still being able to scan to a DNG is pretty cool once you get it into Adobe Camera RAW!

All this has convinced me I need to save up and get a CS 9000 ASAP since I shoot 35mm and MF. Though at some point I'll need an Epson 700 or 750 for 4x5 and 8x10.
 
Jamie123 said:
I have two ANR inserts for 120 film, one from betterscanning.com and one from Focal Point (which, AFAIK, is where Doug from Betterscanning gets the ANR glass), and none of them have two ANR sides. But, of course, we can let the OP state the obvious.
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betterscanning.com states that it is etched on one side only.


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In the line of the original poster I would loose a word on Microtek F1 as this scanner is less know compared to Epson line.

1) The Microtek 35 and 120 film holders are well though out - once the film is placed in any original curl stops to play a role.

2) 35 mm film holder - works like a rail with two long plastic (semi elastic - one on each side) trips on sides under which the film strip is slipped under. These strips are glued, but the bond is not hard and the strips can be repositioned. On my scanner some of these strip were wrongly positioned what caused problems with film loading. I detached and reattached them (scared, of course) and now it all works fine. Bad point of the holder is if you are cutting your films into 6 frames per strip you will mostly miss around 3 - 4 mm of the last frame as the holder opening is tad too short.

3) 120 film holder. Some films (I find this with Ilford Delta 400) tend to curl in across the film - in other words the film has tendency to form a long "channel" what may make the loading complicated. However once you manage to close the holder - the locking movement (sliding movement of about 1 cm has a bit of stretching effect on the film making the film lying completely flat. Downside is because of the robustness of the holder Microtek did not manage to fit two 120 strips side by side so you can scan only one at a time.

4) with 4x5 film one needs to be a bit more careful, but if you support the middle of the sheet during closing the holder with the tip of your finger (in gloves) you will get the film completely flat.

5) scanning BW negs - I found that I get better scans - especially shadow detail if I scan the negs like positive color slides and invert them in post processing. The scanner gets detail out of places which looked completely clear on light table.

6) Scanning color slides. The F1 comes (at least in EU) with SilverFast Ai Studio together with IT8 calibration slide printed on Ektachrome. The calibration procedure is fast and works fine. So as long as you shoot Kodak films you are quite fine. HOWEVER once you try to scan Fuji Provia or Velvia - you will get a strong magenta cast to your scans - in particular in shadows what makes the scans bare usable as they require heavy post processing. At the same time you get overblown red areas and you are about to dump that damn machine. But WAIT. I have just figured out (to be confirmed in praxis soon) that it is indeed not a good idea to calibrate scanner with Kodak Ektachrome and scan Fuji films as they have very different color response. I have just ordered a calibration slide from Wolf Faust and in about a week should know the final answer. But just keep this in mind when scanning color slides.

7) Focus - the scanner uses autofocus on each frame to set the focus. You can not set the focus manually (at least not with SilverFast and Microtek Software), but you can set the position of the focus point within the frame (otherwise the middle is the default position). You may want to do this if the default focus position points at an area which
has no structure (completely clear sky) - then the scanner may fail to focus properly. You can turn the AF off, but your scans will be softer (at least in my case).

8) Exposure. It seems that the scanner uses the same exposure for any scans. I do not know, but you can not adjust the exposure manually. Neither SilverFast nor the Microtek software allow this (Silverfast offers automated procedure where two scans are made with different exposure, but it produces artifacts around strong highlights and the effect on shadows is not very pronounced). However Vuescan does offer this feature and so you can in principal scan the same frame 2 or 3 times and merge the results later in PS to get more shadow or highlight detail or to suppress some noise in shadows.

enough, I am tired writing 🙂

... at some point I must put together a full length review of this beast. Maybe around Christmas 😛
 
It should be obvious from reading all these posts that scanning 35mm film is a real pain because all the consumer grade scanners are less than optimum. I just don't get why people still scan 35mm film. It just doesn't make sense when a digital camera will produce a file of very obviously superior quality to 35mm film scanned on a consumer grade scanner.

p.s. this is not a digi VS film argument. It is a why digitise from film using crap equipment argument?
 
Tiltody, you have got a point. That is why I do NOT scan 35 mm films with the F1, but send them all to lab and get them scanned with Coolscan 5000 for price 0.20 to 0.50 € per frame. Yes - digital is very good resolution wise, but personally I just do not like the way the pictures look (highlights, color, noise, fine detail). Otherwise digital is more convenient and MUCH cheaper. My main film format is 120 anyway, followed by 4x5" and 35mm.
 
tlitody said:
It should be obvious from reading all these posts that scanning 35mm film is a real pain because all the consumer grade scanners are less than optimum. I just don't get why people still scan 35mm film. It just doesn't make sense when a digital camera will produce a file of very obviously superior quality to 35mm film scanned on a consumer grade scanner.

p.s. this is not a digi VS film argument. It is a why digitise from film using crap equipment argument?
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Because some of us like shooting film. I've gotten decent scans from my epson with no real compliant, If I want my B/W to have the best quality possible I'd wet print it.
The other reason is that not all of us who shoot rangefinders can pop for an M8 or M9, even used Epson Rd's are spendy when you break it down.
 
But a used Nikon 5000 or 9000 is cheap compared to some of the lenses and camera bodies people are paying for. Why then go and get a cheap scanner to ruin your neg quality with? It's ludicrous. You like the look a scanner, which is a digital device, gives your images? You might just as well use the noise filter in photoshop than pay for film, chemicals and scanner just because you like the digital noise a scanner puts into your images. And all of that after the huge amount of pontification that goes on about the quality of leitz lenses.
Stop the world I want to get off...
 
tiltody, it is perfectly OK that you prefer a different approach. You are wrong (or partially) with some of your points though. Never mind. And please let the wold go round. That is the way it was meant to be 🙂

Also please keep in mind that this thread was started as a collection of knowledge how to run flat bed scanners efficiently, so let just keep on topic.
 
I use the Nikon 5000 for 35mm with the whole-roll-at-a-time adapter on the back. Not sure if they are still available, but if your exposures are reasonably consistent, you can just set it running and go and have dinner. I also switched to Vuescan when I upgraded to Windows 7 and can strongly recommend it. I use 4x sampling and 48 bits. You can also save in "RAW-TIF" with Vuescan (64 bits) which allows you to play with the settings without rescanning. I tried it a few times but gave it up because it never seems to be necessary. Never had any issues with film curl, but I do lay it out flat for an hour or two before scanning. I understand the OP was using a flatbed because of the ancient, brittle and badly curled film he was scanning, which just would not go through a film scanner.
 
tlitody said:
But a used Nikon 5000 or 9000 is cheap compared to some of the lenses and camera bodies people are paying for. Why then go and get a cheap scanner to ruin your neg quality with? It's ludicrous. You like the look a scanner, which is a digital device, gives your images?
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I think you have a very distorted perspective. You can a very good 35mm scan from the V700 if the workflow is optimal. Not enough people are willing to go that little bit further though, perhaps its the digital age that makes them think everything should be instant. But scans from my V700 are barely any different compared to a scan from my Minolta Multi pro. As to film vs. digital, my non-film camera is a Leica M9, and I'm happy to present my V700 scans alongside the output from that without feeling the need to explain anything or apologise about quality.

Steve
 
Digital verses film and scanning wars aside there's an important point regarding the relevance of scanning here that certainly hasn't been lost on me over the last few days.

Being able to take a negative and turn it into a digital file is one of the most underrated benefits to become available to photographers ever IMO. The current negatives that I'm scanning are so degraded in many cases that wet printing them would be a nightmare and I don't care how good your darkroom skills are you're not going to be able to get the results that I can get by post processing a digital file and being able to restore ninety percent of it's original glory with the tools at my disposal via clever software.

And getting back to the original subject of my post ... the point I'm making is that if you can get your film to sit flat in the Epson's holders the glass inserts become entirely unneccesary as they offer absolutely no advantage!

On top of all this it's wet and miserable and cool here again today and I still have three rolls of this ancient curly film to scan yet ... so I'm happy! 😀
 
Keith said:
Digital verses film and scanning wars aside there's an important point regarding the relevance of scanning here that certainly hasn't been lost on me over the last few days.

Being able to take a negative and turn it into a digital file is one of the most underrated benefits to become available to photographers ever IMO. The current negatives that I'm scanning are so degraded in many cases that wet printing them would be a nightmare and I don't care how good your darkroom skills are you're not going to be able to get the results that I can get by post processing a digital file and being able to restore ninety percent of it's original glory with the tools at my disposal via clever software.

And getting back to the original subject of my post ... the point I'm making is that if you can get your film to sit flat in the Epson's holders the glass inserts become entirely unneccesary as they offer absolutely no advantage!

On top of all this it's wet and miserable and cool here again today and I still have three rolls of this ancient curly film to scan yet ... so I'm happy! 😀
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Yeah but you could have done a better job of it and much faster on an IQSmart3 instead of one of those toy scanners 😛
 
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