Epson v500,600,700 flatbeds ease of use

[froyd]

Epson flatbed owners, how easy do you find working with these scanners? On the 700, it seems that after fidgeting with the holder (or buying better ones) a whole roll of 35mm could be scanned without supervision while I take care of other things. I would not care if the process were not Pakon-fast, as long as I could walk away and leave the scanner to do its thing while I did mine.

Is my vision too rosy, or is it close to reality?

After the scans are complete, how much fussing is required to get accurate color with popular emulsions c41 e.g. Portra, Gold, Superia? The Pakon seems to do pretty well on its own, especially with older formulas, like Gold for which it has profiles. How well do the Epson flatbeds fare in this area?

 

[Lauffray]

I wouldn't compare anything to the Pakon, it seems to do just about everything better.

However, I have a v500 and I usually leave the scanner to work and go do other stuff. I've scanned Portra and Ektar and most of the time the colours are accurate, not 100% of the time but not often enough that it's an issue. I just finished scanning 20 rolls of Portra and I only had to rescan a frame or two. I remember having more trouble with slide film but I haven't done that in a long time.

I will tell you though that if you do a lot of TriX you won't like using the v500. In my experience the holders are so light that even a mildly curled TriX (and man do they curl) is enough to lift them and make a mess.

Hope that helps

 

[Ranchu]

The main thing is to get your film flat by putting it in heavy books soonish after it's developed, by dry. This works for me, but I'm shooting C-41 not Tri X. I find it easy other than that. The colors are clean, but the tint of your lenses will remain, if any. Occasionally my v500 will give a very slight green tint, I'm not sure why. Rescanning will fix it.

 

[KevinVH]

Well, if you leave the quality at normal, it takes about 15 min for 6 frames, so a roll takes a little more then an hour. This allows me to print decent 10x15 or 4"x6". It's not like you can scan the entire roll without doing anything, but for the price I'm not complaining.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

My V500 is no brainer to scan. Very easy.
I stopped using 40+ rolls and 24 frames are fast to scan because it is only have resolution of 1600 max. I tweak first frames in LR while it still scans.

I can't get correct colors with 135 on this thing. Color scans are very noisy even at 48-bit color.
But MF in color is just fine. I did Ektar 100 film from C33 recently and was pleased with skin color. One of the first times it is as good as real.

 

[Colin Corneau]

,,,

I will tell you though that if you do a lot of TriX you won't like using the v500. In my experience the holders are so light that even a mildly curled TriX (and man do they curl) is enough to lift them and make a mess.

Hope that helps

This is my experience with the v700, too. I'm really happy with mine -- my main observation is that it seems to handle larger negatives better overall. With 35mm any curl will decrease the sharpness. I shoot a fair bit of Tri-X and yes, it really does curl a LOT...it's one of the main reasons I'm switching to TMax 400 but that's another story.

I'm currently planning to get a Better Scanning glass holder to keep the neg flat..I've noticed that when the neg is perfectly flat the scans are quite good.

 

[froyd]

Thanks for the input, folks.

The Pakon is tempting because of the speed and color accuracy, but the 35mm limitation would force me to look into a flatbed for the 6x6 negs, so a v600-700 might solve the hassle and real estate demands of running two scanners, one for each format I shoot.

The fear was that the process with an Epson would be much more complex in order to get a decent straight scan with accurate colors. The holder issue does not put me off too much, considering options are available.

 

[Ranchu]

Here are some flat settings...http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94126