Epson V850 - banding in scans

[borge]

I recently purchased a new Epson Perfection V850 Pro.
For some reason, they are out of stock in all stores in Norway, and delivery of new units are not expect until June (!), which is like 1 1/2 month away. Also, the stores have not had stock for the last two weeks either, which makes me curious as to why. Are some of these units (the first batch which arrived late last fall - November/December) faulty/plagued with problems?

With my unit I'm experiencing very visible banding in the pictures that I scan, both B&W (Tri-X, HP5+) and color scans (Portra 400). The film is perfectly fine developed, and the HP5+ and Portra 400 negatives are dead flat, and thus perfect for scanning.

I've tried the latest version of Epson Scan and also Silverfast 8.5r3 Ai Studio (latest version), and except the minor color differences (due to the NegaFix profiles in Silverfast), the banding is apparent in both scans. I've performed all the scans at 6400dpi. No multi-pass/exposure. The glass is perfectly clean.

As you can see from the three examples below (click them for a bigger version), on the left and right top side of the image (the portion with the sky), you can very easily see visible banding/artifacts/streaks. These pictures was scanned in completely different batches, off different rolls of film/negatives, and the scanner bed and holders was cleaned inbetween the scans of these three images.

Is this normal?

The problem is of course the availability of these scanners. I might have to wait for up to two months for a replacement! :bang:

PS! I did increase the contrast somewhat on these three example files, to make the banding more visible in the low-resolution online files. The artifacts are much more visible when viewing the 6400dpi tiff files.

example1 by Børge Indergaard, on Flickr

example2 by Børge Indergaard, on Flickr

example3 by Børge Indergaard, on Flickr

 

[borge]

a common problem with the V700 too. From my research, I found that it is the space around the negative from the film holder design.

Could you please explain more in-depth? Is there a fix to this? This happens a lot, and it's really frustrating, and impossible to deal with in post (at least with my limited photoshop knowledge and amount of available time to fix these things).

 

[borge]

http://www.maurizioagelli.com/2010/08/epson-v700-banding-issue-and-how-to-fix.html

I use Photoshop to remove it. It won't bother me if it happens to one or two shots on a roll. But I start to loose my patience when I scan a bunch of film from a trip and I have to spend a significant amount of time removing it. This is something I thought they would have fixed with the V850, since it is a known problem with the V700. I also read it doesn't happen with E6 film. It is frustrating. I sometimes think of throwing it out and buying something else.

I wasn't aware of this. I finished scanning 5 B&W films (Tri-X and HP5+) and 5 Portra 400 films recently, and I can see it in many pictures, on all types of film. That might make me reconsider the purchase completely, cause I am also already waiting for a replacement unit, since the unit I received the first time was a used unit that had a few dust specks under the glass cover, and was very obviously used by someone else before... Maybe I'll just return the entire thing.

Sadly, AFAIK, there aren't many alternatives, as I need a 120 and 35 scanner... And the Plustek Opticfilm 120 seems to be plagued with a lot of issues, is slow, and is much more expensive...

Oh well. Something to consider, again.

 

[Kamph]

Hi Borge,

The Plustek 120 recently got a hardware update.

It's a fantastic scanner if you get one that works - mine has been a stellar performer right from the start, but maybe I was lucky.

What do you mean by it's slow? It's actually really fast. Don't belive the times listed at filmscanner.info, I have no idea how they measured those, but mine is much, much faster than that. A 6x7 scan at 5300 dpi takes just about 2-3 min.
Looking at the scans in their review, their scanner is obviously out of focus as well.

It is very expensive though..

 

[MaxElmar]

Dust or dirt inside the scanner on the light bar and/or line sensor?

Scanning is so painful. Essentially, you have to make the photo twice.

 

[Bille]

Here´s a full length article on scanner banding:
http://filmadvance.com/2011/10/how-to-eliminate-banding-from-your-scans/

Here´s an alternative setup:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2476827&postcount=188

 

[Ranchu]

Cripes. I have a V500, I have never seen this type of banding. I had to clean the back of the glass once to get rid of the thin bands. Maybe try scanning at lower resolutions?

 

[Ranchu]

Scanning is so painful. Essentially, you have to make the photo twice.

I like scanning and making photos, so twice is no problem!

 

[DNG]

Images are private....
Maybe the album is marked private, I did not these imaged in your photostream either