I hate my V500 ;)

Sharpening is the key.

V500 at 4800dpi, 6x7 neg (usually I use 2400dpi for 120 and 4800dpi for 135).

janbie1.jpg


img0073zxu.jpg
 
Hi, i have a v500 for three years at least...first i thought it wasn´t that good, but after scanning with expensive nikon scanners i can say there´s no much difference...
I noted that using low iso films (finer grain) and steady camera shots improve results.
Also the output using 120 film is great...but i don´t shoot that kind of film often.

The example by jbielikowski is superb...

...anyway im happy with it and i don´t use sharpening...
I dont like to use tri-x because it´s always curved in the center and is very difficult to flatten...but xp2 is just awesome...

Bye!
 
So much anger! Anyway, the V500 is pretty darn good for the money. I use it to scan 135 panoramic and 120. I use the (frankly quite horrible) negative carriers and the (pretty good actually) original Epson software. I put unsharp mask to 'Low' and ICE to 'on' and in extreme cases adjust the black, grey and white points. Look at the scan below. See the text on the bottom of the license plate? Download the full res 2400dpi original and find out you can actually (just about) read it. Sure, at pixel level the scans look a bit coarse, but 50x50cm prints from 6x6 scans look quite, quite fabulous.


Germany 2012: Volkswagen Museum by Ronald_H, on Flickr
 
Like other people, I have good results from the V500. I have to fiddle a lot with the exposure settings in Epson Scan to get the right tonality and to stop it clipping the shadows or highlights, but the basic sharpness [once sharpening is applied] is fine.

I borrowed a Coolscan 5000 from work and scanned the same negatives with the Nikon and with the Epson, to compare them. The Nikon was definitely sharper, but not by as much as I was expecting. At web resolution, or small [7"x5", say] print size from 35mm negatives, I could see no appreciable difference.

It is true, however, that it's hard to get good results from film that isn't completely flat, because the negative holders are terrible.
 
One more time.............with one possible change: Set the output range to 0-248, instead of 0-255. This will avoid blown highlights. something Ken Lee probably doesn't have to worry about since his negatives are perfect. Good luck.

Ken Lee's Scanning Tutorial

Once upon a time, not too laong ago, I was always in a rush to get my negatives on the scanner as soon as they were dry. "Oh but no!" My negatives were plagued with curl. 120 Efke 25 was the worst. I couldn't even get the negatives to lie flat enough to close the holder lid. Meanwhile, I was working my way through negatives from the late 60s & early 70s without a problem. Then the lightbulb went on. I now place my fresh film in negative sleeves and weight them down with 2-3 books by Ansel Adams. Hoping that a pinch of Mr. Adams' wisdom will somehow seep into my negatives. After a week or 3, the negatives are much flatter.

Good luck. Scanning is an acquired art. Practice. Practice. Practice.

Wayne
 
I have a V500 which I quite like. I've posted this elsewhere, but it's worth reposting here. This method works for me every time, and I get very satisfactory scans for 35mm at 2400dpi. I do a little bit of sharpening after the fact, but nothing crazy. I also scan medium format at 2000dpi to keep the file sizes reasonable.

"Here's my ultra cheapo solution, which I also do for 6x6 and 35mm.

1. Take a piece of thick card stock paper
2. Lay your film on a light box with the card stock over it
3. Sketch out a rectangle/square slightly larger then the film frame
4. Cut out the part you've sketched with a box cutter/scissors/razor blade
5. Cut out a larger section around your hole so you have a little white frame
6. Repeat with a second piece of card stock
7. Tape them together on the longest side of the frame (the 7cm side of a 6x7 frame or the 36mm side of a 35mm frame. Either side works for 6x6). Leave the shorter side un-taped so you can slide a strip of film through it.

Now you have a little makeshift sleeve/slide holder kind of thing to place your film in.

8. Get a piece of glass. It doesn't have to be anti-newton. The piece I use is nothing fancy.
9. Place the film strip in the sleeve with the frame you are scanning showing.
10. Place the film/sleeve combo directly on the glass of the scanner.
11. Place the additional piece of glass directly on top of the film/sleeve combo, pressing lightly but firmly to flatten it a little.
12. Close the lid and scan!

The paper sleeve prevents any of the glass surfaces from touching the film, so you don't have to worry about Newton's rings and don't need to get a piece of expensive glass. The weight of the scanner lid and the top piece of glass keeps the film totally flat. The downside is you can only scan one frame at a time easily, although I suppose you could make a more elaborate paper film holder.

I should say that I only have a V500 and not the 700, but after much trial and error, this is the most effective method I've found, and it can be done for just a few dollars. I scan all my film this way."
 
Very Interesting.....

Very Interesting.....

Dave Jenkins said:
Kirk Tuck, a successful commercial photographer in Austin, TX, makes large scans on a V500 that satisfy both his clients and his own high standards. Here's a link to his technique. http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2012/06/window-light-in-early-evening.html
Click to expand...

There is a very interesting point to be taken out of this Kirk Tuck blog article... READ THIS'

The slide above was taken in mixed light. It's a Kodachrome 64 slide. How difficult and time consuming is it to make an image like the one above? Let's see. I put the slide holder on the glass surface of the scanner. There's guide indention on the scanner body that matches up with the holder. Very straightforward. The slide holder has four squares in which to drop your slide, still in slide mount.

Kirk is using the mounted slides and the mounted slides holders. I'm going to assume here that most of the discussion in this thread, posters are using 35mm film strips. In addition, those using 120 are most likely NOT using mounted slides.

Now that I think about it, I bought my first V500 to convert an inventory of mounted slides. I was quite satisfied with the results. After finishing the job, I sold the V500.

Later, I bought another V500, which by then I was scanning unmounted 35mm. I was also scanning 120. I became frustrated with the process and sold the scanner.

I did use both scanners long enough to determine two things.

I tried other software, like Vuescan, and ended up using the Epson software. I concluded that none of the software for scanners offers good post processing as a function of the scan. If I used it and then post processed in "Proper" post processing software, the scanner software seemed to have created limitations in further ability to edit images. So I used the Epson Scan software with all functions OFF. I now think the mounted slides may have offered an advantage in dealing with the film flatness issue. If this is the case,

So, I did determine for my own use, that simply getting the scan done to the best flatness and focus was the ONLY thing I needed to accomplish at the scan level.

Last, I determined that it was best to proceed to final output, as in printing, to make judgements about the quality of the scan. Those images that were mounted and scanned, actually turned out some very high quality prints.

The one thing that becomes clear over time is that the final output quality is the key. Digital is a technology that seems overly complex, and is interesting sometimes that when you get to the final destination, it all works out.

Well, in many cases.

However, my final determination is that there is not enough time in my life to spend scanning film to digital. I will find the best digital scanning people, balanced with reasonable prices and pay to have it done. The biggest task there is to "be real" about what negs or transparencies I actually want in a digital format.

In the meantime, It's a lot easier for me to archive for longevity with film. I do not trust that digital files will be there for me, or possibly locatable in as little as a decade. After all, I have been consulting on computer networks and machines and software for 25 years. I know first hand the frailty of digital files and the risk of loss through media evolutions and unreliable media systems.

Based on how many of my negs, transparencies, and prints I have kept safe for the last 30 years, I trust that those will survive another 20. I do not believe the digital files I have now that I have accumulated in the last 5-7 years will still be available to me in another 20 years, if I am around to need them.

Do any of you know people who have digital files that were stored on the media/machines available 15 years ago? Do they currently still have the machinery to read the media or those files? Will they still have access to those files in another 10-20 years, and how many times will they need to migrate those files to maintain access? What percentage of those files will be corrupted or degraded by signal noise during each migration?

Paper and film archived properly.... stands a better chance of survival than digital. So, stepping away from the question of Image Quality... which is better, film or digital.......?

My final choice... dump scanning myself, find a real expert, pay them to scan just the images you feel are worth it.
 
charjohncarter said:
You are doing something wrong; mine for 6x6 is almost as good as my friends V700. Maybe just as good. I did buy betterscannings 120 holder and glass and this brought it up to the V700 quality. Take some of the recommendations here and you will have a good if not excellent 6x6 scanner.
Click to expand...

That. I have the 4490 which is the V500 predecessor and my scans improved a lot with the adjustable betterscanning holders.

I did a testscan of a sharp negative and then turned the adjustment screws in small increments, rescanned and compared the 100% crops.
After about half a turn the quality was much better than with the default height.
 
Qow, so many answers. 🙂 I hope i didn't step on anyones toes with the first post I made. If I did I apologize, I was just very frustrated.

Anyway, I have just spent a good amount of time doing 26 different scans of the same thing which I will now explain here. It's going to be a fairly long post I would imagine

First of all, the scan is made from Ilford Delta 400 film. The film strip is more or less flat, but not as flat as it would be squeezed between two pieces of glass. But I doubt it can get any flatter in the stock holder.

Also, I have included dust and specks in the scans for the very reason that my focus on the subject might very well be off slightly. Anyway the dust and grain is the closest we have to an absolute value here as it's what we're in fact scanning. So I've based my conclusions mainly on looking at the dust and grain when comparing scans.

I used Epson Scan, and I turned everything off, so this is without any sharpening at all, no exposure adjustments, no post processing etc.

What I did first of all was put the film in the stock holder as advised by Epson - emulsion up. This created a very slight bend towards the glass of the scanner. And I mean very slight.

After that I did a partial scan of a frame, first at 600dpi, then at 800, 1200, 1600, 2000, 2400, 3200 and 4000dpi. The reason I did that was to try to get a grasp on how high I could go before it started to look like sharpness was breaking up and no more detail would appear.

Based on those scans I concluded that to my eye, out of the scans I did, it became better and better up until 1600dpi, then it started to turn to **** again. However, at 2000, 2400 and 3200 I noticed something I hadn't noticed before:

The below scan is a 100% view of both the 1600dpi and the 2400dpi scan in Aperture. If you look closely you can see how the edge of the leaves look pixelated. Kind of like a bad interpolation from 1600 -> 2400dpi. (2400dpi on top, 1600dpi bottom)
holder_elmulsion_up_1600vs2400dpi.png


To me though, it became more interesting as I moved on to 3200dpi. At this stage, the pixelation is gone, and the edge looks smooth again. It doesn't have more detail, but it's smoother. In a way, it kind of makes sense to me, because 1600 * 2 == 3200 so it would be easier to do a software interpolation from 1600 -> 3200dpi. This leads me to further believe that the actual resolution of the scanner is somewhere around those 1600dpi, maybe even less. (3200dpi on top, 2400dpi bottom)
holder_emulsion_up_2400vs3200dpi.png


So at this stage I had concluded that the scans looks best to my eye at 1600dpi. I'm sure several people does not agree with me here, but that is what it looks like to me, so based on that I continued testing. I did the same tests going from 800 to 4000 dpi with the emulsion down, making the film bend ever so slightly away from the scanner glass. Amongst that set of scans I still saw the 1600dpi scan to be the best, but they we're all SLIGHTLY worse looking than the emulsion up scans (we're talking so slight difference here that it might be psychological). (emulsion down on top, emulsion up bottom):
holder_emulsion_up_vs_down_1600dpi.png


This then led me to believe that I might get better results closer to the scanner glass than the stock holder would allow the film to sit. So I took the film strip out of the holder, put it directly on the glass and put the holder on top of it instead to try to get some sort of push towards the glass (even that the stock holder didn't seem to work for 😉). I had the emulsion towards the glass, so I got a very slight bend upwards.

Then I turned it over and got a slight bend towards the glass, of curse the film was touching the glass now. Here's a comparison between holder with emulsion up vs directly on glass with emulsion up - the difference, if any, is very small. I still favor the scan directly off the glass though: (glass in top, holder in bottom)
holder_vs_glass_emulsion_up_1600dpi.png


So, so far my conclusion is that I get better results directly on the glass and that the scanner only interpolates anything above 1600dpi. This might not be news to some. However, I still think the quality of the scans are lacking. Maybe I am expecting to much.

But let's play with the following thought:

Lets say the scanner does in fact only produce usable data up to 1600dpi.
Then lets say that 1600dpi is about 63dots/mm (a little less actually).
Then lets say a film frame is 36x24mm.
So at 1600dpi I'd get about 2248x1512 pixels
That is about 3,42mp worth of data.

So my Leica M6 with a Carl Zeiss C Biogon 35/2.8 in fact acts as a 3,42mp digital camera. Yay! That is in fact ridiculous.

I will do a test where I will take my 5Dmkii and my L macro lens and just take a digital shot of the negative. Right now I'm pretty confident it will come out a lot better. But who knows. 🙂

All of my scans are available here as a zip if anyone cares to sift through them all:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/436484/v500/scans.zip
 
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Another thought after reading the article from Kirk Tuck..

"If you are unable to get a good scan on an Epson V500 or V700 I believe you might be over-thinking the process." <- That sounds like me. 😉 The solution for me might be to just enable the unsharp mask in epsons can again and be done with it instead of thinking I can do it better myself in post (i probably can't anyway).

Also, he mentions the native resoluion is 4800dpi. That doesn't really sound right to be honest, however, because I found 1600dpi to be best, it could very well be that 1200dpi is actually better and that 4800 is ok because it's a power of two calculation of 1200dpi..

Just some stray thoughts.. 🙂
 
kennylovrin said:
Also, he mentions the native resoluion is 4800dpi. That doesn't really sound right to be honest, however, because I found 1600dpi to be best, it could very well be that 1200dpi is actually better and that 4800 is ok because it's a power of two calculation of 1200dpi.
Click to expand...

I did some real tests of resolving power with the USAF test slide, and wrote it up on another site.

First, the 4800 ppi figure for the V500 is some theoretical fiction.

Second, the real resolving power of the scanner is between 1300 and 2000 ppi or 25-40 lp/mm. A good negative from good gear shot with care can have more detail in 35mm or medium format.

Third, the scanner is better at resolving lines which run parallel to the scan track (i.e. along the bed, 40 lp/mm, 2000 ppi) than for lines across the scan track (25 lp/mm, 1270 ppi). Others in that same thread posted test that confirm this.

See the test image in the posting linked above. Notice in the lower left corner that the horizontal lines are completely indistinguishable but the vertical lines are still fully resolved.

00UC70-164429584.jpg


Finally, my recipe is to scan at something more than the known resolving power. In my example, I used 3200 ppi.

Again, I'm happy with prints at 6x the linear dimension of the film. I understand that a V750 will be better.

Hope this is helpful.
 
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