New Epson V500 scanner sample JPG

L

Les Hall

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I have been wanting to get one of these since they came out about two months ago. BestBuy have them on sale for $200 so it's a total steal right now.

I did a quick scan of a 35mm color neg and was blown away by the result. The film was cheap Costco Fuji 400 ASA. I shot it with a Contax G1, 45mm wide open. Minimal post processing. mostly cleaning up dust specs. I can't remember what the resolution was that I used, all I know is that it wasn't the highest. The photoshop file is about 20mb. This jpeg is only 1.3mb

I got the scanner to mostly handle 120 film and can't wait to give it a try.

Fast too - I think this scan took about 2 mins.

http://www.leshall.com/v500.jpg

I scanned a $10 bill as well at high res to see how much detail it captured and it was amazing - you could read all the tiny micro printing and see the threads in the paper. I knew there was some clever Federally mandated trickery if you scanned money and sure enough a dialog came up saying that I was scanning currency and that I could open it but would not be able to print it.

Thanks Les
 
Les Hall said:
I I can't remember what the resolution was that I used, all I know is that it wasn't the highest. The photoshop file is about 20mb. This jpeg is only 1.3mb

I got the scanner to mostly handle 120 film and can't wait to give it a try.

Fast too - I think this scan took about 2 mins.

http://www.leshall.com/v500.jpg

Thanks Les
Click to expand...
This test suggests that the V500 might be able to achieve at least the same resolution as the V700. The CCD and lens system seems to be different from the V700 and V750, so theoretically the resolution might be even better. The DMax is lower though, only 3.4 according to specs.

Now it would be interesting to see a scan from a slide with a high dynamic range, so we could see how much worse the DMax is in practice. Nevertheless, the V500 seems to be excellent for the price and if you're looking for a scanner with less than $250 budget you can probably forget about the Canoscan 8800f and the older Epson 4490.
 
One other thing that is different (I believe) from the V700 is that you can only scan two strips of 35mm or one strip of 120 film.

I haven't shot slide film in 10 years so will have to go into the vault and see what I can find.

I'm a recent returner to analog.........

Cheers, Les
 
I scanned a $10 bill as well at high res to see how much detail it captured and it was amazing - you could read all the tiny micro printing and see the threads in the paper. I knew there was some clever Federally mandated trickery if you scanned money and sure enough a dialog came up saying that I was scanning currency and that I could open it but would not be able to print it.

Thanks Les[/QUOTE]Don't worry, someone will figure out a workaround.:cool:
Kurt M.
 
Thanks a lot for the mini-review and the sample Les. It looks very good to me! I am looking forward to more samples if you can.

Now I wander if I should have purchased my Coolscan V... :(
 
ocean7 said:
Now I wander if I should have purchased my Coolscan V... :(
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As far as I know, no flatbed can do 35mm better a good dedicated film scanner, not even the V750. And you Coolscan V is one heck of a film scanner.

I'm looking for the flatbed to scan medium format negatives/slides.

What amazes me from the sample is, it shows a very good control on highlights, better than I thought it would be with a dmax of 3.4

The V500 also uses the cold LED light source compared to the older 4490 or 4990.

Thanks for sharing the test, Les.
 
Thanks for sharing this. I have ordered one in so the test was timely. I need it for scanning med format. My wife has a box full of med format negs from her deceased dad with no prints so this should do the trick.

Bob
 
Here's a 6x7 scanned at 2400 and then down res'd in CS3. If I'd known how big it would have been I would have scanned at 1200 dpi

NO leveling or color balance done in CS3 apart from some dust touch-up & teeny amount of sharpening - this is straight from the scanner! I think the d-max or whatever it is that people might be worried about seems to be a non-issue.

I would feel very comfortable handing this in to a client.

This was shot about 18 yrs ago for Stanley Korshak in Dallas. Mamiya RZ. probably with the 150mm (???) and Fujichrome 100 (RPD???) All so long ago!

http://www.leshall.com/v500_RZ.jpg

Any other requests I will try and oblige.

Les
 
Here's a B&W image I shrunk it down to the size I would typically use on the web. What is weird is that I originally scanned it as a B&W neg at 1200 DPI save as 16-bit greyscale. No processing on it at scan time other than a teeny unsharp mask. They all came out blocky - very strange like all the blacks became blobs!! Not good at all. To get this I had to tell the scanner that it was color neg but saved it in greyscale space....

Extra points for those who know who this model is - shot circa 1990. God! Korshak was a dream client - they would send a bunch of stuff to the studio and say "Have fun - make something creative". Some of the stuff I shot then still looks cool - IMHO. Of course the fashion in this is dated.

http://www.leshall.com/bw.jpg

Les
 
Did you have digital ICE on when you scanned the B&W image - it does not work with B&W - all you get is a high contrast image.
 
WOW! that MF scan is amazing.. and that's not even at the max. dpi, right?

just jumped on the MF bandwagon and been thinking about the V750 or so for scanning 6x6- but these examples are really cool & might be a money-saving quality example.

thanks so much for sharing this! .. and for the dmax issue, I think it would be interesting to see a landscape scanned with this, with a really bright sky and dark shadows- how much detail would be in there, I wonder?

max
 
I have the v700 and the betterscanning.com carrier and i don't think my carrier is focused above the scanner properly. Does anyone have a technique to do this? I'm not trying to sidetrack this thread but i was really impressed with the results of the scans. BTW in the first 35mm scan the blacks around the side of the head look blocked up.
 
RF-Addict. It won't let you turn on Digital Ice when you scan B&W and when I scanned it in 'color' I didn't have it on either.

Noci - I'll see if there are any landscapes in the vaults. As far as I can tell from eyeballing the chrome on a 'calibrated" light box next to the monitor it looks pretty good. And no that wasn't max resolution.

Maybe the blocking in the 35mm is maybe JPEG artifacts? Nah looking at it again it looks like the scanner just running out of steam. Remember though, this is a huge enlargement of 35mm from a $200 flatbed scanner, the advances in technology is amazing.

Les
 
thanks, Les!
.. and yep, I think the black drowned.. perhaps messing around with the software or using vuescan might improve things.
anyways, there is a lot of divided opinion on flatbeds, but I think for the price its performance is outstanding.
 
Interesting samples Les. Looks good, especially for the MF pic, but then it is at 1600 dpi only. The 35mm scan looks compressed. If you can, it would be very interesting to see a 35mm scan at 3200 dpi, no sharpening and saved as JPEG maximum level quality (level 12).
 
For a 200 dollar scanner that is quite good! I might haev to purchase one of these for scanning film since it is so cheap.
 
Thanks a lot for the samples Les. The MF looks very very good, and the 35mm isn't bad either! That V500 looks like a great scanner for the price.

I am wandering if you intend to get Doug Fisher's holder and if so if you would mind posting your thoughts about how it improves your scans.

Cheers!
 
Hi Ocean7

I contacted Doug and he does have a holder that works but it's kind of spendy - $80. I might do some tests with various thicknesses of card to see if it is really an issue. Right now I'm not sure that it would make that much difference.

I really bought the scanner so that I could scan medium format film for web and small prints (under 8x10) - so I'm very happy with the results.

Les
 
I have this scanner

I have this scanner

and bought it for MF as well, for web posting. I'm not sure if I'll print from the scans. I like it; it's light years ahead of what I was using :)
Anyhow, when you say you'll use thicknesses of card, could you explain what that means. I'm assuming to make a holder.
any help would be appreciated,
Mary in Florida

Les Hall said:
Hi Ocean7

I contacted Doug and he does have a holder that works but it's kind of spendy - $80. I might do some tests with various thicknesses of card to see if it is really an issue. Right now I'm not sure that it would make that much difference.

I really bought the scanner so that I could scan medium format film for web and small prints (under 8x10) - so I'm very happy with the results.

Les
Click to expand...
 
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