Digitising film.

[soupdragon]

I'm sure this has been done to death but........

I bought an Epson V850 scanner for film digitisation.

Whilst I'm generally pleased with the results, I'd like to hear from anyone else with the 800/850 with reference getting the best out of it.
It's fine with medium format chromes and competes well with my digital cams.
I'm not so enthralled about 35mm though.

My thanks in advance for divulging your ineffable wisdom.

 

[Mr Badger]

Have a read through the post (post #33) I made on here: https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/35mm-print-sizes.648444/ where I compared 35mm scans at different DPI resolutions using my Epson scanner, see what you think and maybe try a couple of sample scans at different resolutions and see which DPI result you prefer, and if it makes any difference to the results you've been getting so far?

 

[soupdragon]

Have a read through the post (post #33) I made on here: https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/35mm-print-sizes.648444/ where I compared 35mm scans at different DPI resolutions using my Epson scanner, see what you think and maybe try a couple of sample scans at different resolutions and see which DPI result you prefer, and if it makes any difference to the results you've been getting so far?

I read the thread and a lot of the comments ring true.
There are differences with the V850 and other scanners in as much as it has height adjustable film holders and two software options. One being the epson scan version and the other being Silverfast.

I did play with film height settings but could see little difference perhaps with the exception of the extremes.
The silverfast software has more image control options but fundamentally the only unique one is the multi exposure mode.

 

[ChrisR]

I read the thread and a lot of the comments ring true.
There are differences with the V850 and other scanners in as much as it has height adjustable film holders and two software options. One being the epson scan version and the other being Silverfast.

I did play with film height settings but could see little difference perhaps with the exception of the extremes.
The silverfast software has more image control options but fundamentally the only unique one is the multi exposure mode.

Silverfast is powerful but bizarre software (a little less bizarres in the V8 variants compared with v6). I shifted from Silverfast to Vuescan Pro when the v6 stopped working on my Mac (an upgrade where Apple threw away some backwards compatibility). Multi-exposure can help dig out detail from dark areas of slides, or dark areas from negatives (ie highlights).

It's worth having a read of this detailed review; it's of the V800 rather than V850 but I think the hardware is pretty much the same.

 

[soupdragon]

Silverfast is powerful but bizarre software (a little less bizarres in the V8 variants compared with v6). I shifted from Silverfast to Vuescan Pro when the v6 stopped working on my Mac (an upgrade where Apple threw away some backwards compatibility). Multi-exposure can help dig out detail from dark areas of slides, or dark areas from negatives (ie highlights).

It's worth having a read of this detailed review; it's of the V800 rather than V850 but I think the hardware is pretty much the same.

Vuescan pro? I'll have to look into that.

 

[ChrisR]

Vuescan pro? I'll have to look into that.

An advantage of Vuescan Pro over Silverfast is that VP will cover all the scanners you own (including all-in-one printer scanners, for instance) and gets free updates. It also has an idiosyncratic interface, but there is a bit more VP expertise on here than Silverfast, I think.