Film scanner question

stevenelawson

stevenelawson

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I'm looking for advice, I'm now devving my own films, 35mm and 120, and need a decent scanner that will work with Windows 10 64-bit OS. Can anyone recommend anything, ideally in the £200-300 range?
Thanks
 
stevenelawson said:
I'm looking for advice, I'm now devving my own films, 35mm and 120, and need a decent scanner that will work with Windows 10 64-bit OS. Can anyone recommend anything, ideally in the £200-300 range?
Thanks
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If you want one scanner for 135 and 120 then you're pretty much down the flatbed route only. Most people on here have Epsons; V500 etc for 135 and 120 only, higher numbers (V750 up?) for 4*5 as well. Given the current Chroma Kickstarter, it would be rude not to get a scanner that will do 4*5!
 
ChrisR said:
If you want one scanner for 135 and 120 then you're pretty much down the flatbed route only. Most people on here have Epsons; V500 etc for 135 and 120 only, higher numbers (V750 up?) for 4*5 as well. Given the current Chroma Kickstarter, it would be rude not to get a scanner that will do 4*5!
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Hi Chris, I agree a flatbed looks the best option and my budget says V5/600, but my head says compatibility problems with W10 64bit. I'm kinda stuck then, as a v800 is way out of my budget
 
stevenelawson said:
Hi Chris, I agree a flatbed looks the best option and my budget says V5/600, but my head says compatibility problems with W10 64bit. I'm kinda stuck then, as a v800 is way out of my budget
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Won't Vuescan sort this out for you?
 
stevenelawson said:
It might, but that means an extra £80 for the Vuescan licence and I'm not made of money
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I would be tempted to go for an older secondhand Epson flatbed like the V700 and get a copy of Vuescan, you get lifetime updates and I haven't heard of a scanner that it doesn't work with.

Or get the newer V550 for £180 from Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Epson-Perf...n-Technology/dp/B00ECBRW5E/ref=dp_ob_title_ce Vuescan for £80 and you're still under your £300 budget.
 
I've just bought a v550. Very impressed from early testing. Can save 48bit tiff files from it as well, which some other comparable models don't

I spent a good few hours looking at scanners around the same price, including the canoscan 9000f, and the v550 seemed to have the edge overall.

I use it on windows 10, and the supplied epson scanning software is very capable and does a good job, however I haven't tried vuescan yet so have nothing to compare it too
 
stevenelawson said:
Hi Chris, I agree a flatbed looks the best option and my budget says V5/600, but my head says compatibility problems with W10 64bit. I'm kinda stuck then, as a v800 is way out of my budget
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What compatibility issues? I'm running a v500 on w10 64bit and using the Epson software.

I also own view scan but it's more complicated than the epsom software and I haven't really found it helps with black and white scans, slides yeah but b&w not so much.
 
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steveo_mcg said:
What compatibility issues? I'm running a v500 on w10 64bit and using the Epson software.

I also own view scan but it's more complicated than the epsom software and I haven't really found it helps with black and white scans, slides yeah but b&w not so much.
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Agree....the way I look at things unless it's a hobby why spend money unless you have to...if Epson software doesn't do what you want then try something else, but AFAIK no one here has shown the difference of results between all these scanning software esp when you can tweak in Photoshop or similar.
 
steveo_mcg said:
What compatibility issues? I'm running a v500 on w10 64bit and using the Epson software.

I also own view scan but it's more complicated than the epsom software and I haven't really found it helps with black and white scans, slides yeah but b&w not so much.
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thats good to know. i was wary as I bought a Plustek neg scanner which works, just, on my wife's ancient 32bit w10 laptop but not my newer 64bit w10 machine. youve put my mind at rest, so thanks
 
stevenelawson said:
thats good to know. i was wary as I bought a Plustek neg scanner which works, just, on my wife's ancient 32bit w10 laptop but not my newer 64bit w10 machine. youve put my mind at rest, so thanks
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Which Plustek was that, Steve? And which software were you using? If it was a 7000 series it probably came with Silverfast 6 (as mine did), which might not work with today's 64-bit machines. I was forced to abandon SF6 for that reason, although I was happy to abandon it on the basis of being a terrible UI, even if powerful. Vuescan Pro drives my Plustek 7500i on a 64-bit Mac with current OS quite happily.
 
ChrisR said:
Which Plustek was that, Steve? And which software were you using? If it was a 7000 series it probably came with Silverfast 6 (as mine did), which might not work with today's 64-bit machines. I was forced to abandon SF6 for that reason, although I was happy to abandon it on the basis of being a terrible UI, even if powerful. Vuescan Pro drives my Plustek 7500i on a 64-bit Mac with current OS quite happily.
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It was a 7200i, which is turning out to have been a false economy. my w10 machine doesnt 'see' the scanner at all, even with vuescan on a trial download
 
That is weird. I'm sure there's someone on here who reported using a Plustek on a 64-bit Win10...
 
stevenelawson said:
It was a 7200i, which is turning out to have been a false economy. my w10 machine doesnt 'see' the scanner at all, even with vuescan on a trial download
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Hope I'm not stating the obvious here Steven, but you have to switch the scanner on before you launch Vuescan or else it won't see it?
 
the 7200i plustek is kind of a moot point, i was looking at flatbeds because they can also scan 120 medium format negs
 
I have a V500 same as above.
 
The Epson scanners are the only affordable option for MF these days. Plustek do make a MF scanner but it's expensive compared to an Epson, and the older Nikon and Minolta multi format scanners go for a packet.
As I use everything up to large format I went for the V800 and managed to get a used one off eBay for a good price. I have Vuescan but am probably unique in preferring Silverfast. The latest version is very feature rich, and the UI is not too bad and has been improved over earlier versions.

In terms of scanning I've found that 3200ppi for 35mm and 1800ppi for MF is more than enough. With the Epson scanners you may have to play about with adjusting the holders to get optimum focus as the scanners are fixed focus. Saying that, they appear to handle slightly bowed negs without much hassle.
 
I think the V800 may have an adjustable negative carrier (?) but the V600 certainly doesn't. It's got rather plasticy and fiddly carriers without any form of height adjustment at all, but having said that they usually seem to work OK. I did look into a third party negative holder for it but decided for the price I'd pay for that I'd probably be better putting the money towards a dedicated 35mm scanner such as the Plustek instead. As I mentioned before, 3200 DPI seems best in terms of capturing detail from 35mm film on my V600 and I use that as my default setting for all film scans on it now.
 
The V800 are adjustable but I also bought a set of V700 holders as the V800 holders all have a plastic insert which is supposed to be an anti newton insert and help with film flatness. Problem is that they are also major dust magnets. For colour film it's not such a big issue as the dust removal works fairly well. For B&W I prefer the V700 holders without the inserts, as the IR dust removal won't work.
As you say, there are a couple of third party options, but I agree with you that for 35mm a dedicated scanner is the best option. What is doesn't give you is the ability to batch scan up to 24 35mm negs using something like the V700 holders.
 
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LancsLee said:
What is doesn't give you is the ability to batch scan up to 24 35mm negs using something like the V700 holders.
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I'd thought of that, and if and when I bite the bullet and get a 35mm scanner then I'll use the two strip (12 shot) facility on the Epson flatbed scanner as a starting point and save the 35mm film scanner for the chosen few... or more usually in my case, the chosen one! :facepalm:
 
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Ste_S said:
I'm looking to buy a scanner and i'm more or less sold on the V550/Vuescan route for scanning 35mm and 120.
I have heard that the neg holders are a bit rubbish, is it worth also investing some additional holders ? If so, which ones ? Thanks,
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Hi - I still use the Epson ones to be honest. The only thing I have changed recently is that I purchased some scanning glass from Scantech in america to hold the negs truly flat.
 
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