Is anyone using an Epson V500 scanner?

The V500 has now been available for several months but I have yet to come across a serious review of it.

So I was wondering if anyone here uses one and if so what is your opinion of it?

No idea about the V500. I have the V700. It depends what your expectations are. For me it would be a flatbed or a Nikon scanner assuming that you want to scan film.

 

 

For 35mm. I find that A4 sized prints I am satisfied. Prob the only feasible way for large format film thou. Yeah .. I keep reading how one compares the Epsons with the Nikons, if its cheap I may get the Epson or if you like me you may still pay $400-400 for a V700 if you want to use large format cos that's the only way. I'm not sure how much to believe the images off the web cos they are small JPEGs and because each scanner is diff, you may need diff tweaking for the Nikon and for the Epson and then compared to each other ... like you do with diff digital cameras. I don't scan at top reso, I just scan at 3000 or 4000. Personally if it was 35mm all I was doing, I just get a Nikon, if for medium format I get a used Nikon 8000 not the 9000 so its half price on eBay.

 

Yeah what I can say for the V700 scanning at modest reso, I am happy with A4 prints. Some may only be satisfied with 5x7 size.

I am using a V500 and I am pretty happy with it. I have never done a scan with it at maximum resolution as that would probably take hours (it is a bit slow) but my computer has trouble and almost locks up even working with scans at 4800dpi.

 

All this doesn't really matter though because I have found 1200dpi to be far more than I need for most purposes I have had for it so far. At 1200dpi you can make out a hell of a lot of detail, at 4800dpi you can clearly make out the grain structure of Tri-X 400.

 

I have attached a full rez crop of this shot http://www.photo.net/photo/6840843 scanned at 1200dpi. Not my best shot but I think it gives you some idea of the detail you get from this scanner at 1200dpi. (It may have suffered just a little when I resaved it)<div></div>

Justin - thank you for that example which to me looks very good indeed. Am I correct in

thinking that the original is 6x6? Have you tried any 35mm?

 

Also are you using the film holder which came with the V500 (which I believe is not height

adjustable) or one of Doug Fisher's adjustable ones?

Robin, yes that shot is 6x6, I do 35mm on the V500 as well which of course has the same resolution but has to be stretched a little bit more when you print it.

 

I am using the film holders that came with the scanner and haven't had much problem with them. Occasionally you will have a roll of film which is curling badly in which case the holder will not hold it level but if your negs are reasonably flat the standard holders work fine.

 

Here is another scan, this one at 3200dpi. I have put a full res crop in the corner of the mesh covering the window. You can see that at this res you are getting close to capturing all that the film has to give.<div></div>

Thanks again Justin.

 

I am thinking about getting a Nikon Coolscan V for 35mm and a flatbed for medium format.

The Epson 700 and 750 seem to be the most popular flatbeds for the latter task but as I

don't need the capacity to scan anything larger than 6x6 if the V500 produces similar results

with medium format I may as well save some money.

Justin with reference to your remark about film curling. I read somewhere that if you put a

film on a lightbox for an hour with a book on top of it this will remove any curling. However I

cannot vouch for this myself as I haven't tried it!

I also have an Epson V500. I was very doubtful of flatbeds ever since my first one I bought (a Microtek 5600)... and got horrible results! I bought the Epson to replace an old dedicated film scanner (Minolta Dimage Multi II), so I can give you a comparison between a dedicated film scanner and a flatbed. The Minolta is very old and can achieve about 2500 dpi on 35mm film and 1200 dpi on medium format. For the Epson, I do not have Doug's holders, so I am only using the stock holders for now.

 

Comparing resolution, for 35mm, the Minolta has the edge, while for Medium format, they are very close, but the Epson actually seems slightly better. I wish I can post up a picture, but I am at work and don't have them. For 35mm, I would say the Minolta is very clearly better, but the Epson isn't that bad either. I think if you hand someone 4x6 prints from the Epson, they will not complain... unless they saw the same prints from the Minolta.

 

On the V500, I also tried to play around with adjusting the height of the film using some 3x5 card, but I could not get my scans sharper than the Epson holders.

 

If you are into Medium Format, this is a very good scanner. At 1200 dpi, you will get about a 6 or 7 megapixel picture... good enough for most purposes. At 2400 dpi, you will get about 12 megapixels.

 

For 35 mm, at 2400 dpi, it's about 8 or 9 megapixels. But it's not as good as a dedicated film scanner at 2400 dpi.

 

One other thing I noticed is that some films scan better than others. The first film I used was Kodak Royal... or something like that and it scans very badly... for some reason, the Epson is not picking up as much detail... but later on, I used Kodak Gold and that seems to scan much better and the Epson seems to pick up much more detail... also the Epson seems to color correct better on the Kodak Gold. I am not sure why, but it may also have been how the film was processed, since I also moved around that time and I started going to a different place for film development... not sure.

 

From these experiments, I would say the maximum resolution for the V500 is somewhere between 1200 and 2400 dpi... since it is better than the Minolta at 1200 dpi, but not at 2400 dpi. If I had to guess, I would say it's around 1500 dpi or so. For me, I use the Epson at 2400 dpi since there is no setting between 1200 and 2400. For medium format, this produces a fairly large file (around 160mb) and it takes a while to load the image on my computer.

 

But the Epson software is very good... at least compared to the Minolta. When scanning color negatives, the color accuracy of the Epson software is much, much better. I had always had trouble getting the colors looking good on the Minolta, but on the Epson, I don't have to do spend much time correcting colors. Sometimes, it's a tad too red, or blue, but that is very easy to fix. The Minolta scans were all over the board in terms of color casting and took a long time to fix.

 

Digital ICE is also a very good feature. I will never purchase another scanner without ICE. On the Minolta, I had to spend at least 20 minutes per picture to touch up dust on the scans... on scratched or very dusty films, sometimes, it would take up to 2 hours! Digital ICE has 2 options on the Epson. A "Speed" option and a "Quality" option. ICE adds a significant amount of time to your scans, so I usually use the "Speed" option and that usually takes care of most things, but I do notice that the "Quality" option is much better at covering up dust.

 

Overall, I really like the Epson. My post processing time is very minimal. I can scan the picture and it would look ok without any post processing. For Medium Format, there is nothing in this price range that can beat it... I mean $250!?!?! that's a steal!

 

If you are only doing 35mm, I would get something better (maybe a Nikon Coolscan V for around $500?), but in my situation, I would still use the Epson over the Minolta because of Digital ICE and the superior color correcting of the Epson.

 

Well, that is my review on this scanner.

Thanks Charles that's very helpful. It seems to me that with the V500 so modestly priced it's

worth taking the risk and buying one for my 6x4.5 work (mostly slides). As to 35mm if the

V500 doesn't satisfy me I will, as indicated above, get a Coolscan V.

Thank you Les - some very interesting comparisons. They suggest to me, that using a sharp

6x4.5 slide, the V500 (probably with some USM) is capable of producing a scan from which a,

very acceptable, 20x16 print could be made. Do you agree?

Les, wow, that comparison shows the real differences! I really wasn't sure if the 4000 dpi of the Coolscan would pick up much more data, but it is like night and day. For MF though, the Coolscan 9000 is really expensive, and you have to get the glass holder too. But the Coolscan V is very similar to the 5000, but slower (I think), so that would be a good option for 35mm.

 

I also noticed on the 6x6 Provia slides I shot that the slides look really, really nice when I look at the slide itself, but the scans have less detail.

 

Robin, I think your question on the 20x16 print depends on your tastes and the viewing distance. I have read that you need to aim for 300 dpi for prints, but I have gone lower and been satisfied. For a 20x16 print at 300 dpi, that would mean the scan should be around 6000x4800 pixels.

 

When I scan at 1200 dpi, it gives me about a 2800x2800 pixel image.

 

For 2400 dpi, it would be 5600x5600 pixels, but with the V500, the 2400 dpi, is not the true resolution.

 

I have scanned at 1200 dpi and printed at 10x14, which is ~200 dpi, and it looked good, but it all depends on what you like and what your needs are.

 

Les, you have convinced me to get a Coolscan V for 35mm! I honestly didn't think that the difference in resolution was that big.

Les, like Charles, I think that you have convinced me that a Coolscan V is the way to go for

35mm.

 

As for medium format, as I indicated above, I think I will try a V500. BTW based on your

scans I agree there doesn't seem to be any point in scanning above 2400dpi.

 

From a personal standpoint this has proved to one of the most useful threads I have

started so thanks again,

 

Robin

I take your point Les.

 

I have had a look at the comparisons in your Film 2 album. I was particularly interested in

the shots taken on Kodachrome 64 as many of the slides I wish to scan are on this film. I

have read that K64 scans can come out with a bluish caste and I think that I can see this

in the car headlamps.

 

After all the comparisons you have done do you have any particular favourite films?

Les, thank you so much for your very informative comparison scans.

 

I'm just curious to know if you are using the Epson film holders or the variable height holders from Doug Fisher (betterscanning.com).

 

I've read that optimizing the height of the film by matching it to your individual scanner's focus range can help you squeeze better quality out of your flatbed.

Wow! Thanks guys, I had the same questions. Great thread!

 

dvc

<p>If I may ask, what would be the largest size print I could get solid detail using this scanner at it's highest resol8ution scan of a 35mm negative? I would like to know because I would like to experiment with shooting 35mm film portraits and scanning them at insane resolutions so I can print them at massive gallery size and put them in my living room or give them as gifts to family and friends. I am talking about poster sized prints shot in great light on 35mm film. Can anyone please steer me in the right direction? I am a digital photographer and am just starting to use film and I see that if I have a good scanner, I would have the ability to shoot at resolutions higher than anything I could ever afford in the digital world. Do you get what I'm saying? I would love some feedback please. Thank you. I was thinking I could spend up to maybe $400.00 tops on a scanner that I would hope can become a valuable tool in my photography studio. Thoughts? Thank you</p><div></div>

<p>Already use more than one year Epson V500 Photo, Excellent, quality up to 6400 DPI optical, use it to restore old photos and he gives a show Software Very easy to use everything in Portuguese, English for those who can not help others, the software allows also be configured in three levels from the simplest to the most demanding professional who want to control every step of the scanning, since the hp even has a good resolution, but can not take Scanner in top quality, when it crashes the computer, lock the scanner itself forcing it off All Epson line, are very good, but the scanners are the same professionals, could only be launched in Brazil found this store in Brazil with some models of Epson at great prices, this is rare in Brazil.<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.maisbaratomaisbarato.com/categories/Scanners/" target="_blank"></a><br>

<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.maisbaratomaisbarato.com/categories/Scanners/">http://www.maisbaratomaisbarato.com/categories/Scanners/</a></p>

<p><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=5923576">Craig Rivota,</a><br>

If you are going to make posters from your scans why wouldn't you just have the scans professionally done? How many posters do you intend to make? Good quality posters are expensive. The extra $10 a frame it would cost to get a professional scan isn't really going to increase the price that much. If I were you I would buy a cheap medium format camera and shoot 6x6 B&W or slide film. Then have it professionally scanned. You are not going to get good results by using a consumer grade scanner to scan 35mm film at a ridiculous resolution and then blowing it up way beyond the limits of its intended use. This will look horrible and amateurish.</p>

<p>27 Feb 2012 - I have been using a V500 for a little over two years, and it has been completely reliable, with one exception: the 35mm film strip retainer overlay is very flimsy plastic and stopped latching closed against curled film after only a dozen or so film strip changes. The 35mm slide portion is fine, as is the 120 film holder & retainer.<br>

Some have said the 120 holder won't handle mounted 120 transparencies (slides), but two cardboard mounted 6x6 slides fit perfectly and securely after removing the easily detachable film retainer. I believe glass-mounted slides would fit just as well. The film holder appears to have been designed to accommodate mounted slides this way.<br>

The software is excellent, when set to "Professional Mode." I have NEVER used "Home Mode" or the buttons on the front, so can't comment on that. Professional Mode should be no problem to learn quickly. Maybe I should qualify that statement; I run the Epson software via an old Windows 95 graphics editor, LViewPro. I start LViewPro and when I give it the "acquire" command it automatically finds and loads the Epson scanning software. When a scan is completed the image is then opened automatically into LViewPro, where I can adjust colors, contrast, and crop before saving. I assume other editors like IrfanView and MSPaint would work the same way. And PhotoShop.</p>