Scanning Slides with Epson V500

[tony_duda]

I've recently purchased an Epson V500 flatbed scanner, which has a holder for

negatives and mounted slides. I haven't shot slide film for years, but getting

ready to do so soon. My question: Would it be better to have the slides

returned unmounted and use the negative holder, or mounted and use the slide

holder? My feeling is that unmounted may be better, as the film might stay

flatter as opposed to mounted slides. Any thoughts?

[bruce_watson1]

The only reason to have slides in mounts is to project them. If you aren't planning to use them as originally intended, using a projector to project the image to a screen or wall, then IMHO mounts just get in the way. For one thing, they intrude on the image area a bit. They also take up quite a bit of storage space, and may or may not be archival. So on balance I'd have to say for scanning get them without mounting.

[tony_duda]

Thanks for your response, Bruce. I was leaning towards unmounted, as I thought that would probably be the way to go.

[justinblake]

I find that film does tend to bow a little in the middle with the standard holder with the v500. I havn't tried mounted slides with it yet but I would suspect seeing as they are supported on all four sides that the film may lie slightly flatter. I still wouldn't bother mounting them myself as the scans are up to my standard as they are but I think if you had a really important shot that mounted may be better. Alternatly you could go for one of the anti newtonian ring glass holders that you can buy for the v500, they should out perform mounted slides by a great margin without the effort of mounting your slides.

[DickArnold]

I have a V500 and the tension on the slide in the slide mount makes the distance from the deck is very even and makes loading a snap. You can only use four slides at a time. I also scan MF in the Epson holder using slide strips without mounts. I have made some very nice large prints scanning Velvia. Ttwo or three low res versions are in my PN gallery. I would opt for mounted slides for evenness of mount and ease of loading as well as being better for storage. The MF transparencies are strip mounted and sometimes bow in what I think is a very good MF holder. I use 4800 for the 35s and 2400 for mF.

[sfcole]

Personally, I'd stick with slide mounts. I've found over the years that the mounts protect

the film. I almost never have the scratches that I get with unmounted film. I have the V500

and haven't found any focus/sharpness issues either way.