Will the V750 Pro do the job for me?

[ed_lutz]

<p>I guess I just need my thoughts verified before jumping…<br>

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First the background info. I’m a long time photographer, I shoot mostly film with the digital being just the quick snapshots and experimental stuff. Any serious shooting is all film. I’ve spent most of the time with 35mm but just recently picked up a nice RB67 system, mainly for use shooting landscapes. I’m not making any money from my shooting and that’s fine, I don’t try to, it’s just a serious hobby.<br>

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So, a little while back I bought a Nikon Coolscan V ED film scanner, which works great for 35mm. Now though I’m interested in also scanning my medium format work and am looking at a V750 Pro (cant afford a dedicated medium format film scanner so flatbed will have to do). It looks like the V750 will handle the 35mm and medium format well enough for what I want but I want to hear the thoughts of those who have one. I’m not looking for this scanner to give me poster size results; the biggest I’d be blowing anything up would probably be 11x14. I would be scanning for web display and to allow minimum post processing for 8x10 or 11x14 printing, anything larger would go to my local custom lab for printing from the original negative or transparency. Oh, what I didn’t mention above is that to get the Epson scanner, the Nikon will have to be sold, thus my concern about the Epson’s ability to scan 35mm in addition to medium format. I don’t want to sell the Nikon to get the Epson and then be disappointed with the results. From the reports I’ve read it looks like the V750 is really a nice scanner, suitable for all that I’d be doing with it, but whats the word from those who have one?<br>

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Thanks a lot,</p>

 

[alexthornephotography]

<p>The V750 IMHO is a great scanner for medium and large format film. For 35mm, you really need to make sure your film is flat. I've developed my own 35mm where it curled up pretty badly and the effect in the scan was noticeable. Also, I'm not a big fan of the 35mm film holders. However, when the 35mm film is flat, I've gotten pretty good results.</p>

<p>The medium and large format holders are pretty good and never had an issue with them holding the negatives flat. I did play around with the wet mount and medium format film and did see a small difference in contrast, but nothing that I could fix in PS. </p>

<p>Overall I'm very pleased with the scanner.</p>

<p> </p>

[colin_mattson1]

<p>For 35mm it's slightly more iffy, but for medium and large format, yeah, the V750 will do pretty darn well.</p><p>Like you said, you're not going particularly large, so you've got a little more wiggle room. From my experience, 8.5x11/A4 is acceptable from 35mm. Larger than that's going to depend on your standards, the film, and how you're printing, but 11x14 isn't outside the realm possibility at all. In most cases I'd say the Epson will do a reasonable job. Not as good as the Nikon you've got now, but not mind-numbingly horrible either.</p><p>If you're moving toward shooting the RB almost exclusively, the decision's a little easier. ;)</p>

[alexthornephotography]

<p>And let me add that the sizes you mention shouldn't be a problem. I've printed many medium format shots at 11x14 and they look great.</p>

[stwrtertbsratbs5]

<p>You could send your fim to ScanCafe.com and have it scanned on a Nikon 9000 ED. Inexpensive, but they ship your film to India. Haven't tried them myself because I own a Nikon 9000 ED.</p>

<p>From what I've seen, you can get scans from a consumer flatbed that are as good as film scans from the next smaller format. In that case, why bother with medium format?</p>

[david_henderson]

<p>If I may suggest a different strategy.</p>

 

<ul>

<li>If you want to make 11x 14 prints from 35mm you need to keep the Coolscan. </li>

<li>Buy a much cheaper, possibly even used Epson flatbed - anything from the 3200 up, and use that for making scans from MF that you can use for the web. This will save you several hundred dollars vs your current proposal. You might spend a little of this on a decent film holder and maybe a piece of AN glass to keep your film flat. </li>

<li>Most people don't print too many images, especially if you can see them on screen and MF is only part of what you do. When you do want to print , buy in scans from a Nikon 9000 or an Imacon. In the UK I pay the equivalent of $9 for big 16 bit Imacon scans from MF, cleaned manually in PS ( not Ice). </li>

</ul>

<p>I think this route would get you what you need for a similar cost (depending on how many MF images you want to print) but at a higher quality</p>

[gt1]

<p>"If you want to make 11x 14 prints from 35mm you need to keep the Coolscan."</p>

<p>That's not true. I don't shoot much 35mm but I have some amazing 12"x18"s of 35mm negs scanned with my V700. I set my 35mm negs under a heavy book for a couple of days before scanning. And for 6x7 the V700 is more than enough for my 12x18 needs.</p>

[ed_lutz]

<p>David, your idea has merit. Another route I was considering is to just let the local custom lab do scans for me. They will process a 120 roll of C41 with proof scans for about $8.00. Thats really not bad and those scans are all I need for computer display. My thought has been to gradually get to where I have a "darkroom" again so I can post my shots but I'm not sure it makes much sense financially. Without scans the film processing alone is $2.00 so I guess it comes down to how much I end up shooting 120.</p>

[gt1]

<p>Actually, what I do is scan all my 120. </p>

<p>With 35mm b&w I scan it myself because I develop at home and it's more expensive to have film scanned at the lab when they haven't developed it. I have my 35mm color, mostly E6, low res scanned by the lab, and I'll scan individual frames at higher resolutions myself. </p>

<p>If I need anything bigger than 12"x18" for 35mm I'd probably send it out for drum scanning.</p>

[yoshio]

<p>Ed</p>

<p>it is my thinking that David Henderson's proposal is "on the money". Online auctions are still paying silly money for the Coolscan V so far this has shown little sign of stopping (despite the suggestions that it all 35mm film work is "circling the drain"). I have both 3200 and 4870 scanners, my suggestion is that the 4870 is better by a significant margin but from that point on the developments are less. I recently stumbled upon <a href="http://www.fotoavventure.it/freecontent/FC_ProvaV700/index.htm">this test</a> of the V700 it is in a foreign language (aren't most things I read?) but images are clear explain of what they say. Google translate helps make some points more readable.</p>

<p>Dark penetration is important for negative in my opinion more than slide. I have found that the extra details revealed in shadows of slides does not print so much better than paper allows without risking making your images flat. Negative on the other hand has its highlight details in the dense parts of the media so noise in skys (blue is quite the dense area) is visible.</p>

<p>enjoy your fine RB (Japan makes fine optics and mechanics in that era :-)</p>

[User_503771]

<p>I also agree with David's post above.</p>

<p>I got an Epson 4870 refurbished from Epson some time ago, and it's a wonderful scanner. From the tests I've seen since, I don't see that big an improvement in subsequent flatbed models.</p>

<p>Awhile after buying the Epson, I got a used Coolscan 4000, which I had to send off for repair/refurb. And while I believe I got terrific results from the Epson, the results from the Coolscan are better.</p>

<p>Recently I got a real deal on an old Minolta Scan Multi which does up through 6x9 (with software it's instantly transformed into a Scan Multi II, tee hee) and it does a great job with color, but the resolution is just too low. I like the results from the Epson better. The main difference is that I have to sharpen the scans from the Epson a bit more, but once that's done the scans just sing. 120 film scanned at 2400 dpi from the Epson looks better than the maxed-out Scan Multi II.</p>

<p>I do believe that you're going to notice a bigger difference in quality from your 35mm films, because they're so small by comparison with even 120 size.</p>

<p>So, if I were you, I'd definitely keep the Coolscan for 35mm, and look for options other than the latest and greatest in a flatbed. I'm especially happy to plug the 4870 or 4990 from Epson. I've heard that the 4990 is faster, and that's an issue because the 4870 using ICE is pretty slow. But for proofing and the occasional "final" scan it's great -- and who's going to print every frame they shoot anyway?</p>

<p>A long shot: One other thing you could do, is forget the flatbed, sell off the Coolscan and go for a used Coolscan 8000, which will cover you for both 35mm and medium format. If you're patient you can find one for much less than the 9000, and Nikon still supports it.</p>

<p>But, back to basics: One thing I always keep in mind when considering this kind of stuff: I've run into nothing but trouble when I've gotten rid of an "asset" that was working well for me, no matter the circumstances -- trading out to finance something else, or whatever. That's why I say, keep the Coolscan, or go for a bigger Coolscan.</p>

[ed_lutz]

<p>So many options, so many options...<br>

Michael, your comment about problems from selling an asset thats been working well are, in my experience, right on the money. Thats what has me worried. This Coolscan V is a great little scanner and I'm worried about letting it go. Silly prices for them used though. I bought mine in '07 for about $550.. They sell for plenty more than that on Ebay all the time. Weird, except that new they've almost doubled in price. I think I'm going to sit on this for a bit and look at older flatbeds. If I can grab an older model at a really good price then I might just do that. Like some of you said, we don't really print that many shots, so mostly I want to view my work online. My local pro lab will scan for printing at a pretty good price so I'd have to scan a boatload of negatives to actually ever pay for the scanner. Thanks for the comments guys, it helped a lot with this decision!</p>