Epson V350

[naplam]

I just bought this scanner two days ago, it has an automatic feeder for strips of film so it's quite comfortable to use for batch scans.

Resolution-wise, i estimate it must be around 2000 dpi, maybe I'll make a real test to verify. Anyway, expected for this kind of flatbed scanner. That would be about 5 megapixels. The claimed 4800 is bullshit; 2400 and 4800 produce similar resolution, so I just scan at 2400 (faster) - i only tested one photo for resolution, I'll have to make more thorough tests. It takes one hour more or less to scan a 36-photo slide film.

Colours are very good, nothing is lost, tones do not look flat.

Shadows... well... totally suck if you have a high contrast velvia photo, but for most purposes it's ok.

For consumer negative film, the scanner can bring out all there is in the photo.

pros: auto feeder (strips of 6), flatbed for documents, transparency unit, faithful colours
cons: low resolution (good for viewing on the computer, forget about using it for big enlargments-which you wouldn't be making at home anyway), low dmax (it can destroy the shadows in high contrast slides), no adapter for medium format (only mounted slides and film strips)

[Attila]

Did you try with slides ?

[montecarlo]

When you have time, could you please post some photos scanned with V350 and 100% crops too. I'm interested to see the results.
Thank you very much.

[naplam]

Attila yes, i tried slides and negatives. It has a hard time with high-contrast situations in velvia, you lose pretty much everything in the shadows (they're full of nasty digital chroma noise), while you can still see detail in the slide with your eyes. But shots in which you don't have or need to have shadow detail are alright. With negatives it's quite good, I've found scanned negatives to be better in my computer screen than the corresponding automatic prints a lab made.

montecarlo,
the photos in this set in flickr were all done at 2400 dpi, you can see the original size as well. They're all high-contrast situations, sunsets with backlight stuff, so it's as bad as it can get regarding shadow detail. On the other hand, now that I think of it, 8 bits is not nearly enough to recover information from those shadows, they're far too dark, so i'll have to try scanning it again in 16-bit tiff or something to actually hit the limit of the scanner.

The photos in this other set were also scanned with the same scanner at 2400 dpi.

Can you suggest a test chart for resolution so I can shoot it and make resolution tests? I have a roll loaded in the camera right now with just a few photos left, I could have it developed pretty soon.

[montecarlo]

Thank you very much.

Regarding the resolution test I don't know what kind of chart would be appropiate. Maybe this kind http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxk20d/page33.asp but I don't know yet wher you can get one.

[Rob Leslie]

To get more DR from your scans make two or even three scans with appropriate Histogram adjustments.
One hour to scan a 36 exposure film is rushing the job. With PP one can easily spend an hour on each. It should take at least a couple of minutes to adjust the scanner for each negative. Using auto settings don’t expect anything more than mediocre result but with care you can get quality good enough for excellent 10 X 8 prints from the 2400 dpi Epson flatbeds.

[naplam]

[Rob Leslie]

I don’t understand your reasoning on size/resolution.

Doing two adjustments in PS won't give the same result as two scans. You are only doing the same as using a few adjustment layers using that technique.

My Epson 2480 scans at 2400dpi which gives me a 3335 x 2152 pixels image from the average 35mmm frame.

The biggest problem with film scanning is time. A scan on the Epson takes 2 minutes per frame and it scans three frames. Three frames at a time are enough as I have to clean the neg, preview and adjust the settings for each then save the result. This all takes about 12/15 minutes, or 4-5 minutes per frame, or about 8 minutes for 3 BW frames. But I see no problem in spending half an hour or more scanning one negative in order to get the best from it. This is nothing compared to the time spent doing PP to each scan.
I find little difference between scanning Colour neg, BW or transparency, though colour neg requires more care and PP to get the best from it.
I also have an Epson 2580 which has an auto film loader. this doesn't give such good results as the loader doesn't hold the film flat.
(I have both scanners because the transformer packed in on my 2480 and the chepest way to get a new one was to buy another S/H scanner)
Scanning really is a pain in the neck!