Epson V800 & V850. thoughts?

[yuexiachou29]

came across news on Epson's new scanner V850 & V800
It's been out for 3month now.
any first hand user experience that you would like to share?
I am curious.

128590

[neil poulsen]

So, I'm curious. With the change from cold cathode to LED's, other than warm up times, does this change affect the quality of the scans? Would it be better to purchase a 750 or 700 now, while they're still new? (Are they still around?) Or, will the 850 or 800 produce the better scan?

[koraks]

The influence of the LED light source will most likely be minimal and it will be hard to consistently demonstrate any difference in real world tests.

[fishbulb]

to me the LED is a nice upgrade. should run cooler and with less power consumption, and lower likelihood of burn out.

[yuexiachou29]

according to the review i read yesterday, V800 4x5 holder only holds 1 neg. vs. 2 (V700)

Neil Poulsen,

I have the same question too, wonder which one to buy

[Peter Lewin]

There is a 10-page thread on this subject just a bit further down this page, http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?116570-New-Epson-V800-V850-flatbed-scanners

I saw the scanners, and spoke with the Epson rep, at the PhotoPro Expo in NYC a few months back. According to the rep, the change to LEDs was primarily because they could no longer get the parts (bulbs?) for 7xx series, rather than for a quality upgrade. The faster warm-up was sort of a free benefit of the change. Also, the new holders have height adjustment, which should allow better focus, are more rigid, but as has been pointed out, the 4x5 holder now accepts only one negative at a time. IIRC, but I'm not sure, the smaller format holders also took fewer strips than their predecessors (like many of us, my primary interest was the 4x5 holder).

[Heroique]

I use a 4990, but if it broke today, and money was no issue, my first choice would be another refurbished 4990. That's how well it's turned out for me over the years.

But since refurbished 4990's no longer (or very rarely) appear on Epson's clearance site, my second choice would be a refurbished v700.

To be sure, today would be a good day for my 4990 to expire – Epson's clearance site has a refurbished v700 w/ all accessories available for $415, free shipping, one-year warranty.

Nonetheless, I'm eager to hear more about real-world scanning comparisons between the newest and older series. My personal tests showed negligible differences between the 4990 and v750, and early reports here suggest I'd see the same results w/ the v800/850.

[robertrose]

My V700 stopped working and is in the service center. While waiting to hear whether it lives or dies, I have been reading reviews of the new V800 and V850 scanners and see that no mention that at the highest resolution these scanners make HUGH files. (Over 100MB). Depending upon your output need and computer horsepower, you WILL need to size down the file to work on it. Also, at the highest resolution you may find the image has a zillion imperfections (film scratches, dust, etc.) that will take hours of spotting work in your photo editing software.
That said, I like the scanner. All of the images at the Flowing Water gallery on my website were made from lower resolution V700 scans of T-Max 4x5 images, using the supplied Epson scanning software, and NOT Silverfast. http://robertrose.photos/galleries/large-format/

I suggest that for scanning resolution you figure out what you need for your expected output (e.g., 300dpi @ 16x20), whether you really need or have the ability to handle 16 bit files through your entire workflow, and work backwards to figure out the largest file you really need.

[munz6869]

100Mb isn't so huge in this day and age? I scan everything at the highest not too interpolated resolution of the scanner I have at any time (currently 3200 dpi on a V700) because who knows what I'll do with that scan in the future? I'm forever getting new hard drives for digital stuff anyway... and so far they're taking up less space than my negative folders :-)

Marc!

[fishbulb]

Yeah, word up. I am scanning in 900mb tiff files on a five year old PC with no problems. What is this, 1998? ;-)

[mdarnton]

I scan 115Mb into a netbook. I keep worrying that in my dive to the bottom I'll finally get a computer that won't do what I need it to do, but it hasn't happened yet. I remember the early 90s when the graphic artist next to my shop came over all wildly exciited to show me his new computer that would render a Photoshop file in 20 seconds instead of the 30 minutes the previous computer took. Time is relative, right?