Epson v700 film holder problem [Archive] - Large Format Photography Forum

Anupam

10-Jul-2008, 19:48

I just received a v700 scanner today and am really struggling with the holders. I know people suggest the betterscanning.com ones but I'll need to save up a bit before I can buy them. But the Epson holders can't possibly be this crap, so I might be doing something wrong. I'm trying to scan 6x7 and the holder takes a lot of cajoling just to snap shut and when it does the film visibly buckles a bit. I have never seen this much buckling in non-glass holders before.

Any opinions from Epson owners on these holders would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Anupam

Kuzano

10-Jul-2008, 19:51

the medium format holders that come with the epson scanners are flimsy, hard to position film, hard to close.....in a word (2 words) Pure Krap!!!

D. Bryant

10-Jul-2008, 20:28

kilimanjaro1996

10-Jul-2008, 23:42

I was in the same boat, got V700 yesterday and played with it for half a day. Most of my old films are perfectly flat, and they work quite well with the holder. And it is surprisingly easy to get sharp focus without much adjustment in Epson Scan. But my latest Velvia 100F are really curly and it is next to impossible to get them onto the holder. So around mid-night I decided to give myself a break and ordered Doug's betterscanning holder and ANR inserts.

On the other hand, this V700 is excellent for the the price. I have been using my friend's Microtek M1 Pro for the last three weeks, and the M1 is much louder, much slower, and auto focus is a bit of hit and miss. M1 Pro can be a touch better in details when it is in focus, but it is much faster to get good results from the Epson V700 without too many tweaks. Besides I was using the Epson Scan instead of SilverFast Ai for the M1, so more juices can be squeezed out of the V700. I really look forward to scanning my medium format stock, as well as the upcoming 4x5 since I'm waiting for a Graflex Crown Graphic in the mail.

Paul O

11-Jul-2008, 01:55

Pay a visit to the Betterscanning website - shell out the cash (quite reasonable when you see the quality of the product), cut back on food for a week or two and realise the full potential of the V series scanners :D

Joanna Carter

11-Jul-2008, 01:58

Anupam, there is only one answer to your problem : yes the Espon MF holders a totally useless, the only way I could get anything like a flat neg was to remove the "clippy bits" from the holder so that it just lay on the film rather than clicking into place.

In the end, like many others, I opted for Doug's excellent holder system and have not regretted it, worth every penny.

Paul H

11-Jul-2008, 04:16

You can get it to work, but it does feel a little like you are going to break things!

Try with some nice flat film first, to get the "feeling" of how it snaps together. If your film is not lying perfectly in the channel it will cause the film to bow when you try and snap it shut. Work from the hinge end, then the middle clips, then the end ones. The ones in the middle feel especially flimsy.

If your film is curly, you can go to a framing shop and get some anti-reflective glass cut that you can lay in the channel In this case, you remove the fold-down clamp, and just lay the AR glass on top of the negs. I do this when I want to scan Efke 100 straight away )rather than leaving it a few days under heavy books to flatten out!). If it is really curly, tape one end to the AR glass then lay the whole lot down into the channel on the Epson film holders.

sparq

11-Jul-2008, 05:21

The epson holders are crap, some films won't fit into the channels at all.
Get the betterscanning.com holder, I am very happy with it.

Songyun

11-Jul-2008, 08:28

guys, how about 8X10? since the betterscanning holder doesn't cover 8X10

Kirk Gittings

11-Jul-2008, 08:36

Another vote for the Betterscanning holder in general on the 700/750. For single frames of 6x9 I also use the earlier holder from the 4990 masked off to hold three individual frames and a holder from a Canon 9950F. Many things can be adapted as long as you can get the film level, the calibration indentation and the film height where it needs to be.

jim kitchen

11-Jul-2008, 08:50

8X10 negatives will mount and scan properly on the flatbed scanner's glass.

I wet mount the negatives to the flatbed scanner's glass, and although I tried several different methods of wet mounting earlier with this type of scanner, I found that wet mounting the negative with the negative's emulsion facing the scanner's glass to be the best, since the scanner's focal plane seems to be about one millimeter above the surface of the glass, while using the scanner's film guide selection. I did conduct a few focus tests about a year ago, and I found that one millimeter above the flatbed scanner's glass happens to be the focal point for my scanner.

Laying the 8X10 negative on the flatbed's glass without fluid between the negative and the glass never worked for me. All my previous esoteric configurations to combat Newton rings failed miserably.

jim k

sparq

11-Jul-2008, 08:50

guys, how about 8X10? since the betterscanning holder doesn't cover 8X10

It's because V700's "upper" scanning area is not big enough to cover 8x10. 8x10 can only be scanned off the bed, AFAIK. Please someone correct me if I am wrong.

Anupam

11-Jul-2008, 10:10

Anupam

11-Jul-2008, 10:11

It's because V700's "upper" scanning area is not big enough to cover 8x10. 8x10 can only be scanned off the bed, AFAIK. Please someone correct me if I am wrong.

I just scanned a whole roll of 35mm "contacts", so I think it should do 8x10 film.

sparq

11-Jul-2008, 10:59

I just scanned a whole roll of 35mm "contacts", so I think it should do 8x10 film.

I am not sure if this is a reliable proof. The 35mm holders cover only ~ 6''x9'' area which is less than the size of the betterscanning.com holder.

captainslack

11-Jul-2008, 12:22

Thanks for all the suggestions. The thing is 6x7 is an occasional thing for me - I do mostly 4x5 or 35mm. BetterScanning doesn't seem to have any 35mm holders, and I'll try the Epson 4x5 holder to see if it is equally crappy as the MF one. If so, I'll just get a 4x5 holder from betterscanning.com.

I haven't had that much trouble with the 4x5 holder on my V700. Yes, it's flimsy, cheap, & won't hold the film entirely flat, but it's miles & miles better than the 120 holder.

Anupam

11-Jul-2008, 14:26

I am not sure if this is a reliable proof. The 35mm holders cover only ~ 6''x9'' area which is less than the size of the betterscanning.com holder.

No holder - I lay the entire sleeve down on the glass. Good enough for contacts.

jasonjoo

11-Jul-2008, 15:05

Another vote for the Better Scanning holders. I currently use the MF holders, but I will be ordering a 4x5 kit soon (once my Chamonix gets here). The stock Epson holders are utter trash. I can't believe how poorly they were made!

Jason

jasonjoo

11-Jul-2008, 15:06

No holder - I lay the entire sleeve down on the glass. Good enough for contacts.

Anupam, do you do this with the white reflective cover? If you're shooting print film, do you simply invert the colors in Photoshop or in a similar program?

Jason

Anupam

11-Jul-2008, 18:54

Anupam, do you do this with the white reflective cover? If you're shooting print film, do you simply invert the colors in Photoshop or in a similar program?

No, I scan with the transparency unit, just like scanning a big sheet of film. My sleeves are the transparent type. Here's one of my rolls digitally contact printed - I actually do them in two sections - but the end result is something like this. Reduced size here due to the forum restrictions. At my actual scanning resolution each frame can be about 400-600 pixels wide - not bad for proofing. See the other sample crop for an example for what one frame might look like - not bad for proofing 35mm.

-Anupam

jasonjoo

13-Jul-2008, 22:03

Interesting. The next time I shoot a roll of 35mm, I'll give this a try. With 120 roll flim, I just end up scanning the entire roll in two batches with the Better Scanning holders. 35mm on the other hand... what a headache! I hardly ever shoot 35mm now because scanning is such a pain!

Anupam

14-Jul-2008, 02:38

I couldn't live without 35mm street shooting. So I bought the v700 because I was afraid I'd get lazy and shoot digital just to avoid the fuss of scanning. The v700 eases the proofing and scanning process quite a bit. You can see results in the latest photos on my Flickr stream.

jasonjoo

14-Jul-2008, 22:57

Anupam, what gorgeous images! The tones are amazing! If you don't mind sharing, what do you rate your Tri-X at and what do you soup it in? Do you end up doing some photoshop work on the images?

I've never been able to get the tones right with my v700. Well, it's a bit premature of me to blame the scanner. I'm not a big fan of the Epson Scan software, nor am I trying to learn to use it properly. That and well, I've probably only scanned 10 rolls of film so far. I don't have a strong grasp on this analog stuff yet :)

Jason

Anupam

14-Jul-2008, 23:26

Thank you for the kind words. I test all my film for EI and development time, and in my case 35mm Tri-X in HC110B turned out to be EI 250. I don't use the Epson software - didn't even install it - because Vuescan gives me so much more control. As for photoshop, there is some processing to get the image to look like you would want in a print, but nothing that can't be done in a darkroom - levels, curves, some masking with doging and burning mostly. I meter by eye when I am using the M2, so the exposures aren't as precise as in LF shooting, but you can get by as long as they are pretty close.

jasonjoo

14-Jul-2008, 23:44

Thanks for sharing Anupam. Seems like a lot of people are happy with Vuescan. I originally had the v750 for the Silverfast Ai software, but a lot of the features just went over my head. I returned it for the v700.

I'll look into the VueScan software. I'm also thinking about shooting a single film and developer to get the results I want. Since I'll mainly be shooting Arista.EDU ultra with my Chamonix (once it gets here), it won't hurt to buy a few 35mm and 120 rolls either.

Jason