Epson 4990 vs v850

[joedgaia]

I have a 10 year old 4990 scanner that I use for b&w 6x6 and 8x10 film. Would I see any improvement by upgrading to a v850?

[Luis-F-S]

I have a 10 year old 4990 scanner that I use for b&w 6x6 and 8x10 film. Would I see any improvement by upgrading to a v850?

You’re kidding right? Let’s see10 year old digital equipment versus new state of the art scanner?

[joedgaia]

ha..actually no, I'm not kidding. If the 4990 is more than capable of capturing the resolution in the 8x10 negative for prints beyond 40x32 (I never print that large) what would be the advantage other than scan speed or led illumination? Is there more dynamic range or something that would positively effect the IQ? According to View Camera magazine there was no noticeable qualitative difference in performance between the 4990 and v700 for scanning large format film. Also, interpolating from this article, https://petapixel.com/2017/05/01/160...s-500-scanner/ the v700 held it's own, so A=B and B is pretty darn good, therefore A is pretty darn good also, no? Is there a noticeable qualitative jump from v700 to v850?

joe murray | nativesonsfilms
Directors Guild Of America-Director
Int'l Cinematographers Guild -Director of Photography
www.nativesonsfilms.com

[coisasdavida]

I had the opportunity to take apart both 4970 and V700. it seemed to me that older Epson scanners were much better built than current ones.
I tested one against the other (b&w negative/ epson scan software) after cleaning and 4970 was just a little better.

I never used a V850.

[Sal Santamaura]

what would be the advantage other than scan speed or led illumination?...

I purchased a V850 just over one year ago. It's my first scanner. I don't know anything about the 4990 other than the fact that it uses a fluorescent illumination system. Here are my two cents.

I've waited until the V850 warranty expired to open it up. There are several improvements necessary. First, the plastic used for its housing is extremely static prone. I plan to cut up sections of laminated aluminum-polyester anti-static bags and tape them (conductive side facing the plastic housing) throughout the interior to dissipate that static and, hopefully, greatly reduce the incredible quantity of dust that's attracted to the glass, even in humid ambient conditions. Second, when negatives of low overall contrast with large areas of even tone are scanned, illumination variations from the discrete LEDs show up. The smaller the negative, the lower frequency and more obvious these lateral value variations become, but they're plainly evident even on 8x10 originals. I'll be experimenting with some diffusion materials under the glass in an attempt to even out illumination. I suspect, but don't know for certain, that your 4990's fluorescent tube doesn't suffer from this shortcoming.

Bottom line: unless you know for sure that a scan speed increase will occur and your workload is high enough to benefit from that, if your 4990 is in good shape, I'd stick with it.

[Bernice Loui]

Newer is NOT always better. Many consumer technology items like scanners are often cheapened with no extra production expense features added that do NOT improve the actual performance of the techno item.

Keep in mind there are inherent cost in producing any technological item. This results in a production cost -vs- market selling cost. These realities are mostly fixed due to resources involved resulting a differences in trade offs.

The 4990 here has been trouble free, makes good scans, been problem free and reliable.

One problem, the plastic housing will out gas leaving a cloudy residue on the scanner glass window. The fix is to remove the scammer top, remove the glass and give it a really good cleaning with windex then cascade dishwasher soap and rinse in verifiable clean water.



Bernice

You’re kidding right? Let’s see10 year old digital equipment versus new state of the art scanner?

[Pere Casals]

The V850 is a better scanner, but IMHO you won't notice it at all in BW 8x10", you may perhaps see an slight improvement in 6x6cm in certain conditions, but not always.

The cheaper V800 it's near the same than the V850, but the V850 includes multi-exposure feature in bundled Silverfast version that's needed for Velvia if it contains very high dense areas and wanting to recover it. ME feature can be later purchased for the V800. Also the V850 has a coating in the internal pair or lenses (a highres one for until 5.9" wide with hardware 6400 dpi and a "lowres" one for wider scans at 4800 dpi).

A real advantage you may find with the V850 / V800 is that it has a LED illumination that has no warmup delay, and no calibration need for color, as it is very stable in the time.

The V850 (like the V750) delivers some effective 2800 and 2300 dpi depending on the x/y axis with the hardware 6400 dpi lens covering 5.9", and less with the hardware 4800 dpi lens, with proportionally less efective dpi.

IIRC the EPSON 4990 has 4800 hardware dpi, so if you may notice some difference is in MF scans that the V850 scans with hard 6400 dpi ending in 2300/2800 effective dpi, while the 4990 may end in some effective 1700/2000, while in BW 8x10 scans the different may not be much.

And well, what it is really critical is the Photoshop edition, more than if the scanner is a 4990 or a V850.

[joedgaia]

Thanks for all the considered replies. I do plan on scanning 6x6 but my print size is never larger than 13x19.

"...And well, what it is really critical is the Photoshop edition, more than if the scanner is a 4990 or a V850."

I use the newest version of Photoshop. Why is this more critical then the scanner? I am using the newest version of Vuescan for the scanning software.

[Sal Santamaura]

...Why is this more critical then the scanner?...

It's not. Knowing whose inputs have a history of being correct/incorrect is very valuable when considering thread replies.

[Bernice Loui]

LEDs as a white light source will have dips and peaks in it's output spectra compared to a good phosphorus based fluorescent tube. This is the inherent limitation with white LEDs due to their three color individual LEDs being blended to deliver "white light". It is also why LEDs can be problematic when used for color evaluations of reflective surfaces.

Basically, no LEDs are not superior to fluorescent tube due to warm up. LEDs are just another set of design trade offs that have it's own set of problems.


As for scanner performance, these flat bed scanners are acceptable depending on the intended goal of the image being digitized. Those who are serious about getting the very most out of a scan will be using a drum scanner with a highly skilled individual making scans and adjusting the system as needed.

Don't be fooled by published specs alone, using techno hardware-software real world and their results is what really matters.


Bernice

A real advantage you may find with the V850 / V800 is that it has a LED illumination that has no warmup delay, and no calibration need for color, as it is very stable in the time.