epson 750 pro

[Michael Heald]

Hello! I've been waiting a bit to see how the V700 and V750 look before deciding between the 4990, V700, and V750 for 8x10 and occasional 16x20 size prints. Currently, I have been learning on a Microtek ScanMaker 5900.
The V700 costs between what a 4990 and 4990 Pro costs. The V750 about $300 more
Do folks feel that the V700 is superior to the 4990 and between the two, the V700 should be given more consideration?
The specs on the V700 look similar to the V750 Pro except that the Pro has coatings and an option for wet mounting. Would these two options warrant the extra $300 price, or do folks feel that the anticipated quality difference between the V750 and 700 will also warrant the higher price? Thank you and best regards.

Mike

[Don Miller]

1) In my opinion there has been objective reviews. I've grown weary of what I perceive as Ted's self promotion.

2) I've visited Ted's website:

http://www.fourpointlanding.com/

And I've formed my opinion on where he is is at in photography, knowledge of scanning, and knowledge of color management.

Don,

Not meaning to be inflammatory here but I'm not sure of what YOUR point is...

I for one would appreciate reading Ted's evaluation. Perhaps, different people will do their evaluations differently and come up with an alternative point of view. Is there a problem with someone else conducting a review? :>O

Or, are we to assume that... because Vincent at photo-i has done a "full review of the 700 and 4990, and is in the middle of a 750" that we should somehow just accept his review as gospel? :>|

So, again, your point is?

Cheers

[paulr]

specs on the V700 look similar to the V750 Pro except that the Pro has coatings and an option for wet mounting. Would these two options warrant the extra $300 price, or do folks feel that the anticipated quality difference between the V750 and 700 will also warrant the higher price? Thank you and best regards.

Mike

I'd be curious to see how big an improvement these are over my 4870. My current scanner is great for LF, but I'm doing some 120 film now, and I don't think it's up to the task for final prints.

If I did upgrade to one of the new beasts, I'd get the pro version--not for the optical quality (it seems like splitting hairs) but for the wetmount feature and the full version of silverfast. I'm using come color neg film for the first time now, and suspect the silverfast will work better for me than vuescan. And I'm sold on wetmounting for large format.

[Kirk Gittings]

Paul,

The tests I have seen indicate what I expected, another incremental improvement over the 4990 as the 4990 was incrementally better than the 4870 and so on. There should be a big boost between the 4879 to the V750 though as it is two incremental steps higher in quality. I will by one soon and test it.

[Ted Harris]

Please note my original language carefully. What I said was: "AFAIK there are so far no objective full evaluations of the V750." Vincent's review at photo-i is a good start but it is very difficult for an end user to make decisions based on web based image comparisons. So far no one has tested the real DMax or the real resolution of the scanner using standard test methods. That was my point.

I totally agree with Kirk's statements and from everything you read in Vincent's review incremental improvements seem to be the case. I am only sounding a cautionary note a bout a product that has just barely entered the retail stream in the US. A product that doesn't yet have enough reviews or a large enough user base to make any sensible judgements. I hope it is a great product but I see no reason to declare it so before there is sufficent information available.

More than ever I hope it is a great product because the Microtek 1800f which is its closest competitor will soon no longer be available. According to Microtek they have about a two month supply of 1800f's for the US market and after that there will be no more. The manufacturer of the CCD array used by that machine has stopped making the chip and no one else makes it either. That means that similar stock situations exist in the rest of the world as well. So, goodbye 1800f and, hopefully, welcome V750.

[Marco Annaratone]

Can someone confirm what I heard, i.e., that it is NOT possible to wet-mount an 8x10 on the 750? I was told that the maximum size that can be wet-mounted is slightly less than 8x10, in fact.

Tnx!

[Walter Calahan]

Ordered a V750 M from B&H this morning. Usually ground shipping takes a day to get here from NYC. Cost little more than www.buy.com, but I've had better service from B&H over the years.

Since I'm upgrading from an Epson Expression 1680 (bought the 1680 a year before Epson started making scanners designed for film), this should be a big improvement.

The 1680 never makes clean scans in neutrally colored areas with little detail, such a snow.

I'll let you all know my first impressions. Ciao.

[Jack Flesher]

FWIW, I felt my 4990 was at best a marginal upgrade from my 3200 -- better, but frankly not a huge deal on 4x5 tranny's turned into 16x20 prints. I would say I essentially wasted $500 on the 4990... The Photo-i review suggested it was a full incremental improvement, so I am very interested to see what the "real world" 750 output is.

[Ralph Barker]

My new V750 pro arrived yesterday, but I haven't had time to scan anything yet. When I do, I'll report on my experience. It won't be the in-depth comparative analysis that people are looking for, however. For that, we'll need to wait for Ted's testing, or some other, similarly-trusted person to do a review.

[Walter Calahan]

OK - First impressions as promised.

My Epson Perfection V750 Pro arrived today. I'm upgrading from an Epson Expression 1680. I have no experience with the Epson 4990.

The scanner is much lighter in weight to the 1680. Software loaded without a problem on my Macintosh G4 desktop computer. I'm running PhotoShop CS2. The computer has 1.5 gigs of RAM.

I upgraded the SilverFast software to their Studio (IT8) configuration. On-line upgrade was very easy.

The film holders are lightweight and feel brittle. I plan to use this scanner for 8x10, 4x5, Type 55 Polaroid, and 6x12 roll film. For smaller formats I will continue to use my Nikon 8000. Thus the holders don't concern me too much.

The fluid scan adaptor will not fit 8x10 film. 5x7 film will fit.

Made one scan of an 8x10 color negative (Kodak Porta 400NC). Digital ICE does not work on 8x10. ICE appears to work only on the smaller scan area.

The pre-scan was very quick and very quiet. The scan was also faster than my 1680. The color appears much more natural and neutral compared to the same negative scanned on the 1680. I have SilverFast Studio (IT8) for the 1680 too, so I'm comparing apples to apples with the software.

I scanned at 1600 ppi with the same sheet of film on both machines. I did not have enough RAM memory to scan an 8x10 at 4800 ppi.

The resulting digital file on the V750 was vastly superior to the 1680. Much sharper in edge detail, and color clarity. The 1680 is soft and muddy.

Over all I'm very glad I made this upgrade.