New guy scanner question.

[steve02]

Hello, my name is Steve Stadelman and I have in the past year gotten into mf photography. I love it.

My foray into LF will be with a Calumet 4x5 and a 135mm Schnieder. Really looking forward to it.

I have NO experience with darkroom and have a lab here in Portland Ore that is everything a new guy would want (friendly, helpful, encouraging) and think that a digital workflow would probably be best for me.

So I have been reading everything I could find about flatbed scanners and Epson seems to be what I want/need but picking the "right one" is a tad intimidating.

I have a mac mini and a whole terabite hard drive to play with. I hope I am not asking a silly question and any guidance would be appreciated.

Steve.

[Gem Singer]

Epson V750 Pro.

[Lachlan 717]

V700 over the V750 and put the savings into film.

You'll get better results by learning how to shoot (i.e. taking more shots) than by trying to learn how to squeeze any difference out of a more expensive scanner.

[stevebrot]

Steve,
I am local to you and am willing to share what I know first-hand if you like. I too am a noob, but am a few months further along in the process. I also have a V700 if you are interested in seeing first hand how well it works with 4x5 and 120. I can probably also help with the darkroom questions too. PM me.


Steve

(I know...someone here is going to follow-up with something like "blind leading the blind"...any other Portlanders are welcome to mentor the both of us if you like...)

P.S. What lab in Portland are you currently using?

P.P.S. You are going to need that terabyte...scanned LF negatives can make for huge files...

[steve02]

Wicked! I am in Forest Grove and drive in to Blue Moon Camera. My girlfriend and I almost always stop at the Rock Creek pub so we don't "waste the trip"!

Where are you located Steve?

I am not worried about appearing professional or taking some teasing, I just like the way the world looks through the viewfinder.

[steve02]

Do the Epson's mentioned above come with software that is up to the requirements for negative and transparency scanning?

[E S]

So I have been reading everything I could find about flatbed scanners and Epson seems to be what I want/need but picking the "right one" is a tad intimidating.

I have a mac mini and a whole terabite hard drive to play with. I hope I am not asking a silly question and any guidance would be appreciated.

Steve.

P.P.S. You are going to need that terabyte...scanned LF negatives can make for huge files...

Steve02, I'm glad you asked this question as I was wondering about getting a scanner myself to speed things up... my current workflow involves taking a one-week wait (or so) for my nearby lab to scan my negatives. I'll be following this discussion to see what other advice comes out!

Stevebrot, or others as well, what minimum ram would you say is needed to handle a scan of a 4x5 from the Epson V700? I am away from my home laptop at the moment so can't say how much memory I have, but some suggestion would still be useful. Thanks!

Elizabeth

[Lachlan 717]

Steve02, I'm glad you asked this question as I was wondering about getting a scanner myself to speed things up... my current workflow involves taking a one-week wait (or so) for my nearby lab to scan my negatives. I'll be following this discussion to see what other advice comes out!

Stevebrot, or others as well, what minimum ram would you say is needed to handle a scan of a 4x5 from the Epson V700? I am away from my home laptop at the moment so can't say how much memory I have, but some suggestion would still be useful. Thanks!

Elizabeth

Min 2gig, preferably 4.

[E S]

Min 2gig, preferably 4.

Thanks! Now to see what I have and how much it'll cost for more... doesn't look like it'll be all *that* expensive.

[sully75]

I have an Epson 4870, I'm pretty happy with it.

They are relatively cheap on ebay. I sniped away on this one and got it for $100 at the last minute. I believe the next model up, the 4990 is similar but faster. It's not fast, but I usually set it up and leave it be and come back to it.

I have it set up with a different (old) laptop, because it slows down my regular computer. But you don't need to do that.

The Epson software is kind of annoying, and a little crude, but totally works. People will tell you to scan BW negative film in as positive and then reverse it. I've tried that and found it to be really annoying and of no benefit. Maybe I'm missing something. I scan it in as BW negative.

You absolutely have to get a better-scanning brand film holder to use this scanner. Look for their website. It's a waste of time not to, so figure that into your costs. I think the scanner and the film holder came to about $225.

All the recent pictures on my flickr have been done with this scanner. I'm still learning to develop BW film and also to manage dust, so take that into consideration.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulmcevoy