To buy or not to buy an Epson 850

[BKP]

I'm thinking about purchasing an Epson 850. I have over a thousand 4x5 negs/chromes and about a hundred 8x10s.
Is there another brand of scanner that is comparable, in price and quality? I'm willing to forgo the 8x10 capability, though a quick scan of slide page or neg page seems interesting.
What I would like to know from experienced users is how pleased/ displeased they are with their purchases and why?
Do they recommend the accessory fluid carrier?
The $1500 CAD is quite an expense for an old guy on a fixed income. I've been thinking about it for a long time. As always any comment is appreciated. Thanks..bkp

[Duolab123]

A friend of mine who recently closed his shop, he retired. They used a 850 for anything bigger than a 6x7 cm negative. He was very satisfied, no wet mounting.

[otto.f]

I can’t complain either, indeed from 6x7 and up, perfect. I wouldn’t know what would be better to buy new for a reasonable price though. In this forum you can find a convincing plea for Howtek, but I didn’t see a reliable offer yet.

[lenicolas]

I own a V850 with silverfast ai.
It’s been packed away for about 6 weeks now in prevision of a move.
In the meanwhile I digitise (6x6 and 4x5) with a digital camera and a light table.
I do not miss the Epson.

I made a 4min video (https://youtu.be/Pn6alLkNwnU) on how I invert my color negatives. It takes just three adjustment layers and no extra plugin. I get more consistent results than with silverfast because nothing is left to the interpretation of a software.
Black and white and slides are obviously much easier.

Considering the cost of a V850, if I was starting from scratch I’d rather buy a good used copy stand and a fancy negative carrier. Assuming you already have a light table and a dslr with a macro lens.

[grat]

The Epson will produce consistent results, without too much effort. Not to say there isn't a learning curve, but once you establish your preferred process, it's easily repeatable.

Scanning at 2400 PPI and applying a mild amount of sharpening in post will produce some very nice digital images that can be printed at roughly 8x the original negative size (ie, scan at 2400, print at 300). By all accounts, wet mount scanning will produce an even better image.

You can do better with a Howtek or equivalent-- although they're far more expensive, and now in the "vintage hardware" category.

You can do better with a digital camera and a light table-- but in order to surpass the Epson, especially on large negatives, you have to stitch. It's not difficult, but far more tedious with more complications.

I'm using the v800, which appears to be discontinued(?), but is a more affordable option. Primary difference seems to be multi-coating, an included wet-mount tray, and a fancier version of Silverfast (which you can upgrade to for $100 USD, as the v800 comes with the basic license, and an upgrade option).

[Tin Can]

One of the first LF electronics I bought 9 years ago was a new V700. Now it has dust under the glass, but still chugging along

I won't replace it, ever... and use my 14 year old Brother Laser Copier/scanner if needed for Docs. I have only replaced the Toner once...

If and maybe not, I will buy the latest whiz bang Digi Cam with Pixel shift and 'scan' with it

and I will have a high grade Digi camera to use

I may desperately need AF with my failing eyes....

[NHE]

I don’t think there is much better for the price than the Epson scanners when it comes to large format. I wasn’t so happy with the performance for medium format but it is excellent for 8x10.

A drum scanner or a DSLR “scan” would probably be necessary if you want to extract maximum detail, but if you don’t want to make really large prints.

However it will take a really long time to scan that many negatives/slides with the epson, it is not quick to scan. If you have a digital camera already I would seriously look at “scanning” with it as it is much faster.

[BKP]

Thank-you all. Very much appreciated information. I currently do DSLR scanning on 35mm and 120 but have not even considered setting something up to shoot a 4x5. Probably something I should have tried long ago, considering I have a few not in use dichroic heads. The feed back thus far has convinced me "go ahead and dive in", more ink and paper to buy. Once again Thanks all. bkp.

[lenicolas]

Of those 3 formats, 4x5 is the easiest to “scan” with a dslr.
Sheet film is usually much flatter than roll film, and being the biggest format, the reproduction factor isn’t so big, and the depth of field not so narrow.

I setup so that the narrow side of a 4x5 sheet fills the width of my frame (roughly a 1:3 enlargement) and I move the light table to cover the length of the 4x5 (usually 4 shots)

Then I stitch using photomerge (perspective mode) straight from camera raw.

[Tin Can]

Started looking at wet scan

Found on Petal Pixel this youtube (https://youtu.be/Zg6uO2ODvbY), he makes it seem easy


https://petapixel.com/2017/02/14/wet-mount-scanning-get-highest-quality-film-scans-home/

[SergeyT]

I made a 4min video (https://youtu.be/Pn6alLkNwnU) on how I invert my color negatives. It takes just three adjustment layers and no extra plugin. I get more consistent results than with silverfast because nothing is left to the interpretation of a software.


Does your method work as easily and consistently on negatives of Green grass (and nothing else in it) or Red, Blue( you name it solid-color walls) with nothing close to Black and White in the image?
What about images with distinct tint , such as twilight scenes?

Thank you,
SergeyT

[SergeyT]

I have never worked with Epsons, but according to the comparisons done by other forum members, they appear to be as good as it gets when it comes to finding a scanner that can be used to scan 4x5 and larger, is current and on a budget.
Where they are lacking :
- Fidelity of tone reproduction (a flaw that is typical to all flat bed scanners regardless of the price range). At the end of the day it might not be that important or detectable on a majority of scans, especially when it comes to scanning of color or BW negatives.
- Absence of batch scanning. Each sheet will have to be mounted , scanned and unmounted individually.
- No auto-focus
Resolution is not an issue. Are you going to be making 100s of 40x50 prints from your scans? If yes, then how much that printing will cost in comparison to scanning cost?

Are there better options? Certainly but they come with a bunch of their issues.

High-end flat-bed scanners :
- Allow for an easy batch scanning. Lay your 4x5s on a 12x18 scanner bed, do a prescan, set the scanning parameters for each prescan and let the scanner and computer do the magic, while spending your time on something meaningful or fun. That feature alone makes a digicam scanning a no-go for me. Also a post capture stitching that is required to increase the resolution when digitizing a 4x5 with a digicam is absolutely not my thing.
- Allow for a wet mounting (and still batch scanning) . Smoothes out all the artifacts from minor scratches and grain. Enhances the contrast and tone reproduction fidelity.
- Can outresole the Epsons and can be practically used for scanning any film formats from 35mm and on
- They are bulky and heavy (for a good reason- built to last , work 24x7 and be exceptionally precise)
- The software to run them requires and older hardware (mostly MACs with OS 12.8 and sometimes even OS 9)
- Sometimes can be found next to nothing, but the supply is getting scarce
- Usually come with no support from manufacturers. But if they were faulty they would not make it that far anyway...
- There are dedicated forums or groups where plenty of knowledge and support can be gained
- There are vendors that refurbish and sell then with limited after sale support. Will cost $$$

Drum scanners :
- Are the ultimate digitizing machines when it comes to scanning film.
- The major advantage of a drum scanner over a flatbed (any flatbed) is that they do not suffer from flare and therefore (if calibrated and profiled properly) produce the most accurate representation of the film originals. Is this advantage always obvious? In my experience - it depends. On 4x5s and up it is hard to see usually. On 35mm it is obvious most of the time if you look at the scans side by side. Scans from flatbeds require a more aggressive sharpening to match the perceived crispness of images from drum scanners.
- Unlike the common wisdom that many photo forums suggest , from a practical standpoint, scanning resolution is not the major advantage of drum scanners and in many cases can be easily matched by high end flatbed scanners
- all other points for high-end scanners equally apply here

SergeyT

[lenicolas]

Does your method work as easily and consistently on negatives of Green grass (and nothing else in it) or Red, Blue( you name it solid-color walls) with nothing close to Black and White in the image?
What about images with distinct tint , such as twilight scenes?

Thank you,
SergeyT

Hi, I assume you mean “does the method work when there’s no real black, grey or white point in the image?”
I’m not a landscape guy, and I rarely photograph in very difficult light. ��
My personal belief is that there is no “truth” when it comes to Colours out of a colour negative. It’s always meant to be interpreted. Back in school when I used to print color negs on RA4 paper with an enlarger, I quickly found out that even on the same roll, different images always needed different filtration. What I’m saying is that yes, I always manage to get colours I’m happy with, but I don’t know if they’d satisfy photographers more enclined to capture “true colours”. When I am after “true colour”, I’d rather use digital with a colour checker card.

That being said, here are a couple files for you to play with if you’re curious to try my technique. These images are as hard as it gets to convert : lots of greens, and a blue hour shot.
Both files are opened in CR to crop and I took a white balance reading off of the film border. No other adjustments made.

210196
Mostly Grass, Portra 160, Mamiya C330s 105mm f/3.5

210197
Blue hour, Portra 400, Mamiya C330s 105mm f/3.5


And here are my own processing of these images, using the method from my video (I did use gradient adjustments in Camera Raw filter to vignette the car picture)

210198

210199

Have a nice Sunday. ✌��

[Alan Klein]

After ten years using a V600 with medium format, I bought a V850 this year when I started shooting 4x5 since the V600 does not handle 4x5. It does a nice job. Here are 4x5 samples.
https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort=date-taken-desc&safe_search=1&tags=4x5&user_id=55760757%40N05&view_all=1

I did a comparison between my V850 and another member's Howtek 8000. The V850 compares favorably although obviously it's not as good. The thread is here
https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?158728-Howtek-8000-Drum-vs-Epson-V850-flatbed-scanners&highlight=howtek

The V850 comes to two films holder for each size. That allows you to load the next film while the current is scanning. I don;t shoot 8x10. But the unit uses a less impressive lens for 8x10 then for 4x5 and smaller. The 8x10 sits on the glass while the other films use their special film holders. But since 8x10 is such a large format, other people have informed that the performance is still very good even though it's using the less resolving lens.

I've used Epsonscan software for both my V600 and V850 scanners. I don't often shoot color negative. But some people say Silverfast is better with that kind of film. But I can't confirm that or not.

Finally, scanning is a learning process. It can be frustrating and time consuming. If you get to the point where you want to blow your brains out, just know that we've been there too. Take a break. Have a schnapps or two. And come back here to ask a lot of questions once you get into it. Good luck.