epson 750 pro

[jhogan]

here (http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V750/page_1.htm) we go.

[Don Miller]

In stock now at buy.com

[Ralph Barker]

I'm hoping the 750 will replace the 3 scanners I'm using now - an Epson 3200 for 8x10 prints and 4x5 film, a Polaroid Sprintscan 120 for MF and 35mm film, and an old Epson Expression 800 pro for 8x10 film. We'll see when it arrives next week.

[Jack Flesher]

Any word on how the 750 compares head-to-head with the 4990?

[Capocheny]

Jack,

In my travels either here or on the P.net site... there was info that said this scanner does better at some things than the 4990 and vice versa. I'll try to find the link.

Or, one of the experts will hopefully wade in (Ted? Are you there? :)) here. :)

At the end of the day... this is the one I'm waiting for. However, it'll probably not arrive in Canada for another year!!!! :) Just kidding!

Cheers

[Ted Harris]

Henry,

Been off instructing at a workshop since Thursday night and virtually no access to the internet.

AFAIK there are so far no objective full evaluations of the V750. My suspicions are that the earlier post on some things better than the 4990 and others not as good will be the case but that remains to be seen.

I just got a V700 for evaluation from Epson and will start to put it through its paces this week. I am told I am #1 on the list for a 750 evaluation unit as we are the primary audience for that machine. Got my fingers crosseed that will happensoon.

I will some real information on the 700 in a few days and will let everyone know when the 750 arrives.

[Jack Flesher]

Ted:

If we can put in our wish-list, I really would like to know how the 700 and 750 stack up against the 4990 -- especially on scanned LF emulsions ;)

[Don Miller]

Vincent at photo-i has done a full review of the 700 and 4990, and is in the middle of a 750 review. So what is your piont concerming an "objective full evealuation"?



Henry,

Been off instructing at a workshop since Thursday night and virtually no access to the internet.

AFAIK there are so far no objective full evaluations of the V750. My suspicions are that the earlier post on some things better than the 4990 and others not as good will be the case but that remains to be seen.

I just got a V700 for evaluation from Epson and will start to put it through its paces this week. I am told I am #1 on the list for a 750 evaluation unit as we are the primary audience for that machine. Got my fingers crosseed that will happensoon.

I will some real information on the 700 in a few days and will let everyone know when the 750 arrives.

[Capocheny]

Vincent at photo-i has done a full review of the 700 and 4990, and is in the middle of a 750 review. So what is your piont concerming an "objective full evealuation"?


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

[MJSfoto1956]

Historically, every flatbed scanner produced by Epson since the 2540 has overstated their "resolution" approximately by a factor of 2x (proven by head-to-head comparisons to drum scans that I have performed. This is due to a combination of "stepping" -- i.e. a form of interpolation, and cheap lenses). I would thus expect this new "6400 dpi scanner" from Epson to deliver "only" about 3200 real dpi -- and probably capable of only delivering even that only in the center of the scanning area.

Still, that is VERY respectable and is more than enough for any large-format specialist. (medium format would still likely to be slightly better off w/ dedicated scanner such as Nikon or Imacon, but of course, those cost much much more) I'm expecting this to be quite a decent machine regardless of its relatively low cost.

J Michael Sullivan

[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.

[milepost206]

Hi,

I have been looking at the new Epson 700 and 750 after planning to buy the Canon 9950F. I want something portable to drag to a research library to scan photos and negatives usable for 350 lpi printing.

I think the only difference between the 700 and 750 is the full version of Silver Fast and you get a copy of Monaco EzColor. For someone without color management the extra $$ is well worth it since prices appear around $700 with free shipping for the 750. We need the EzColor since our NewColor CMM software won't talk to the Epson.

The wet mount tray is nice but as long as you wet mount in the middle of the scanner bed, you can use a glass or mylar top sheet and mineral oil with excellent results. So no kudos for the wet tray.

If anyone gets some real hands-on use of either of these 2 scanners, I could sure use the feedback.

I want to know that this isn’t a case of stepper motor resolution instead of optical resolution. And that the Dmax is really 4.0 and not 3.5.

Thanks.

Randy

[Kirk Gittings]

"The wet mount tray is nice but as long as you wet mount in the middle of the scanner bed, you can use a glass or mylar top sheet and mineral oil with excellent results. So no kudos for the wet tray."

Not true on any of the previous scanners because the focusing point was never on the glass. If you ever tried it, as I have, on numerous flat beds, the results was less than optimal because the focus was always off (unless you also put a proper thickness mylar sheet under the neg to get it up to the right level-a pain a further complication and a pain in the butt). The wet mount tray on the 750 is with the focal point on the glass as I understand it.

[paulr]

"The wet mount tray is nice but as long as you wet mount in the middle of the scanner bed, you can use a glass or mylar top sheet and mineral oil with excellent results. So no kudos for the wet tray."

Not true on any of the previous scanners because the focusing point was never on the glass. If you ever tried it, as I have, on numerous flat beds, the results was less than optimal because the focus was always off (unless you also put a proper thickness mylar sheet under the neg to get it up to the right level-a pain a further complication and a pain in the butt). The wet mount tray on the 750 is with the focal point on the glass as I understand it.

yeah, i agree. i'm assuming the wet mount tray on the 750 is height adjustable? if so it looks like a great convenience.

[paulr]

this is interesting timing. i'm 90% certain my 4870 just died. but i really don't want to spend $700+ on a scanner (or anything else) right now.

i'm wondering if the 750 pro is the way to go, or maybe just the cannon 9950. less than half the price, and quality that fairly close to the 750 on the photo-i tests.

[Kirk Gittings]

"i'm wondering if the 750 pro is the way to go, or maybe just the cannon 9950. less than half the price, and quality that fairly close to the 750 on the photo-i tests."

I don't understand this statement. The side by side scans that I see on that test show a clear improvemnent with the 750. Not a dramatic improvement but clearly sharper.

[Ralph Barker]

Well, I've got my V750pro running, although I haven't tried to optimize anything, verify focus point, etc. Plus, I haven't rechecked monitor calibration. But, here's a first scan with Silverfast Ai from a Fuji RAP 4x5 tranny at 600 DPI. The original scan at that resolution is 6424x8176, about 158MB, resized here for the Web. The clip is at full resolution.

[Kirk Gittings]

Damn that fabrick looks pretty good. No sharpening?

[Ralph Barker]

Damn that fabrick looks pretty good. No sharpening?

None on the clip. I do a light touch of USM between increments when downsizing.

[tim atherton]

Damn - I never realised you were that old ralph

[Ralph Barker]

Damn - I never realised you were that old ralph
My name is Ralph Barker, of the clan Barker, and I was born in the Highlands of Scotland in 14 . . . ;)

[milepost206]

"...Not true on any of the previous scanners because the focusing point was never on the glass. If you ever tried it, as I have, on numerous flat beds, the results was less than optimal because the focus was always off (unless you also put a proper thickness mylar sheet under the neg to get it up to the right level-a pain a further complication and a pain in the butt). The wet mount tray on the 750 is with the focal point on the glass as I understand it."


I guess I'm confused and don't want to sound argumentative.

When you scan a print, the lens depth of field is focused for a specific range for a depth of field on top of the glass surface to a certain distance above it and usually even wide enough to capture limited 3-D detail.

Even with an oil layer it shouldn't drive the negative so high as to be out of the depth of field. When you scan a mounted 35mm slide, the film is a lot farther from the glass surface than it is when you wet mount a neg or film positive.

I would believe that the tray is there for ease of use for multiple images and ease of clean up.

I used to put a layer of mylar under a neg or slide to make clean up easier. I found out that the sandwich never drove the mineral oil over, under, around and across the film. Instead, it created varying thicknesses of oil that looked like a focus problem on a scan when it was really diffraction of the image created by the oil.

Now, it is mineral oil on the glass and a mylar sheet, or glassplate, to flatten the image.

We have 2 scanners, an old Epson 636 for web work and a Heidelberg Nexscan. The wet process works on both very well. I can't address any other scanner's characteristics.

Our intended need for a 700/750 is portable use in research libraries. Needless to say, we have to take what we get because there are no wet mounts in libraries.

My interest is whether or not the scanner is any good. And from the recent post, the results look real nice, so far. Coupled with the additional software, it is becoming more attractive.

Thanks.

Randy

[Kirk Gittings]

Randy, The difference between laying the negative on the glass and putting it in the holder is crucial to a sharp scan (or getting it to that height). The difference in height does make a difference especially if you are talking about all the Epsons 3200,4870,4990 or Canon 9950F. There is very little depth of field with these and all these scanners below $1000.00 have a fixed lens (the Mictotek 1800f has a moveable lens for this but it is over 1000.00). I have tested this on like a dozen flatbed scanners. Every article I have seen on wet scanning on cheap flatbeds admits this including Holberts. They admit that the scans are less sharp "but acceptable". Nonsense by LF standards. Why shoot Lf and then accept a soft scan that you have to oversharpen to make acceptable? Test it. Response to these focusing issues is why epson has included wedges to raise or lower the film holders to find the optimum position.

[Dan Baumbach]

Well, I've got my V750pro running, although I haven't tried to optimize anything, verify focus point, etc. Plus, I haven't rechecked monitor calibration. But, here's a first scan with Silverfast Ai from a Fuji RAP 4x5 tranny at 600 DPI. The original scan at that resolution is 6424x8176, about 158MB, resized here for the Web. The clip is at full resolution.

Looks pretty good. Was this a wet scan or dry?

- Dan.

[paulr]

"i'm wondering if the 750 pro is the way to go, or maybe just the cannon 9950. less than half the price, and quality that fairly close to the 750 on the photo-i tests."

I don't understand this statement. The side by side scans that I see on that test show a clear improvemnent with the 750. Not a dramatic improvement but clearly sharper.

the difference was there in the 4000 dpi scans of 35mm negs. i don't think i'd see a difference in 4x5 for small enlargements. i guess the question is how much difference there'd be in 120 film scans.

[tim atherton]

My name is Ralph Barker, of the clan Barker, and I was born in the Highlands of Scotland in 14 . . . ;)

both of my sons are Ruthvens (pronouned Riven) from their mothers side - an interesting clan to be a member of... oops - we don't know how Signore Rizzio got those 57 stab wounds your majesty - perhaps it was suicide... or later - why King James has merely been our "houseguest" for a year....

[lee\c]

Clan of Carmichael here parents went to the Castle and bought the tartin stuff.


lee\c

[Ralph Barker]

Looks pretty good. Was this a wet scan or dry?

- Dan.

Dry, using the regular film holder without checking for focus optimization.

[Doug Dolde]

How is the wet mount tray designed? Does it sandwich the film between two sheets of glass or only have glass on the bottom side? Anyone have a photo of it?

[Ralph Barker]

Doug - it's a shallow, glass-bottomed (no cover glass) tray with side handles. Inside measurements are about 186mm x 248mm. Sorry, no photo.

[milepost206]

Hello,

Thanks for the dialog on focus. I understand the idea of optimal focus. What I am struggling with is the idea that the new scanners mentioned don’t have adequate depth of field.

You mention that Epson includes mechanical step wedges to raise the film holders to optimize the scan. Are they included with the 700/750? Or has this problem been eliminated?

Do you have to wedge prints to achieve the same optimized quality? I hope not. If so, we need to move on to another scanner with a greater depth of field.

My question is how does the scanner know the difference from a print and a slide if it uses a fixed focus lens that requires 2 separate heights for scanning? When you scan a print the image scanned is at glass level. If you scan film in a holder, it is a certain distance above the glass.

I think I am missing something and it might be important since we do scan negatives in libraries of all sizes, many times from negatives that will not fit film holders. We get negatives to scan that won’t fit the Nikon 8000/9000.

I just want to be sure that the 700/750 really is an excellent product that will do the job for us. And you’re right about sharpening. I’d rather have a better scan.

Other than a higher price scanner weighing 46 pounds (Microtek 1800F), what other scanners offer better focus and depth of field?

A photo of the wet mount tray would be good, too.

Thanks.

Randy

[Ralph Barker]

My assumption is that the lens may have two fixed points of focus, activated by the switch from reflected to transparency mode. But, I don't know that as a fact, and haven't actually tried to verify my theory.

If you're scanning negatives of odd sizes, I think you'd either have to make your own holders or use the wet-mount tray. Note, however, the tray is not big enough for an 8x10, so I plan to make my own substitute.

[milepost206]

Hi Again,

I hadn't found (or missed) the photo-I review mentioned in an earlier post.

Here's the link:

http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V700/page_1.htm

It cleared up most of my gray matter.

Still want to read more feedback on the 750.

Thank you.

Randy

[paulr]

I understand the idea of optimal focus. What I am struggling with is the idea that the new scanners mentioned don’t have adequate depth of field.

You mention that Epson includes mechanical step wedges to raise the film holders to optimize the scan. Are they included with the 700/750? Or has this problem been eliminated?

Do you have to wedge prints to achieve the same optimized quality? I hope not. If so, we need to move on to another scanner with a greater depth of field.

The way it seems to work with epson is that the focal point is a bit higher than the glass, and the scanners have plenty of depth of field for getting great scans from flat art placed on the bed.

However, for the higher standards most people have for scanned film, it's usually worthwhile to raise the film to the precise focal point.

Film scanned at the plane of the glass will look good ... it won't immediately look out of focus. but in side by side comparisons with a scan done at the actual focal plane, you'll see a quality difference.