Advice on getting a good Scanner for Large format

[Kaden Kratzer]

I have a Nikon Super Cool Scan 9000 ED for 35mm/120/and panorama.

I have been using an Epson V7000 for large format images and frankly
I am fed up with this piece of crap. Please give me some advice as I
am itching to replace it.

Thanks in advance.

[Greg Lockrey]

For under $3k I like my Epson 10,000xl. It has the ability to focus on the work.

[Joanna Carter]

I have been using an Epson V7000 for large format images and frankly I am fed up with this piece of crap. Please give me some advice as I
am itching to replace it.
I have been using an Epson V700 for large format images and frankly I am astounded at the quality of scans that I get for the price I paid. Having also bought a Better Scanning film holder, I have been able to get superb, sharp scans that will print up to 40" x 50", sometimes bigger.

Unless there is something seriously wrong with your scanner, I would be inclined to suspect operator error :D

[domaz]

I agree try using Vuescan with it, throw the built-in software away and try again.

[PenGun]

My V700 works well too. You need to learn how to operate them and finding best focus requires some time and effort. The Betterscan holders allow adjustment easily but you can get focus with the supplied holders.

I like Vuescan a lot. I'll buy the pro upgrade soon.

[Bruce M. Herman]

I purchased a used Eversmart Supreme and am relatively pleased with it. They are available for under $10k if you look around. I know of one person who purchased one from a bankrupt photo lab for $1000. Some have been available for sale on Yahoo's large format scanner web site (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ScanHi-End), although there is one there now for $15k. These are big and require some special care, but do not require oil based mounts, which is one reason that I bought what I did. There is also great support on the Yahoo site. If you're a business, Kodak will provide support, too, for both the scanner and the software.

There is a world of difference between professional scanner results and the those achieved with consumer grade scanners. I can see it in prints 16x20 and larger. If you're not printing at this scale, or if you don't have a need for digital archives of your film, this may not be the right choice for you.

Best wishes in reaching your decision!

[Ken Lee]

You don't mention what you mean by Large Format: 4x5 is at the bottom end of the category. You also don't mention how large you intend to print.

If you shoot larger film, you can use a correspondingly poorer scanner, or make correspondingly larger images - and save money too, if that matters.

For the cost of a high-end scanner, one can get purchase quite a lot of Large Format equipment. Many cameras allow you to shoot a variety of formats, so you don't need to purchase multiple cameras if you don't want to.

[Joanna Carter]

I agree try using Vuescan with it, throw the built-in software away and try again.
Interestingly enough, I use, exclusively, the Epson software and get great results. I tried both Silverfast and Vuescan and found them both to be quite a complicated user interface compared to the simplicity but effectiveness of the Epson. Not saying that the Epson software is perfect; far from it but, to my mind, it is the simplest to use and can give good results.

[Lenny Eiger]

I have a Nikon Super Cool Scan 9000 ED for 35mm/120/and panorama.

I have been using an Epson V7000 for large format images and frankly
I am fed up with this piece of crap. Please give me some advice as I
am itching to replace it.

Thanks in advance.

Get a Howtek 4500. Its a drum scanner, not some facsimile thereof. Images will be sharp, you'll get every bit of quality you've been looking for... They're very inexpensive these days. I like the Digital PhotoLab software, there are others.... It's quite a far cry fro what you are used to...

Lenny

[Bruce Watson]

I have been using an Epson V7000 for large format images and frankly I am fed up with this piece of crap. Please give me some advice as I am itching to replace it.

Sadly, the new scanner market has large gaps in it. There's little between the consumer flatbed you are fed up with and the professional flatbeds which cost an order of magnitude more money. (I include the Hasselblad / Imacon scanners with the professional flatbeds. Marketeering aside, they are CCD scanners scanning a line-at-a-time just like flatbeds.)

Your best bet perhaps is a used drum scanner. Doesn't have to be a Howtek (sorry Lenny). Anything that's working has the capability to just squash the Epson in scan quality. Degree of squash depends on level of enlargement of course. In terms of bang-for-your-buck, a used drum scanner can't be beat.

For more money you can buy a used professional flatbed, which I think will give you less scanning bang-for-your-buck than a used drum scanner, but which may be worth considering depending on your needs.

[Kaden Kratzer]

Thanks folks.

http://kadenkratzer.blogspot.com/?zx=58bf6e8ff9efe7e4

[Diane Maher]

I have been considering getting an Epson V750 because it can scan up to 8x10 transparencies. I have also heard that Microsoft is getting ready to put out yet another new operating system. I also need to buy a new computer sometime soon. I am at the bottom end of most system requirements now. My concern about the scanner is that it might not work on the new computer OS. Is Epson putting out software updates for their scanners?

[Joanna Carter]

I have been considering getting an Epson V750 because it can scan up to 8x10 transparencies. I have also heard that Microsoft is getting ready to put out yet another new operating system. I also need to buy a new computer sometime soon. I am at the bottom end of most system requirements now. My concern about the scanner is that it might not work on the new computer OS. Is Epson putting out software updates for their scanners?
Hi Diane, can I, in all seriousness, suggest you might like to look at getting a Mac computer? Apart from the usual "no viruses here" quip, I would like to point out that driver compatibility is often less of an issue than it would be with new versions of Windows. Even though OS X is a 64bit operating system, you can still run a great many 32bit drivers, something that Windows users could not do when moving from Win32 to XP64.

If you would rather stick with Windows, there is absolutely no need to stick with the copy of Vista that gets installed, you can legally "downgrade" to Windows XP Professional, which is much less of a memory and resource hog. As for Windows 7, I would not touch it with the proverbial barge-pole until a few service packs have settled things down a bit.

Don't forget that you can still run Windows on a Mac, if you really need to keep some of your old software running; although I have found that the only Windows progeams I now run on my Mac are the development tools I use for work, everything else I needed either came with the computer or could be obtained for little or free.

[Dan Schmidt]

For under $3k I like my Epson 10,000xl. It has the ability to focus on the work.

can you scan 7x17 negatives with it?

[Jeremy Moore]

can you scan 7x17 negatives with it?

From the Epson website:


Includes 12.2" x 16.5" transparency adapter.

If you're willing to lose a little on the ends (though how much is a question as a 7"x17" doesn't have a 7"x17" image area) you're good.

[Lenny Eiger]

Your best bet perhaps is a used drum scanner. Doesn't have to be a Howtek (sorry Lenny). Anything that's working has the capability to just squash the Epson in scan quality. Degree of squash depends on level of enlargement of course. In terms of bang-for-your-buck, a used drum scanner can't be beat.


Bruce, I really wouldn't care. I just know that one personally. I know there are others but I can't directly speak to a Falcongetter, etc. The only thing I like about the Howtek is that you can still easily get service. Deals abound on these machines and others that are similar... If one can afford just a little more to cover one of these, I think they will be very happy using a real tool designed for this purpose... scanning film. There are limits, of course, can't scan larger than 8x10, etc. I have direct experience myself with them and feel good about recommending them.

Lenny

[AFSmithphoto]

I actually would recommend Windows 7. I have the release candidate running on one of my computers now, and it is much faster than XP.

Part of the reason for this is that I have 4 gigs of Ram and a 64-bit processor, the full potentail of which can be used by a 64-bit operating system. (Not true for XP)

The ram used by the system in 7 is higher than xp, so if you're short on ram I wouldn't recomend the upgrade, or if your computer is so old that it doesn't have a 64-bit CPU than I would stay away.

Other than that I would say go for it.

Its also not actually true that 32 bit drivers won't work on a 64 bit system. If it had been a 32-bit/64-bit problem, 32-bit versions of Vista would have worked just fine. They didn't.

The problem with Vista's compatability issues was that very few 3rd party companies wrote drivers for their hardware, and there was no way microsoft could keep write all those drivers on their own.

Windows 7 isn't even out yet, and everything I've hooked up to it has worked fine. (Epson 4900, USB devices and drives, Firewire Drives, Video Camera, and even my old Minolta 5400 Elite II.) If something doesn't work, there's even a Windows XP compatability mode in which Windows 7 emulates XP. This is obviously not ideal, but might work for that old piece of gear you have that got support for it pulled years ago. (My Minolta.) Just my two cents.

[Diane Maher]

I would be planning to stick with PC since I do bring my stuff home from work on occasion and work on it on my PC. Plus, I think a lot of my old software may have had Mac equivalents, but I don't have them. A fellow LF'er who lets me borrow the Creo scanner in his lab at work has it hooked up to a Mac and I have to do a shift in how I think and work to get some of my larger negs scanned. It is not the most intuitive system I've ever worked with. I have an old SCSI scanner, a Minolta Dimage Scan Multi that I use for my small formats (35 mm, 120, I think I even scanned 110 in the 120 holder once). I think it scans up to 6x11 cm and it works well enough for my purposes that I don't really want to add it to the landfill (or whatever happens to used electronics these days).

Is it possible to set up a network with an older computer and a newer one?

[Joanna Carter]

I would be planning to stick with PC since I do bring my stuff home from work on occasion and work on it on my PC. Plus, I think a lot of my old software may have had Mac equivalents, but I don't have them. A fellow LF'er who lets me borrow the Creo scanner in his lab at work has it hooked up to a Mac and I have to do a shift in how I think and work to get some of my larger negs scanned. It is not the most intuitive system I've ever worked with. I have an old SCSI scanner, a Minolta Dimage Scan Multi that I use for my small formats (35 mm, 120, I think I even scanned 110 in the 120 holder once). I think it scans up to 6x11 cm and it works well enough for my purposes that I don't really want to add it to the landfill (or whatever happens to used electronics these days).
If you have to work with a SCSI scanner, then the newer Macs do not have direct support for it but you can get an adapter to either Firewire or USB. You would also need to check out the availability of connectivity and drivers for the newer versions of Windows on a PC.

If your friend has an old Mac for the Creo scanner, prior to OS X Leopard, then the OS may seem a little clunky compared to the latest version.

As for software, Microsoft do a version of Office for the Mac so that you can continue to work on documents created on a PC and save them in the correct format. What's more, they only charge $149.95 for a Home and Student edition that is good for thre licences.


Is it possible to set up a network with an older computer and a newer one?
There should be no problem with networking more than one PC, or even a Mac to a PC; you can connect one computer directly to the other but if you have a router, you can share your internet connection as well as files and printers.

[sanking]

Bruce, I really wouldn't care. I just know that one personally. I know there are others but I can't directly speak to a Falcongetter, etc. The only thing I like about the Howtek is that you can still easily get service. Deals abound on these machines and others that are similar... If one can afford just a little more to cover one of these, I think they will be very happy using a real tool designed for this purpose... scanning film. There are limits, of course, can't scan larger than 8x10, etc. I have direct experience myself with them and feel good about recommending them.

Lenny

I have a lot of respect for the experience and wisdom of both Bruce and Lenny. However, IMHO a drum scanner, whatever its make, does not offer any advantage over a professional quality flatbed like the EverSmart for LF B&W and color negative scans. I don't make this claim from out of the blue but from careful comparisons of scans that I have done on my EverSmart Pro with those made for me on drum scanners, including the Howtek 4500.

However, for scanning of color transparency material a good drum scanner is capable of better results than a good CCD flatbed.

Sandy King

[Lenny Eiger]

I have a lot of respect for the experience and wisdom of both Bruce and Lenny. However, IMHO a drum scanner, whatever its make, does not offer any advantage over a professional quality flatbed like the EverSmart for LF B&W and color negative scans. I don't make this claim from out of the blue but from careful comparisons of scans that I have done on my EverSmart Pro with those made for me on drum scanners, including the Howtek 4500.

However, for scanning of color transparency material a good drum scanner is capable of better results than a good CCD flatbed.

Sandy King

I don't want to suggest anything different... However, I think there is a lot of difference between a Cezanne and the top Eversmart (or one could say between the lower end versions and the top end). I think, however, if I had 10 K to spend, and two scanners, an HR8000 and a Eversmart Supreme, both that cost that same 10K, I'd buy the drum.

The software is late-model, I wouldn't need some old Mac, there is support and I would get something that would excel on b&w negs, color negs and transparencies. The one exception, of course, is if I had some lantern slides, or other flat material that also had to be scanned. ULF film might also be a concern.

There's no reason to diss the top-end Eversmart. However, I feel that with a very good drum one can have the security that they have the hardware - and now its up the their scanning skills. There are many of these available... I hear about great deals all the time... Just my HO....

Lenny


The Eversmarts do seem to be at least as pricey as the drums'.

[mdd99]

I still use my Microtek 1800f, but for critical work, I send film out for a drum scan. Heresy, I know. Fees have come down tremendously the last couple of years, and if you work with a single business, you might be able to negotiate even smaller fees. Also don't forget that if you buy your own drum scanner, you're responsible for maintenance. Alas, things break.