Howtek 8000 Drum vs. Epson V850 flatbed scanners

[Tin Can]

Jody, I don't shoot color or chromes

My V700 works well FOR ME just laying 11X14, 8X10 and 5x7 B&W on bare platen

4X5 I use OE holder

Even in fancy holders smaller film results ARE lousy

Can anybody see any problem in this 11X14?

[Pere Casals]

That's all that needs to be said. See you on page 25!

This was only an excercise to maximize grain, instead see post #33: https://www.largeformatphotography.i...=1#post1557499

[Pere Casals]

The other thing to know if that for 8x10's, you have to place the negative on the platen glass which uses a second, less sharp lens for scanning than the primary lens used for the smaller formats:35mm, 120 and 4x5. So there's that to consider

Yes, you use the provided area guide and you place the negative on the glass bed with emulsion side down to minimize Newton Rings effects, you may also wet mount directly on bed. When not using a holder the epson uses a lens that covers the entire bed and optical yield is 75% of the one you have with the "super-resolution" lens, which still yields well more than effective 300MPix for a 8x10".

An Epson 8x10 scan is equal or better than a drum scan at 2000dpi, the drum has to go 4000dpi to beat the Epson, but a 4000dpi scan may cost several hundred dollars, real benefit is scarce, and many times it's not even offered.

The Epson + 8x10" is a powerful combination.

Finally, if I was to really make a large print, I would use the services of someone like Peter Figen to provide the best drum scan I could get. Since I don't print myself, I would want to use a service that combines the scan and print process as it seems that's the best way to get the best final print results.

Of course this would be a wise decision: allow a master like Figen to use his own tools.


Anyway the scans you are making/editing on your own are totally Pro top notch level, absolutely there is no doubt. A choice you have is ordering a 8x10" print with a mosaic of 16 interpretations of the same image that you'll inspect with a magnifier, you have to touch the print to see the right settings, and then you order a 8x10" print of the candidate interpretation to check it better, and finally you order the really big print. You also may order a 8x10" print with a mosaic of real print size crops with different sharpening settings...

But a "bird" like Figen is to make sound a personal interpretation that it would be worth to learn from, and in that case best is that he departs from the real negative, I agree.

____

Also don't overlook the possibility to print on real silver photopaper with lightjet or lambda, ilford lab direct does it in RC with frontier (up to 10") and lightjet, but Bob Carnie offers it with FB. Ink is nice, FB is FB.

But for dense negs/positives like my Velvia 50 shots, the drum scanner is perhaps the only way to get a truly adequate scan.

there is a new surprise coming soon: the V800 performance with dense Velvia, using multi-exposure.


Until now Silverfast stated V700 performance was 3.38D with multi-exposure (https://www.silverfast.com/highlight...posure/en.html), which IMO it's a fair rating for the V700, but for the new V800 they state 4.04D with ME. I don't know is this is due changes in the LED illumination that can be better controlled or because of changes in the firmware or by the firmware controlling the LEDs... also I don't know if the new 4.04D rating is a fair as the 3.38D was for the V700...

But now they are stating 4.04D !!! acording ISO 21550:2004, which is the norm expensive scanner manufacturers specified for their D ratings.



If this ends being true... it will be LOL !!!

Using multi-exposute takes at least twice the time, but you would be surprised how well velvia is scanned in a V700 with that, beyond what you may syspect. I you want, send me a sample dense slide and I'll scan it with V750 and V850, just PM, and you will know it.

nor do I want to spend CAD $1700 +tax for an Epson.

Right now Epson (used or new) way more than what it used, there is no stock, I guess it was the covid impact. Probably post-covid V700 price (used) will return to $300, and V800 (new) to $500.

The V700 is substantially better than the i900, as always... another thing is when this makes a difference.

[grat]

First, thanks to Alan for providing the comparison.

There's been very little effort at producing real world comparisons in this revolving argument, and it's mostly been theory wars backed up by highly subjective "proof".

Unfortunately, the camps in this discussion are so highly polarized that it's bordering on fanaticism, with each faction claiming the same evidence only supports their side.

Here's my take:

* A drum scanner that used, is selling for over $5k USD, is producing better images than a scanner that sells new for approximately $1k**. In other news, water is wet, the sky is blue.
* With some effort, you can get mild improvements out of the Howtek scan, and with minimal effort, you can get significant improvement out of the Epson scan.
* If the Howtek image is a 10 out of 10, the Epson can produce 9/10 images. For many people, that's good enough. For those who need that last 10%, find a vintage drum scanner.

Of course, the last time I expressed this sort of an attitude, I was told to bugger off. *shrug*

** Epson v800 is around ~ $900 USD new, and the v850 is ~ $1100.

[Jody_S]

Right now Epson (used or new) way more than what it used, there is no stock, I guess it was the covid impact. Probably post-covid V700 price (used) will return to $300, and V800 (new) to $500.

The V700 is substantially better than the i900, as always... another thing is when this makes a difference.

Why is it better than the Microtek with 8x10? I dont see the point in spending CAD $1632+tax for a V850 if it won't even scan the format I shoot with the good lens!


I've been waiting for them to come down to $300-500 for 5+ years now. Still waiting. In the meantime I'll see what i can do with the Microtek's 4.0 Dmax that's not a software gimmick like the ultra-high ISOs on dSLRs.

Sent from my LG-H873 using Tapatalk

[Pere Casals]

In the meantime I'll see what i can do with the Microtek's 4.0 Dmax

First, no doubt you will get good scans with the i900, specially if you edit the image proficiently, as required with the Epson.

Reportedly the i900 has no SNR by 3.0D, compare SNR with the Epson. Also the Epson is multi-exposure capable:

https://www.largeformatphotography.i...=1#post1471805


Here (in german) it is stated that the i900 resolves elements 4.5 or 4.6 depending on the axis, this is 1300 to 1450 effective dpi. The V700 resolves 2300 in the vertical axis and 2900 in the horizontal axis for 4x5.

For 8x10" the Epson has a 25% loss because it uses the lens covering all the entire bed instead the one covering 5.9".

In my country the Epson had a pre-covid price of 453,71€ plus taxes, but no stock now: https://www.pccomponentes.com/epson-...er-fotografico

IIRC, Pre-covid the V700 had $250 to $350 prices (used), not extrange given the V800 price new, with warranty, led illumination and ANR holders.



Difference is that the Epson a bit reaches the resolving power an LF negative usually sports while the Mikrotek comes a bit shorter, having a similar yield than the V600, if you compare scans of the V500-600 with the V700-850 ones there is a noticeable diffrence.

You may ask Alan what difference he saw from his V600 to his new V850 for MF, this is the same than i900 vs V850. Now we see him making "side by sides" with howteks , and this is not a joke.

[Joe S1]

An Epson factory reconditioned v800 is available for $599 at Adorama currently.

[Alan Klein]

This is I believe the 3rd iteration of this argument/discussion since I've been reading here, and I'm coming away with the same impression I got from the previous 2: for a hobbyist who never prints over 1m, there is little to be gained in terms of sharpness in buying and maintaining a drum scanner. But for dense negs/positives like my Velvia 50 shots, the drum scanner is perhaps the only way to get a truly adequate scan. I've been photographing them with a dSLR, and since that wasn't a good solution I just stopped shooting chromes.

I recently purchased a Microtek i900 flatbed hoping that this is an acceptable workaround, as I really don't want to go to the expense and learning curve for a drum scanner, nor do I want to spend CAD $1700 +tax for an Epson.

Jody, Here are my Velvia 50's scanned with an Epson V600. I haven;t printed them but they seem OK for digital display. https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort=...N05&view_all=1

[Kiwi7475]

First, thanks to Alan for providing the comparison.

There's been very little effort at producing real world comparisons in this revolving argument, and it's mostly been theory wars backed up by highly subjective "proof".

Unfortunately, the camps in this discussion are so highly polarized that it's bordering on fanaticism, with each faction claiming the same evidence only supports their side.

Here's my take:

* A drum scanner that used, is selling for over $5k USD, is producing better images than a scanner that sells new for approximately $1k**. In other news, water is wet, the sky is blue.
* With some effort, you can get mild improvements out of the Howtek scan, and with minimal effort, you can get significant improvement out of the Epson scan.
* If the Howtek image is a 10 out of 10, the Epson can produce 9/10 images. For many people, that's good enough. For those who need that last 10%, find a vintage drum scanner.

Of course, the last time I expressed this sort of an attitude, I was told to bugger off. *shrug*

** Epson v800 is around ~ $900 USD new, and the v850 is ~ $1100.

This is exactly my thoughts. Thank you for articulating it clearly.

[Jody_S]

Reportedly the i900 has no SNR by 3.0D, compare SNR with the Epson.


Here (in german) it is stated that the i900 resolves elements 4.5 or 4.6 depending on the axis, this is 1300 to 1450 effective dpi. The V700 resolves 2300 in the vertical axis and 2900 in the horizontal axis for 4x5.

For 8x10" the Epson has a 25% loss because it uses the lens covering all the entire bed instead the one covering 5.9".

In my country the Epson had a pre-covid price of 453,71€ plus taxes, but no stock now: https://www.pccomponentes.com/epson-...er-fotografico

IIRC, Pre-covid the V700 had $250 to $350 prices (used), not extrange given the V800 price new, with warranty, led illumination and ANR holders.

The cheapest used V700 that will ship to me is currently CAD $765, compared to cheapest new V850 which is CAD $1264 on fleabay (CAD $1632 if I buy from a Canadian retailer, so Euro 1077, USD $1191). These prices are absurd. I've never paid more than $100 for a used scanner, going back 20 years. I'll be hit with 15% sales tax on any of these, new or used.

The i900 is a small step up from my HP G4050, which was a small step up from the HP I had before that. Since I'm not printing, I'm more interested in tonal range for B&W. I don''t scan 8x10s over 1200dpi unless I intend to have it printed, then I'll re-scan. I confess I had not seen the German scanner test for the i900 before buying, but I've been having problems with dust and newton rings scanning directly on glass and I liked the idea of the transparency drawer on the i900. In any case, the Epsons simply aren't in my budget at the moment, I would rather spend that sort of money on lenses than on a scanner. Scanning and editing is a chore, and I don't see many shortcuts to make it more enjoyable.