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 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, he makes it seem easy


https://petapixel.com/2017/02/14/wet...lm-scans-home/