I have the epson v500. my posts here show how angry I am at it. now, it's only scanning in purple!
I've got to bring it to a service center. my best laid plans with it when out the window.
I was going to sell it on ebay and use the money to get something better, but it's not worth selling so I will keep it for a flat bed (I also have a hp 5500c scanner that never lived up to what it said it should).

anyhow, now I'm looking for a MF scanner. Does anyone have any recommendations? I want have a glass tray to load the film, ICE, auto-focusing, USB, etc... I needs to be able to scan 6x6, 35mm, slides, and those old film (17mm?) that they had in the 80's everywhere. I looked at the Nikon Coolscan V ($599 is a perfect price) but it looks like it doesn't do MF. the 9000 does scan MF, but $2K is a little too much.

ideas?

When did you purchase the scanner? Can you return it? It should be covered under a manufacturer's warranty.

As for replacement options, maybe an Epson V750-M Pro, or, if you'd rather not give any more of your money to Epson, have a look at the Microtek ArtixScan M-1?

One question for you: what do you mean when you say you need a "glass tray to load the film"? If you meant ANR glass or similar, unfortunately, that's never a supplied accessory, even with the Nikon. If you meant a fluid mounting station for wet scans, then the Epson comes with that, not sure about the Microtek. In any event, you should be able to get an aftermarket solution to work with any of the above - Epson, Microtek, or Nikon.

the scanner is still covered. I bought it 3 months ago. Problem is that they want me to bring it to a service center. the local service center is over a 3hr round trip. I wanted to bring it to them to get fixed. if I got a new unit from them, I could sell it on ebay, but when I look at the prices on ebay, it's not worth selling for $100.

glass tray, meaning anr
http://www.betterscanning.com/scanning/insert.html
something like that so that my slides with some curl to them get flattened out.

Used or a new Hasselblad scanner is very good.
http://www.hasselbladusa.com/products/scanners.aspx
Check out the movie too.

if a $2K nikon is too pricey, a $12K HB is out of the question.
at that price I would just get a leaf back

Microtek Artixscan 120tf. Its great. Get the glass holder as well. The old Polaroid 120 Sprint Scan is fine too. These scanners are siblings. Cheaper than the $2k for the Nikon. I got my 120tf three yers ago for $1100 new. I'm sure you can find a used one for less.

The Epson V700 is not bad for 6x7 negs and 4x5.

The Microtek M1 looks promising.

I do think that the Imacon 343/646 series is slightly better than the Nikon 8000/9000, which is slightly better than the Microtek 120tf, which is much better than most of the flatbeds. The difference bewteen these scanners in terms of IQ is really how flat they hold the film, how fast they operate, and the ease of their software.

Good luck with this. Scanning is really, really boring and difficult.

I'm looking to spend around $600. I can get a v750 new off ebay for $526 with cash back.
I've been googling and there aren't too many MF options for scanning.

you are talking to someone who has already scanned 300 slides, then realized they were backwards and rescanned them.
who scanned 2-3K pictures and hated the quality in the end so is starting again.
who took on the task of scanning another over 3K images from his grandmother.

I'm used to the boring work, but I just want to stop re-scanning them over and over again.

I'm just testing an Artixscan as its on offer for about US$250, its good but you do need the glass tray for 120, I'm finding it impossible to get a scan really sharp through the centre. It needs silverfast software as the others I'm trying seem to be clipping highlights. Great colour. I had the older polaroid 35mm model , it was ok too. but a Nikon would be better.
I have an older epson 4990 which is ok and very good for colour neg , not so good for the extra resolution in transparancy film
Imacons are great but expensive even second hand. I wish I could justify the expense, or even find one!
I shoot heaps of 35mm and MF digital, but good film scans are still hard to beat.

With a little luck you should be able to find a used Nikon Coolscan 8000ED or a Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro for that money. Start looking out for one and take your time, or you'll end up paying over $800. The Minolta comes with a glass holder for MF, while the Nikon needs it in addition. If the original owner does not have a glass holder already this might be a reason to look elsewhere because buying it new will be prohibitive, price wise. A Polaroid Sprintscan 120 or similar Microtek 120tf might be another option, although you will not have ICE dust removal then, which would be great to have if you want to save a lot of spotting time.

agree with above - easily your best option is a used Nikon 8000 (same as 9000 just a little slower, with identical optics) BUT you *must* get the wet mount tray, if you really want to get the best results. they can be found for a couple of hundred $ secondhand on eBay from time to time. dont be scared of wet mounting - its really easy and makes the biggest difference in the world.

if you get a used 8000, be sure to give it a clean inside - the instructions are online. and check yahoo nikon coolscan group for a lot of info.

good luck.

Buy a Nikon 9000 and sell it when you're done. It has ICE, which will save you TONS of time.

RE: ICE. It works with dye based emulsions only, no silver. This means it does not work with Tri-X, FP4 or HP5 etc.

Yep - But since the Rev. Aaron likes to shoot his poodles in color, he should be good to go.

Move to medium format and buy a specialized film scanner.
I scan Contax 645 with Nikon 9000.
You will see A LOT of difference comparing to 35mm.
Images are equal or better than any 22 mega pixels digital back, especially if you scan properly and add a bit of photoshop to these scanned 50 mega pixels.
Enjoy.

A Nikon scanner will never give better results than a 22 Mp back. When you use a leaf eversmart or IQ3 scanner or a good Imacon range scanner then you will get better results. A nikon 9000 or 8000 scanner is a scanner made for the amatuer market an a lot of detail gets lost in the proces. I had both but kikked them out for a creo scitex IQ3 flatbetscanner: the best scanner one can buy for less then 25000 euro.

I already shoot MF... that's what it says in this thread right from the start. but the scanner needs to be able to scan all the film that I have that was already shot in the decades before that (and some before I was born).

the worst thing is that Epson wants me to bring the scanner to a repair center.
I live in NH, they want me to bring it to Weymoth.
To get there during that places business hours would be about a 3.5hr to 5hr round trip.
I think I'm going to call and complain.

I'll 2nd the Artixscan 120tf - nice results, there is actually a Vista driver for it now that is dead stable - all my frustrations with Silverfast have suddenly gone away . . .

I have to mail in my scanner.
I'm probably going to lump it and get the AGR insert for my scanner.

I've been using a Nikon 8000 since 2001 and I can assure you that you're not losing any detail with the glass holder. Here is the link to a side by side I did with a Heidelberg Tango ($65,000 scanner at the time) back when I first got my Nikon. The Tango owner I used to work for sold it shortly thereafter and bought a Nikon himself.

I'm once again scanning and trying to figure out a better way to scan. I have like a couple hundred strips of 35mm to scan too. my epson v500 is terrible at b/w and it interaction with it is a bit much to get a strip of 120 scanned. I'm even using the glass insert and mount from betterscanning. I'm seriously thinking about the coolscan 9000 now that I have all those 35mm to shoot.

I tried to sell my Nikon 9000 scanner on this forum, but strangers (competitors/resellers/nice_people?) ruined my thread.
Anyway, I sold the scanner, that was an easy international deal, as usual.

I used Nikon 5000 and 9000.
The model 5000 is only for 35mm, but faster and has better holders. I believe the 5000 is a newer scanner than 9000.
The model 9000 has a slightly brighter lamps, which results in slightly better scans in my opinion, and its 35mm holder accepts two strips instead of one strip in model 5000.

Today, for the price of a drum scanner you can buy a 22 Mpx digital back.

get the 9000. well worth the price for what you need to do. keep in mind that both coolscan devices involve substantial processing time (~2 min per slide).

edit: to get pleasing scans, your film will need to be in pristine condition at the time of scanning. this is 4000dpi, afterall.

another vote for the Nikon, but it must be with a (3rd party) wet mount holder for best results - its easy to do (don't be scared of wet mounting, takes about a minute and gives perfect results)

you'll get countless others telling you to buy an Imacon - but believe me the Coolscan is amazing, and I've used 2 of them, plus a Tango, plus high end $30,000 flatbeds.

I've got the 9000 and after years of fussing around with different software options, I've learned I get the best results (for me, being closest to a contact print) going back to Nikon Scan and basically turning off all the options available. Once I start turning options on, it looks like crap.

The Artixscan 120tf looks nice, but even a properly working Epson is fine. Why? Because honestly, 2400-3000dpi is more than enough for medum format. 3000dpi scanned from 6x6 film is 45 million pixels worth of scanned data. That's plainly overkill already. You just don't need the 4000dpi resolution with film.

That said, the Epson scans both slides and negatives through the glass, which can cause a few problems. The V750, though is still a fine scanner. But it's not really made to be a dedicated film scanner.(though the Epson is a superb scanner for photos and such, no doubt about it)

I'd recommend the Artixscan M1. It's right at that price range that you want to pay and everyone seems to give it good reviews. It's made a bit more for this exact task than as also a normal scanner. It also does auto-focusing which is a nice thing, really.

you should buy a fire wire hard drive, and go renting an imacon... just scan as quick as you can, and finish the process home !

I've been looking back and forth at the 8000 and 9000 nikon.
I think I want to get a dedicated film scanner (not a flat bed).
The guy where I get my film developed said get a used imacon, but that's still like $6K!
no way.

Also, I organized all the negatives that I had. I bought 200 pages for 35mm and then went through them.
a lot of the 35mm negative holders were empty. and more than I thought were 110 (16mm).
So I would need a 16mm tray too.
no clue how many 16mm there are as I didn't go through them all yet. I know that most of the prints from the 16mm are gone.
Ended up being 50-70 pages (didn't count) of 35-7b pages filled except the film was cut in 4's not 5's.
Then I have about 23 rolls of 120/220 (and I shoot a roll a week).
finally, something like 230 mounted slides.

I'm going to be doing this while doing other work. so I want to set it up in minutes/seconds and then tell it to go and scan.


Also, how do you flatten out film that has been pinched/bent?
What software do people use with the nikon 5000/8000/9000? I'm looking at silverwhatever AI IT8 Studio.




This scanning project for my family archives is getting HUGE. I scanned in 1000's of prints 2-3 times and hated the results. Mailed the prints to scanmyphotos.com and got back "ok" scans. 2730 scanned for $125. Now, I'm using a document feeder to scan the backs for the images and match them back to the original print (so that writing on the back is preserved). Then I'm going to match negative scans back to what I can. This will fill in with overlap the missing negatives (from the prints side) and the missing prints (from the negative side) due to giving them away or photo-booking them. I'm going to end up giving out probably a 1TB drive to my family with web-based software on it so that they can help me organize it and it will synch through a central DB to get dates/locations/comments right. Plus, I can then update when I add more photos. I haven't really even looked into the 4-5 boxes of albums going back to 1850's. This project is pretty much priceless.

I'm getting a week furlough from my day job. Looks like I will get the 9000 and spend that week scanning.

I need to get the glass mount.
besides that this scanner is like wow wow wowie wow.
I'm floored just by the out of box results.

glad you think its good, but wait till you get the wet mount glass holder - it simply blows everything away when you use that!

I found the regular glass holder still gave me Newtons Rings, hence my pref for wet mounting. ymmv though.

I think you'll be very happy with the 9000. Mine is still doing yeoman service for many years now.
Bill

I'm going to second this!

Before switching to digital I wet scanned my transparencies on the Nikon 9000 and it got rid of the Newtonian Rings and greatly improved quality. I used Lumina fluid from ScanScience.com and I highly recommend it. It may be intimidating, but once you get the hang of it it’s fast. Good luck.

Kind regards,
Derek

you guys cost me so much money....

I'm scanning at the highest quality shrinking them by 50% and storing them.
a 35MB file should be good enough for most things.

If then I need something "better" I will send it to drum scan.

FWIW, and not to confuse you, the older Imacon 343 must be somewhat cheaper than $5k - it was that new. It willdo up to 6x12 (maybe longer), and has the advantage of ease of use. Digital ICE is an add on piece of software for this, but without the glass holder, its loads easier to scan without debris. I have one, like it a lot. Terrible for slides, tho, as you have to remove them from the mount. But I've scanned 35 mm fiche, and been just delighted with the quality. Had a Minolta Dimage Ultra II, couldn't come close.

On the other hand for simple, easy, workable, but not fine fine work - the Epson 700 is pretty easy to use. I use it for quick scans of slides for projecting. Not sure about printing from it tho. Digital ICE there is a breeze, and the software is very easy. For most things, its a fine scanner, but for high end MF work, I'd do some tests first.

I'm sure that if I got a epson 700/750 instead of the 500, I would complain as much and would have been "happy" with it. Mostly cause it can auto-focus. I will post the most striking comparison in a little while.

here is a comparison. This is typical of all the b/w I got out of my epson.
sending it into get serviced made the issue worse.

The epson was scanned with vuescan and a ANR insert on the epson v500.
The nikon was one of my first scans with everything off and me not know what I was really doing.

anyone got any settings that they use for scanning infrared?
my scans look like crap.