Kenneth Sloan
Forum Enthusiast
Standard Mac application handling scanners.
Plug in scanner.
click on Software Update
scanner driver found and loaded
hit the "scan" button on the scanner
Image Capture fires up and handles the scan.
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-Kenneth Sloan
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Welcome to the new forums! Please read this first. For known issues we are working to resolve, click here.
Epson V600 vs V700 vs ? - scan 35mm (mounted) slides
- Thread starter Kenneth Sloan
- Start date
Plug in scanner.
click on Software Update
scanner driver found and loaded
hit the "scan" button on the scanner
Image Capture fires up and handles the scan.
--
-Kenneth Sloan
JulesJ
Forum Pro
I have the V700 and it's a great scanner, especially for negs. But it is not at all fast.
Jules
--
Julesarnia on twitter
Vibeke Dahl on Twitter is..
https://twitter.com/DahlPhotography
Jules
--
Julesarnia on twitter
Vibeke Dahl on Twitter is..
https://twitter.com/DahlPhotography
Kenneth Sloan
Forum Enthusiast
For 12 35mm slides: 5 min of my time - 45 min of scanner/computer time.
In theory, I ought to be able to do 1 roll of 36 every morning and another every afternoon.
Side note: Kodachrome from 1975 has held up remarkably well...
And (once the workflow has been mastered) the V700 is a pleasure to use.
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-Kenneth Sloan
In theory, I ought to be able to do 1 roll of 36 every morning and another every afternoon.
Side note: Kodachrome from 1975 has held up remarkably well...
And (once the workflow has been mastered) the V700 is a pleasure to use.
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-Kenneth Sloan
Wayne Larmon
Forum Pro
If you had paid attention to the people that recommended shooting slides with a camera, you'd be spending about 30 seconds per slide and would end up with better images.
Wayne
Kenneth Sloan
Forum Enthusiast
If you had read the original posting, you would not have made such a silly reply.
--
-Kenneth Sloan
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-Kenneth Sloan
Wayne Larmon
Forum Pro
I read it. You mentioned that you had a lot of slides to scan. And you were concerned about DMax.
Scanning with the V700 is very slow compared to shooting slides with a camera, as you are finding out. As far as DMax, the V700 only has 8 bits of dynamic range, at best. See
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V700/page_7.htm
My Canon 60D can get at least 11.5 bits of dynamic range, according to DxOMark. DSLRs that use the new Sony sensor, such as the Nikon D7000, can get a few more bits of dynamic range beyond that.
I started out roughly where you are, except that I already had a V600 (for scanning prints) when I decided to scan my family's slides. I knew from reading reviews that the V600 is all that is needed for prints, but is borderline for 35mm slides. I combed forums on several photo sites and, based on my research decided to abandon scanners (for 35mm slides) and go with shooting slides with my 60D + 60mm macro lens + PhotoSolve Xtend-a-Slide. The result is that slide scanning is a lot faster (as was reported in this thread), and I see much better dynamic range than I was able to get with my V600. The improvements of what I see comparing scans done with my V600 with what I get shooting slides with my 60D and processing them with CS5 ACR is much greater than the differences I see in the reviews that compare the V600 with the V700.
The DSLR option is attractive if you already have a decent DSLR body and macro lens. Maybe not so attractive if you don't and don't have any plans on getting one.
Sorry for being snippy. I should have elaborated when I posted.
Wayne
Kenneth Sloan
Forum Enthusiast
Did you read the part where I said I already knew how to use a camera to copy slides?
Did you compare my time estimate of 5 min / 12 slides to your estimate of 30 seconds / 1 slide?
Do you really think that your experience with the V600 translates directly to the V700?
Did you pay any attention at all to the title of this thread?
No - you were too interested in making a snarky forum post.
Carry on!
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-Kenneth Sloan
Did you compare my time estimate of 5 min / 12 slides to your estimate of 30 seconds / 1 slide?
Do you really think that your experience with the V600 translates directly to the V700?
Did you pay any attention at all to the title of this thread?
No - you were too interested in making a snarky forum post.
Carry on!
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-Kenneth Sloan
Wayne Larmon
Forum Pro
Mmmm, tell me in which part of your original post
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1018&message=38956937
did you say anything about a camera? You attacked me for not reading your original post.
Show me where you said this in your original post
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1018&message=38956937
Yes, after carefully comparing reviews on several sites that compared the V600 with the V700.
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V650/page-1.html
compared the V600 against the V750, which is mostly the same as the V700.
While
http://www.filmscanner.info/en/EpsonPerfectionV600Photo.html
and
http://www.filmscanner.info/en/EpsonPerfectionV700Photo.html
doesn't compare the V600 with V700 directly, it tests them both with the same test slides under the same conditions, so the results of the tests are comparable.
And I'll repeat that
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V700/page_7.htm
shows that the V700 only yields 8 bits, which is significant because you did indicate in your OP that you were interested in DMax.
I already apologized once for the snarky post. And I thought that I explained my point less snarkily in my second post.
Will you apologize for accusing me of not reading your original post? If you had stated in your original post that you had already compared shooting with cameras I wouldn't have posted as I did. I read in threaded mode and the only subject line that mentioned using cameras was a suggestion from another poster to consider shooting with a camera. You didn't reply to that post so I assumed that you hadn't considered cameras at all.
Wayne
JulesJ
Forum Pro
Maybe he shot b&w. I did. I shot thousands and thousands of b&w in my youth and only a handful of Slides. I couldn't afford them, and preferred b&w.
Jules
--
Julesarnia on twitter
Vibeke Dahl on Twitter is..
https://twitter.com/DahlPhotography
JulesJ
Forum Pro
What's the point of comparing the DR of your flashy ne digital camera with his negs/slides? It's completely irrelevant to this discussion.
--
Julesarnia on twitter
Vibeke Dahl on Twitter is..
https://twitter.com/DahlPhotography
Having used the V700 to scan 35mm colour film (to do a recent book), and doing 1 roll of film per night, I explored other means using a D90 (DX format) on a repro stand with a 13mm ext'n tube and 55mm micro-nikkor in conjunction with a Multiblitz Dia Duplicator. I just used the internal tungsten lamp with a custom white balance. Shooting RAW I then made a CS5 action to correct and invert the negative images. I copied 7 rolls of film (24exp) in about an hour and a half compared to two weeks using the V700 !!!
I reckon I could do slides at about one every 10 seconds and no need for all the elaborate gear.
But given the way you got your head bitten off, I don't think I will tell anyone about it
I reckon I could do slides at about one every 10 seconds and no need for all the elaborate gear.
But given the way you got your head bitten off, I don't think I will tell anyone about it
Kenneth Sloan
Forum Enthusiast
It's equally hard to keep people ON TOPIC.
Remind me...what's the title of this thread?
Look - I've been scanning prints and transparencies for 36 years. I have used just about every method known to man - ranging from a room-sized Rube Goldberg device that combined a metal working lathe with a 9-track tape drive all the way to a $19.95 plastic slide copier attachment to whatever cameras I had handy. Copy stands, bellows, extension tubes, drum scanners, re-photographing projected images - you name it, I've tried it. Technology changes...
Before starting this thread, I had narrowed down my choices for THIS project to the V600 and V700.
And the answer is: YES - the extra $$ for the V700 was worth it FOR ME.
Your milage may vary.
My profound thanks to those who helped me make the right decision.
--
-Kenneth Sloan
Remind me...what's the title of this thread?
Look - I've been scanning prints and transparencies for 36 years. I have used just about every method known to man - ranging from a room-sized Rube Goldberg device that combined a metal working lathe with a 9-track tape drive all the way to a $19.95 plastic slide copier attachment to whatever cameras I had handy. Copy stands, bellows, extension tubes, drum scanners, re-photographing projected images - you name it, I've tried it. Technology changes...
Before starting this thread, I had narrowed down my choices for THIS project to the V600 and V700.
And the answer is: YES - the extra $$ for the V700 was worth it FOR ME.
Your milage may vary.
My profound thanks to those who helped me make the right decision.
--
-Kenneth Sloan
Kenneth Sloan
Forum Enthusiast
"I know how to use a slide dup setup to copy the slides using my DSLR - been there, done that, have the torn t-shirt. That won't work for me."
--
-Kenneth Sloan
Wayne Larmon
Forum Pro
Ah, OK. I was searching for "camera", because this is what you said, above. I never use the any variation of the phrase "slide dup" so that didn't register with me. Sorry.
Here's the thing. If you had read the reviews, you'd have read this about the V700:
In a test scan of an USAF test chart the horizontal lines of the element 5.3 and the vertical lines of the element 5.5 can yet still be differentiated. The result is therefore an actual resolution of only about 2300 dpi. That's less than 40% of the claimed resolution. The scan of a 35mm-slide or a negative using 2300 dpi, results in a file with approximately 7 megapixels. That's within the range of many common digital cameras.
http://www.filmscanner.info/en/EpsonPerfectionV700Photo.html
7 megapixels is less than a Canon 20D gives.
and
24 bit is not that different from 48 bit
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V700/page_7.htm
So the V700 gives a worse image than any five year old DSLR, yielding 8 bit/channel images, and is very slow. Modern DSLRs give you 16-24 megapixel images at 11.5-14 bits/channel. With a much faster workflow. And probably better, because DSLRs give you RAW files that can be processed directly with ACR/LR. A minor point is that DSLR RAW files are much smaller than scanner RAW files (both Vuescan and Silverfast support scanner RAW files.)
Again, I apologize for my snarky first post. If I had noticed what you said about slide duping, I definitely would not have posted like I did. I was posting under the assumption that you had never tried digitizing slides with a camera and weren't even going to consider it. Let me try again.
My point is that I feel that the reason why the major manufacturers aren't making film/slide scanners (that cost less than about $2,000) anymore is because they know that they are totally obsolete (for 35mm film/slides only!), because any DSLR will blow them away, if used properly with a good macro lens and a solid no-additional-optics slide mount.
I'll repeat my apology--I'm not trying to challenge you. I want to know why you abandoned shooting with a camera? If you had read the above reviews? What am I missing?
[Edit. I hadn't read your reply to thomo when I wrote the above, where you said that you have been duplicating slides for many years. Well, I still want to know why you find the V700 to be better than copying with a DSLR?]
Wayne
Kenneth Sloan
Forum Enthusiast
The question of "why not use a camera to copy slides" is off topic for this thread - but the short answer to your question is that I also have a large stack of 4x5 transparencies, a large stack of various sized prints, and a continuing need for a general purpose flat-bed scanner.
All of these were considerations taken into account BEFORE I asked for personal experiences that would help me decide between the two devices on my short list: the V600 and the V700.
Did you have anything to say about your personal experiences with the V600 and V700?
Or an opinion about whether the feature/quality differences were worth the $$ differences?
So far, I'm happy with the results I'm getting with 1975 cardboard mounted Kodachrome. I haven't gotten to any of the glass mounted stuff, yet. The Ektachrome appears to be in generally worse physical shape (so, the quality of the scanner will be even less of an issue).
Sometime around 1972, I recall calculating that 1200dpi was a (very rough) approximation to the resolution required to digitize typical 35mm transparencies. I prefer to scan at "overkill" precision and process down on an as needed basis. I'm scanning now at 6400dpi - a quick look tells me that this is adequate.
The classic difficulties with camera duplication are: lighting, quality issues at the corners, and DOF problems with cardboard mounted transparencies. There are also issues of space and the ability to multi task.
My current setup takes up one 4' table (scanner and light box side-by-side. For each batch of 12 slides, the vast majority of MY time is in getting the slides out of storage and then back in again (most are in notebooks full of plastic pages. Now that I understand the hardware and the software, it takes me less than 1 minute to put the slide holder on the scanner and click a few selections on the computer screen. Then (this is the important thing) - I have 40 minutes to actually WORK on something else (or waste time with DPR forum posts). Since I need a 5 minute break every hour anyway - this means that I am currently spending ZERO time scanning the slides.
Now...when I get around to selecting the ones worthy of further processing, and then actually doing that processing....but that phase is not affected by how I capture the images.
On to cost: I have always measured the cost of photo hardware against the cost of the consumables that will flow through the hardware. The cost of a camera or a lens is weighed against the cost of the film (and processing). In the current case, the value of the material being scanned will pass the cost of the V700 in the first week. Everything after that is gravy. If I only had 100 rolls of slide film to digitize, it might have been more cost effective to set up one of my camera bodies for slide duplication. But...
Now...time to go shopping for a few terabytes of stable, backed-up storage...6000x9000 images suck up disk space at a fearful rate.
But first - time to take a 2 minute break and put another 12 slides in the scanner.
--
-Kenneth Sloan
All of these were considerations taken into account BEFORE I asked for personal experiences that would help me decide between the two devices on my short list: the V600 and the V700.
Did you have anything to say about your personal experiences with the V600 and V700?
Or an opinion about whether the feature/quality differences were worth the $$ differences?
So far, I'm happy with the results I'm getting with 1975 cardboard mounted Kodachrome. I haven't gotten to any of the glass mounted stuff, yet. The Ektachrome appears to be in generally worse physical shape (so, the quality of the scanner will be even less of an issue).
Sometime around 1972, I recall calculating that 1200dpi was a (very rough) approximation to the resolution required to digitize typical 35mm transparencies. I prefer to scan at "overkill" precision and process down on an as needed basis. I'm scanning now at 6400dpi - a quick look tells me that this is adequate.
The classic difficulties with camera duplication are: lighting, quality issues at the corners, and DOF problems with cardboard mounted transparencies. There are also issues of space and the ability to multi task.
My current setup takes up one 4' table (scanner and light box side-by-side. For each batch of 12 slides, the vast majority of MY time is in getting the slides out of storage and then back in again (most are in notebooks full of plastic pages. Now that I understand the hardware and the software, it takes me less than 1 minute to put the slide holder on the scanner and click a few selections on the computer screen. Then (this is the important thing) - I have 40 minutes to actually WORK on something else (or waste time with DPR forum posts). Since I need a 5 minute break every hour anyway - this means that I am currently spending ZERO time scanning the slides.
Now...when I get around to selecting the ones worthy of further processing, and then actually doing that processing....but that phase is not affected by how I capture the images.
On to cost: I have always measured the cost of photo hardware against the cost of the consumables that will flow through the hardware. The cost of a camera or a lens is weighed against the cost of the film (and processing). In the current case, the value of the material being scanned will pass the cost of the V700 in the first week. Everything after that is gravy. If I only had 100 rolls of slide film to digitize, it might have been more cost effective to set up one of my camera bodies for slide duplication. But...
Now...time to go shopping for a few terabytes of stable, backed-up storage...6000x9000 images suck up disk space at a fearful rate.
But first - time to take a 2 minute break and put another 12 slides in the scanner.
--
-Kenneth Sloan
E
Erik Magnuson
Guest
Really? You've tested your Canon 20D with the USAF chart slide and have actual resolution numbers? What lens did you use? What post processing? Show us the image.
If your slides are perfectly flat, perfectly aligned with the lens, and perfectly focused and you ignore any optical, AA and demosaicking losses. It's the optics that limit the flatbeds.
Again that will depend on nailing exposure & white balance and no losses due to reflections.
Not with competent dust & scratch removal.
That's because scanners are RGB at each pixel rather than RGBG over 4 mosaiced over 4 pixels.
Now you need to apologize for comparing actual measurements including optical and processing losses with theoretical numbers that have neither factors.
Example images would be a lot better than feelings.
--
Erik
Wayne Larmon
Forum Pro
Thanks for your comprehensive reply.
I placed the same photograph on both scanners and used the same settings, the V600 produced a warmer scan, which had a slight leaning towards magenta. The shadow cast by the card mounted photograph has subtle shading, this is due to the softer LED light source. The V750 has a slight bias towards green and the shadow cast by the card is more pronounced. Compared to the original photograph, the V600 produced more accurate colours. In terms of image quality, there isn’t a great deal of difference between the two scanners, both captured subtle detail in both the highlight and shadow areas. This is a remarkable achievement for a scanner which costs less than half the price of the pro V750 model.
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V650/page-4.html
The http://www.filmscanner.info/en/FilmscannerTestberichte.html comparison of the V600 and V700, translated to megapixels, rated the V600 as resolving about 3.6 megapixels and the V700 as resolving about 7 megapixels.
I scanned a Kodak Ektrachrome IT-8 target on both my V600 and with my 60D+60mm macro+Photosolve XTend-a-Slide. The 60D resolved all the grain. The V600 only resolved mush. Otherwise my seat-of-the- pants comparisons sort of correlate: V600 is a bit less than four megapixels and the 60D setup is a lot more--up to the full 18 megapixels if I take care to fine tune focus. (I usually don't need to spend a lot of time on focus with slides--live view contrast detection AF latches onto film grain pretty well. But I do when shooting artwork--brush strokes don't offer enough contrast and I need to do manual focus mostly.)
The XTend-a-Slide eliminates fine adjustment alignments that would rob a slide dup setup of resolution. And fine tuning focus with the 60D's live view eliminates a lot more resolution reduction. If you are basing your evaluation of camera slide duping based on a non-precision slide mounting mechanism and on anything other than 5-10x live view focusing, then you haven't really tried SOTA slide duping.
If a slide is warped, you'll also have DOF issues with a scanner, no?
Again, thanks for taking the time to write a comprehensive answer. If your workflow works for you, then you are all set. Again, my initial post was based on misreading your original post and overlooking that you had stated that you have already tried slide duplication with a camera.
Wayne
All good reasons.
For scanning non-transparencies, the V600 may be a little better than the V700 because the V600 uses a more modern 'cold' LED light source. Review:
I placed the same photograph on both scanners and used the same settings, the V600 produced a warmer scan, which had a slight leaning towards magenta. The shadow cast by the card mounted photograph has subtle shading, this is due to the softer LED light source. The V750 has a slight bias towards green and the shadow cast by the card is more pronounced. Compared to the original photograph, the V600 produced more accurate colours. In terms of image quality, there isn’t a great deal of difference between the two scanners, both captured subtle detail in both the highlight and shadow areas. This is a remarkable achievement for a scanner which costs less than half the price of the pro V750 model.
http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/interactive/Epson%20V650/page-4.html
The http://www.filmscanner.info/en/FilmscannerTestberichte.html comparison of the V600 and V700, translated to megapixels, rated the V600 as resolving about 3.6 megapixels and the V700 as resolving about 7 megapixels.
I scanned a Kodak Ektrachrome IT-8 target on both my V600 and with my 60D+60mm macro+Photosolve XTend-a-Slide. The 60D resolved all the grain. The V600 only resolved mush. Otherwise my seat-of-the- pants comparisons sort of correlate: V600 is a bit less than four megapixels and the 60D setup is a lot more--up to the full 18 megapixels if I take care to fine tune focus. (I usually don't need to spend a lot of time on focus with slides--live view contrast detection AF latches onto film grain pretty well. But I do when shooting artwork--brush strokes don't offer enough contrast and I need to do manual focus mostly.)
The XTend-a-Slide eliminates fine adjustment alignments that would rob a slide dup setup of resolution. And fine tuning focus with the 60D's live view eliminates a lot more resolution reduction. If you are basing your evaluation of camera slide duping based on a non-precision slide mounting mechanism and on anything other than 5-10x live view focusing, then you haven't really tried SOTA slide duping.
A properly set up Xtend-a-Slide and a good macro lens should take care of the first two. (I have my camera mounted on a tripod and use four daylight balanced CFLs angled to the four corners of the slide, blocked with a piece of black foamcore so the lights don't shine in my eyes. The XTend-a-Slide has a thick piece of white Lucite-type material in front of the slide that does a good job of diffusing light. And of sucking up light--I need four 100 watt equivilent lamps positioned a few inches from the slide to get shutter speeds below 10 seconds, at ISO 100.)
If a slide is warped, you'll also have DOF issues with a scanner, no?
Well, if the slide scanning is fast, you don't need to multi-task.
Again, thanks for taking the time to write a comprehensive answer. If your workflow works for you, then you are all set. Again, my initial post was based on misreading your original post and overlooking that you had stated that you have already tried slide duplication with a camera.
Wayne
Wayne Larmon
Forum Pro
Eh? I was quoting the V700 review on the FilmScanner.info site. He is the one that rated the V700 as only giving about 7 megapixels. He is the one that said
The scan of a 35mm-slide or a negative using 2300 dpi, results in a file with approximately 7 megapixels. That's within the range of many common digital cameras.
http://www.filmscanner.info/en/EpsonPerfectionV700Photo.html
A 20D is a common digital camera whose resolution is greater than 7 megapixels. Your quarrel is with him, not me.
And the layer of glass between the slide and the optics.
With the XTend-a-Slide my slides are perfectly aligned with the lens. The slides are also as flat when they are mounted in the XTend-a-Slide as they are when mounted in a scanner.
If you want to derate the DSLR because of AA and demosaicking issues, modern 16-24 megapixel DSLRs (that are all long in the tooth and will be replaced with higher resolution models shortly) will still beat 7 megapixels. I don't think that anybody claims that modern DSLRs have less than 8 actual megapixels.
Scanners are a dead end. DSLRs are improving by leaps and bounds.
Nailing exposure isn't difficult. It isn't like the slides are running around. The XTend-a-Slide is a sealed chamber between the front of the lens and the face of the slide, so I don't see where reflections would come from.
This is I will yield on if you can get ICE type auto-dust/scratch removal to work. I tried a bunch of times with my V600 and only got about a 10% success rate. The other 90% of the time the ICE replaced the smal dust specs with much larger distortions, that looked like embossing. But if you can get auto-dust/scratch removal so it works, the, yep, this is an advantage to the scanner.
??? I quoted a review for the scanner resolution and then listed the manufacturer's megapixel rating for a DSLR.
I have to go out shortly. When I return, I'll post images from a Kodak IT-8 target. Kodak IT-8 targets are readily available and anybody can duplicate the tests.
Wayne
E
Erik Magnuson
Guest
I doubt you'd get the full 18. The dpreview review of the 60D got 2700 lp/h using ACR + sharpening. For a 3:2 ratio, that would be 2700x2700*1.5 or about 10MP of measured detail if you are using an area based measurement. Or if you'd prefer dots per inch to compare to the Epson review, 2700*25.4/24 or ~2850 dpi. That's still better than either of the Epsons but a bit lower than one of the last Coolscans. You'd need a camera that could resolve 3850 * 25.4/24 = 3600 lp/ph. A D3X would be close but perhaps not quite enough.
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Erik
Kenneth Sloan
Forum Enthusiast
From the original post:
"I have read the specs, and most of the articles posted here - no need to repeat them."
Thank you for your in depth comparison of the V600 and your Extend-A-Slide. I'm sure someone found it useful.
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-Kenneth Sloan
"I have read the specs, and most of the articles posted here - no need to repeat them."
Thank you for your in depth comparison of the V600 and your Extend-A-Slide. I'm sure someone found it useful.
--
-Kenneth Sloan
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