Epson Perfection V700 Photo Scanner

This is a superb 6,400 dpi scanner for 35mm film, 120 negatives, 1/4 plate negatives, and can scan any film size to A4. The resolution of the scanner is as good as a dedicated Nikon 4,000 dpi scanner and noticeably sharper than the admittedly cheaper Epson 4990 Photo and Canon 9950F flatbed film scanners (at 100% mag). With it's 'hight adjusters' for the slide holders it's a bit fiddly to use, but the results are simply first rate. See it fully reviewed at http://www.photo-i.co.uk. The scanner comes with a very good twain interface and Silverfast SE, plus Photoshop Elements 3 (not 4). It deserves Photoshop CS2 though, if you afford it.

The V700 can scan 12 slides or 24 negatives in one go, scan time is in minutes per frame. There are also 120 and 4x5" negative holders, plus an A4 film area guide for full platter negative scans (plus a clip on white matt for A4 reflective photograph & document scans). Digital ICE (Kodak) infra-red scan hardware is included that eliminates dust and scratches from old film (although it can soften the image quality at high settings and add the odd artefact). I don't get much improvement in scan quality going above 3,200 dpi or to 48-bit colour as the scanner is clearly exceeding the grain size and quality of my old SLR slide film (mainly 100 ASA Agfachrome CS and older Kodachrome). Scanning of details in shadows is very good, but the image benefits from Photoshop CS's shadow/highlight utility to lighten these regions (otherwise shadows can be too dark). Photoshop elements 3 [supplied] has a similar tool, but I use Photoshop CS.

Perhaps the only reason not to buy this superb scanner is that the 'improved optics' of it's big sister, the V750 Pro, may tempt you even more when it's soon released - that will cost another £150 over this V700 though. Otherwise, an excellent scanner that should be at the top of any shortlist. In fact I can't really tell any difference in resolution between scans on this scanner and those from an [8,000dpi] £10,000 Imacon Flextight 484 - although the V700 images need far more twain and post-scan Photoshop tweaking to match the Flextight ones and naturally this consumer V700 does scan at far slower speeds. This scanner obviously does great reflective scans as well, but naturally has few advantages over far cheaper models if you don't want to scan film or photographs.

I wanted copies of my medium format wedding photo negatives but the cost of getting prints duplicated or scanned by professional photo labs was just too high.

So I looked around for a decent film scanner instead. The Nikon 9000 is very nice, but at £2500 it ought to be. I already had an Epson 2480 flatbed scanner and had used it to scan 35mm slides before with some basic success so I was happy to buy an Epson again. I looked at the Canon 9950 but by all reports the software is awful.

The Epson software is actually really good. It even knows that I have two models of scanner installed and will switch between them. I have to say that in use, scanning the negatives was really easy. As reccommended by Photo-i.co.uk I adjusted the film holder spacers to be 3.5mm (turn them round) and loaded up the scanner. The film holders are flimsy but very sensible. They allow strip film of any size to be put in and the software works out where the gaps are. As long as you tell it which size you are scanning (645, 6x6, 6x9 etc) then it does a really good job of finding the images. The digital ice works well and the default sharpening is at a sensible level. The resolution is way above what I needed but I didn't buy the scanner for that. What I wanted it for was sharpness and colour. The sharpness is good, very good in fact for a flatbed scanner. The colour is outstanding and the shadow and highlight detail really comes through. Film may have grain but it also has a tonality that digital rarely captures.

Very impressed.

Very impressed indeed with this item. I bought the Plustek Opticfilm 7200i scanner at first but the software was so unstable i couldnt run it on Vista. then i saved a bit more money and got this baby and i'm so glad i did. the quality is brilliant. professional mode gives you all the control you could want and the silverfast software has some great features too. you can scan 35mm, medium format, large format and its great for my panoramic swing lens camera too. Also scanning a whole film at high quality is a dream on this compared to the Plustek. i can leave this working away for hours (24 frames on very high settings) and be sure its fine, where as the other one could crash and burn after seconds.
very pleased and would certainly recommend this if you can afford to pay out a little more.