Epson Perfection V500 Photo Scanner

[ian in lancs]

Anyone had any experience of this scanner? I'm looking to scan old negatives and but more importantly the B&W ones I'm shooting recently with my Nikon F5. I'd like high quality resolution but can't afford £5-600 the top scanners cost. The scans I've had done by developers have been disappointing; too grainy even the 'HQ' ones. Or am I expecting too much from film?

[Simpo Two]

I haven't tried this but maybe the scanners were such hi-res that they were actually resolving the film grain?

Or you could bin the F5 and buy a DLSR

[ian in lancs]

Simpo Two said:

I haven't tried this but maybe the scanners were such hi-res that they were actually resolving the film grain?

Or you could bin the F5 and buy a DLSR

I read 35mm film is about 15-20Mp and there's a video on YouTube from Gadget show comparing the F5 with the D700 (which I also have) and the conclusion was the D700 won but only just. Even with Pan 50 I'm still getting grainy - studio shots mainly with same lighting, subject, exposure and lenses (24-70 and 70-200 f2.8's) as the D700; akin to low-res JPEG or high ISO.

[rasputin]

I have an Epson 4490 for scanning film, which is identical to the V500 in almost every way.

35mm film - you'll get good enough scans to post images on here. I doubt they'll be good enough for printing though.

Medium format - better, but still not the kind of quality I'd like to print.

If you do find any negatives you really want blown up big, send them off for high quality scanning.