Epson Scanner Questions!

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'Evening chaps,

Quick question regarding Epson scanners that hopefully one of you fine people will know the answer to! The V500/V600 are essentially the same scanners with the same performance as are the V700/V800 (apart from the lamps), but what's the difference between the two series of scanners? Is there a noticeable improvement in performance, particularly dynamic range and sharpness, with the V800 when compared to the V600? I'm looking to get another compact flatbed scanner to replace my tired V500 and am trying to figure out which one to go for, if the performance is definitely better then it'll probably be the V850 but there isn't really much point in spending the extra few hundred quid if the performance is largely the same across the board. Has anyone done any side-by-side comparisons?

Thanks in advance! :)
 
Not a direct answer, but the V700 and up I believe will do 5*4 in one scan rather than two scans and a stitch. Most of us are probably going to flirt with LF at some time, I suppose. If I were going to replace my V500 I'd definitely be going for one that would do LF, despite having no gear at this stage.
 
ChrisR said:
Not a direct answer, but the V700 and up I believe will do 5*4 in one scan rather than two scans and a stitch. Most of us are probably going to flirt with LF at some time, I suppose. If I were going to replace my V500 I'd definitely be going for one that would do LF, despite having no gear at this stage.
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Cheers Chris, although I'm not really thinking of factoring LF into it to be honest. I doubt I'm going to dabble in LF anytime soon and if I did I could just scan those frames on the Cezanne which will scan pretty much anything. I'm more looking for something I can use in day to day general use and quick simple scans for archiving things and was wondering if the V700/800 showed any quality improvement over the V500/600, if so I'd seriously consider that as an option. I know you can scan more at a time with the 700/800 series, I'm amassing quite a collection of various old photos on film which I want to scan so I have a record of everything that's there, then if I need to do more serious scans I can fire them through the Cezanne. Just the higher capacity might be a reason to go for the V850 but if there's also a quality improvement as well it might just tip the balance in favour of spending a bit more! :)
 
According to this site, the V600 gets 1560 dpi if you scan at 3200; the V750 maxes at 2300 dpi (presumably scanning at 6400)... I can never get my head round stuff like that!
 
Would you not be as well getting the smaller /cheaper one given if you need better quality scans for more than web work you've got the big scanner?
 
ChrisR said:
According to this site, the V600 gets 1560 dpi if you scan at 3200; the V750 maxes at 2300 dpi (presumably scanning at 6400)... I can never get my head round stuff like that!
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Some suggest that these scanners are let down from their manufacturer-quoted (hypothetical) resolution by the optics being not good enough ...?
 
PMN said:
'Evening chaps,

Quick question regarding Epson scanners that hopefully one of you fine people will know the answer to! The V500/V600 are essentially the same scanners with the same performance as are the V700/V800 (apart from the lamps), but what's the difference between the two series of scanners? Is there a noticeable improvement in performance, particularly dynamic range and sharpness, with the V800 when compared to the V600? I'm looking to get another compact flatbed scanner to replace my tired V500 and am trying to figure out which one to go for, if the performance is definitely better then it'll probably be the V850 but there isn't really much point in spending the extra few hundred quid if the performance is largely the same across the board. Has anyone done any side-by-side comparisons?

Thanks in advance! :)
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Like Steve says above the V700/800 series scan to a higher resolved resolution compared to the V500/600, although they supposedly use the same or very similar sensors the higher resolution is likely from improved optics as they limit the actual resolution that a scanner can resolve, even though the sensor itself may be able to resolve significantly more; despite them advertising the V750 as having improved quality optics over the V700, tests (see at Steve's link) have previously shown that the two are practically identical in performance. The V700/800 can also be used with a separate wet scanning kit if anyone is inclined to it (it's included for free in the V750), but apparently it's very messy to use.
 
steveo_mcg said:
Would you not be as well getting the smaller /cheaper one given if you need better quality scans for more than web work you've got the big scanner?
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Quite possibly but that's the thing I'm not really sure of, at the moment I'm trying to weigh up productivity and quality. For some online and small print uses on colour film, being able to use ICE and not having to clean the images up manually would be a huge advantage and the better the quality the scanner outputs the more I can use the images for. While the Cezanne outputs insane quality images, cleaning them up to the standard I want is very time consuming and not something I can really do with the volume of images I'm dealing with. If there's no real quality difference between the two series then I probably am better getting a V600, but if there's a useable and noticeable step up in quality with the V850 then that might be the one I go for.

@droj and @s162216 I know Epson and probably other manufacturers inflate their scan resolutions by interpolating the scanner output which is basically the same as making the image 'bigger' in Photoshop, i.e. it doesn't actually improve resolution. I should probably have been clearer in my opening post, what I'm really interested in is if I do a 2400dpi scan on a V500/600 and do a 2400dpi scan on a V700/800, will there be a difference in the actual quality? Do the supposed better optics of the 700/800 give noticeably sharper scans?
 
PMN said:
Quite possibly but that's the thing I'm not really sure of, at the moment I'm trying to weigh up productivity and quality. For some online and small print uses on colour film, being able to use ICE and not having to clean the images up manually would be a huge advantage and the better the quality the scanner outputs the more I can use the images for. While the Cezanne outputs insane quality images, cleaning them up to the standard I want is very time consuming and not something I can really do with the volume of images I'm dealing with. If there's no real quality difference between the two series then I probably am better getting a V600, but if there's a useable and noticeable step up in quality with the V850 then that might be the one I go for.

@droj and @s162216 I know Epson and probably other manufacturers inflate their scan resolutions by interpolating the scanner output which is basically the same as making the image 'bigger' in Photoshop, i.e. it doesn't actually improve resolution. I should probably have been clearer in my opening post, what I'm really interested in is if I do a 2400dpi scan on a V500/600 and do a 2400dpi scan on a V700/800, will there be a difference in the actual quality? Do the supposed better optics of the 700/800 give noticeably sharper scans?
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It's not actually interpolation and is a key factor between the two different scanners quality - read this explanation carefully and it should make sense.

The fact is that the sensors themselves can resolve those huge amounts of detail quoted in the optical resolution (ignore the interpolated resolution) e.g the V500/600/700/800 are quoted as resolving 6400 dpi optically as that is what the sensor itself can resolve. The problem is that the optics in the scanning pathway (especially the high pass filter) limit the amount of detail that can actually reach the sensor (it's optically limited, the same as using an optically poor quality lens on a high resolution DSLR), so in the case of the V500/600 about 1600 dpi of detail reaches the sensor and in the V700/800 about 2300 dpi. That is the big difference between the two, the V700/800 are able to resolve a higher resolution as tested using a USAF 1951 test target (read the linked test reports).

The point is that you can scan quite happily at 6400 dpi and get huge file sizes, but they won't contain any additional detail over that which is optically limited, you can then downscale the files quite happily without losing anything; another problem comes with some scanners where they only resolve their maximum detail at the maximum quoted optical DPI forcing you to wait longer for scans and have huge initial files (check test reports like linked above to find out). In effect it's like interpolation, but it's not as it's not trying to guess what is in-between (hardward upscaling I suppose you could refer it as.) The ironical thing is that the manufacturers are technically not lying either as the sensor can resolve what is quoted, but only right at the actual sensor!
 
Samuel, I had it in mind that the V500 couldn't actually achieve 6400dpi optically/natively so I stand corrected on that. Either way, being fairly experienced in running drum scanners and high end commercial flatbed scanners I'm aware of the technical limitations in optics; I've used the cheap lens analogy myself in these very forums and after thousands of frames scanned I know I get more useful detail in a 2000dpi drum/Cezanne scan than I do from a 6400dpi scan from the V500. My questions is quite specifically whether the V700/800 series will give a better quality scan than a V500/600 using the same settings.
 
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s162216 said:
It's not actually interpolation and is a key factor between the two different scanners quality - read this explanation carefully and it should make sense.

The fact is that the sensors themselves can resolve those huge amounts of detail quoted in the optical resolution (ignore the interpolated resolution) e.g the V500/600/700/800 are quoted as resolving 6400 dpi optically as that is what the sensor itself can resolve. The problem is that the optics in the scanning pathway (especially the high pass filter) limit the amount of detail that can actually reach the sensor (it's optically limited, the same as using an optically poor quality lens on a high resolution DSLR), so in the case of the V500/600 about 1600 dpi of detail reaches the sensor and in the V700/800 about 2300 dpi. That is the big difference between the two, the V700/800 are able to resolve a higher resolution as tested using a USAF 1951 test target (read the linked test reports).

The point is that you can scan quite happily at 6400 dpi and get huge file sizes, but they won't contain any additional detail over that which is optically limited, you can then downscale the files quite happily without losing anything; another problem comes with some scanners where they only resolve their maximum detail at the maximum quoted optical DPI forcing you to wait longer for scans and have huge initial files (check test reports like linked above to find out). In effect it's like interpolation, but it's not as it's not trying to guess what is in-between (hardward upscaling I suppose you could refer it as.) The ironical thing is that the manufacturers are technically not lying either as the sensor can resolve what is quoted, but only right at the actual sensor!
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H'mm well I've been preaching for years that an Asda scan is equal to a V750 for detail well the V750 is up against an expensive Asda Fuji frontier. Haven't tried two or three passes when scanning that I read about....maybe that would give more detail from the neg.
 
excalibur2 said:
H'mm well I've been preaching for years that an Asda scan is equal to a V750 for detail well the V750 is up against an expensive Asda Fuji frontier. Haven't tried two or three passes when scanning that I read about....maybe that would give more detail from the neg.
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The trouble with an ASDA scan may be that one is not in control relating to tonal range, in particular the end points.

Regarding consumer flatbeds like the Epsons being discussed here, I wonder if they are accurate enough to perform multi-pass scans successfully?
 
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I've got a V700 and a V850. I'll scan one of your negatives if that would help on either/both BUT I use VueScan to drive them, and I don't know what variables this might introduce over your scanning software. If you use VueScan with your Epson you could send me the settings to use to ensure a level playing field.
 
droj said:
The trouble with an ASDA scan may be that one is not in control relating to tonal range, in particular the end points.

Regarding consumer flatbeds like the Epsons being discussed here, I wonder if they are accurate enough to perform multi-pass scans successfully?
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A Epson flat bed is a "jack of all trades" and indeed you can get a better looking scan compared to Asda by software cheating and not clipping shadows etc....but unless someone has an idea on how to get more detail off the neg with a flatbed then Asda is just as good.i.e. just for detail only.
Who knows I might see a Nikon coolscan going for peanuts at the bootie...now that would be interesting to see the results. (y)
 
droj said:
Regarding consumer flatbeds like the Epsons being discussed here, I wonder if they are accurate enough to perform multi-pass scans successfully?
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I have heard not, it's one reason why Vuescan has the ability for one-pass scans at a high resolution followed by downsizing the file, eg scan 6400 dpi, JPEG/TIFF file size reduction factor 2, equivalent to a 2-pass scan at 3200 dpi. I don't think you can get the extra scan for multi-exposure on those scanners either.
 
ChrisR said:
I have heard not, it's one reason why Vuescan has the ability for one-pass scans at a high resolution followed by downsizing the file, eg scan 6400 dpi, JPEG/TIFF file size reduction factor 2, equivalent to a 2-pass scan at 3200 dpi. I don't think you can get the extra scan for multi-exposure on those scanners either.
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I was assuming in any case that multi-scan would be on a diy basis (think hdr) rather than embedded in the scanner driver as it was with certain Coolscan models - where its purpose was noise reduction rather than tonal range extension.
 
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Could I please ask that we not get into discussing Asda scans here? I only have one very specific question and it very definitely isn't related to Asda in any way, shape or form.

Stephen, thank you for your kind offer, very much appreciated. It would be great to see some results from the V850. I'm working over the weekend but if it's okay with you I'll fire a frame or two over next week?
 
That's fine. I'll PM my address.
 
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