Best Inexpensive Digital Scanner for MF

I never had great results from the Epson Perfection series but watch for deals
on the Epson Expression 1680 or 1600
http://www.jonlayephotography.com

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k
X-Agent-Group: rec.photo.equipment.medium-format
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X-Intro: "On Wed, 7 Apr 2004 22:57 +0100 (BST),
(Peter) wrote:\n"

On Wed, 7 Apr 2004 22:57 +0100 (BST), (Peter)
wrote:

In article ,
(Damon Courtney) wrote:


Can I get away with something as inexpensive as the Epson
Perfection 1670 Photo? Do I need to buy a special adapter to scan
medium format with this model? I've seen some people say that you can
put the negative right on the flatbed and just scan that way. Can you
do this with any scanner? I don't understand how that works. 0-]

Any help would be immensely appreciated. 0-] Please CC me on any
response, as I don't follow this newsgroup.

Thank you,

Damon Courtney


You need a scanner with a transparency hood - in other words, a light in
the lid. These normally don't cover the whole area and should come with
masks to stop stray light getting round the edges and reducing the
contrast. If they are missing you can always make up something out of
black card.

FWIW I use an Epson 1640 Photo and get good results. Later models give
better resolution, but you must have a "photo" version.

Peter


How do you get the 1640 to recognize medium format film? I have one
of these and haven't been able to make it scan with medium format
film. Do you need a special adaptor?

How do you get the 1640 to recognize medium format film? I have one
of these and haven't been able to make it scan with medium format
film.

Some Epson scanners have a limitation built in their software that prevents
you from selecting an area wide enough for MF. You might download the free
evaluation copy of VueScan or Silverfast SE and see if one of these will
allow you to crop things as you wish.

Doug
--
Doug's "MF Film Holder" for batch scanning "strips" of 120/220 medium format
film:
http://home.earthlink.net/~dougfishe...lderintro.html

- wrote:

How do you get the 1640 to recognize medium format film? I have one
of these and haven't been able to make it scan with medium format
film.

Some Epson scanners have a limitation built in their software that prevents
you from selecting an area wide enough for MF. You might download the free
evaluation copy of VueScan or Silverfast SE and see if one of these will
allow you to crop things as you wish.

My 1640 didn't have any problems with MF... until I installed a new
version of the driver. After that there were serious problems, because
the new driver was too automatic. It had a built-in assumption that
everybody uses 35mm film, and tried to chop the prescan image to 24x36mm
frames. It worked OK with 35mm, though, and made mass scans faster.

Luckily the driver still has manual controls as an option. Turning off
the automatics helped. There's no substitute for human intelligence.

-- Lassi

In article ,
(McLeod) wrote:

X-Original-Message-ID:
k
X-Agent-Group: rec.photo.equipment.medium-format
X-Agent-Format: 1 1 0 0 1 500000 0 0 1 0 "*" 0
X-Intro: "On Wed, 7 Apr 2004 22:57 +0100 (BST),
(Peter) wrote:\n"

On Wed, 7 Apr 2004 22:57 +0100 (BST), (Peter)
wrote:

In article ,
(Damon Courtney) wrote:


Can I get away with something as inexpensive as the Epson
Perfection 1670 Photo? Do I need to buy a special adapter to scan
medium format with this model? I've seen some people say that you
can
put the negative right on the flatbed and just scan that way. Can
you
do this with any scanner? I don't understand how that works. 0-]

Any help would be immensely appreciated. 0-] Please CC me on any
response, as I don't follow this newsgroup.

Thank you,

Damon Courtney


You need a scanner with a transparency hood - in other words, a light
in the lid. These normally don't cover the whole area and should come
with masks to stop stray light getting round the edges and reducing
the contrast. If they are missing you can always make up something
out of black card.

FWIW I use an Epson 1640 Photo and get good results. Later models
give better resolution, but you must have a "photo" version.

Peter


How do you get the 1640 to recognize medium format film? I have one
of these and haven't been able to make it scan with medium format
film. Do you need a special adaptor?

Use VueScan :-)

It will scan up to 4x5"

Peter

Don't try to get away too cheaply. You will also need good software to correct
your scans. The Epson 3200 Professional model comes with Silverfast Ai and is
probably the cheapest unit for quality scans out there. It will cost you about
$550.00. I use a Microtek Artxscan 120 with Silverfast and I am very happy with
the results I get from 35mm and 120 film.

Rich