Dedicated 35mm film scanner?

[gryffinwings]

I use a V800 and have been very happy with the results. I have friends that use the V650 and the V700 and all love them. The big advantage of the V700/800 is the full size backlight so you can scan 3 strips in one go or a full rack of slides. It may speed up your workflow a bit.

I use Silverfast for my software and have been quite satisfied with it.

To give you an idea of results I did all the scanning here, here and here (all shot on an F3 and ilford film processed at home except the color). I also scanned my families photo archive if you want an idea of what you can get print scanning wise check out this album keep in mind I did this for speed not accuracy or dust free quality scans. The images in many cases were also scratched or had issues when they hit the bed.

Thank you for sharing, the V800 is something I considering, seems like the results were pretty decent, if I need better for 35mm I could always get a Nikon Coolscan.

 

[Dave Colangelo]

Thank you for sharing, the V800 is something I considering

If you are gonna be shooting 4x5 (and based on your other threads it seems like you are) I would look no further. The 700/800 size is the only one that will do 4x5. The smaller 500/600 size with the center illumination area cant do 4x5 which is a big draw back if you shoot 4x5. My local lab charges a lot for 4x5 scans since they do it one at a time on their flatbed as such it was easy for me to justify the 800.

The dedicated scanners are nice if you shoot a lot of one format but I really like shooting all kinds of cameras (usually based on my mood) so the versatility was key in my decision. I have also been scanning a lot of my families old negatives which are in all kinds of strange formats that were produced from the 40's on. The ability to place them on the bed and have full back lighting helps quite a bit.

Ultimately I can get more resolution out of the 800 even on 35mm than I ever practically need. At some point pixel peeping is a never ending game but when we are talking about actually making a print from the scans its more than enough.