Epson Perfection V750-M Pro Color Scanner

List Price: $862.99 Discount Price: Too low to display

Features:

• Groundbreaking 6400 optical resolution.
• 4.0 Dmax for fine shadow detail plus remarkable tonal range
• Digital ICE to automatically removal dust and surface defects from prints
• High-pass optics for maximum image quality
• Fluid mount accessory for scratch removal and grain reduction from black and white film.

Customer Reviews:

Doesn't have holder for 110 film [Posted on 2007-11-04]
I should have read the item description a little closer, but I assumed that for $750 it would include mounts for a lot of older film formats that were popular in the '70s and '80s such as 110 film. I have a box of old photo's & negatives that I was planning to scan, but I won't be doing it with this scanner for 2 reasons:
1: Positioning each individual negative film strip manually on the flat bed is very time consuming. And without a holder, some of the negative films that are curled or twisted produce a distorted scan.
2: It takes approx 2 min per picture when scanning from 110 negative. I would guess I have about 1,000 pictures to scan, so I'm not going to burn up an entire weekend to scan everything manually.

The 35mm film negative mount and automatic scanning feature works beautifully. You can load up 4 negative strips, click 'scan', and the scanner will scan everything and separate each picture into its own file. They need something like that for 110 film - then it would be feasible to scan and archive all of my old family photo's.

Otherwise the scanner is excellent - I would have given it 5 stars, but for $750 on Amazon, I expected it to include negative film mounts for major film types that have been popular in the last 20-30 years. If you only have 35mm negatives, this scanner should work well for you.

Epson V750-M is nice, but 4800 dpi is marketing hype [Posted on 2007-11-22]
In October 2007 my lab bought an Epson V750-M scanner. This is my second experience with it, having had a previous lab buy one in May 2006, soon after its introduction. The SilverFast software is ok, but I usually use Hamrick's VueScan Pro ($90, www.hamrick.com), because I often want its 16-bit "raw" (tiff) mode, where the data goes straight to disk (gamma = 1). I also have a lot of use for the V750-M's infrared scan mode, which is easy to set in VueScan Pro.

The 4800 dpi mode is just marketing hype. You would need your specimen to be in perfect focus to make use of this setting. An 24-bit RGB 8.5x11 inch scan is 1.3 Gigabytes, so a 4800 dpi scan would be 4x that size! Even at 2400 dpi, I needed to put a pile of copier paper on top of an archival warped photo in order to flatten it reasonably well (I bought the V750-M specifically because it has a large gap between the glass platen and full size transparency lid - I have thick objects to scan). On the positive side, at 2400 dpi, the way too fine to read by eye inscriptions/miniature photos on a colleagues family tree was easily read on the computer monitor after scanning (I further improved the readibility in Photoshop by switching to 8-bit monochrome mode, unsharp masking [filter menu - sharpen - unsharp mask: 100%, 5 or 15, 0], and contrast adjusting so that min and max intensity sliders were at the X-axis asymptotes of the histogram peak in Image - adjust(ments) - Levels.

Of course you 9or I) should not be scanning full page specimens at 4800 dpi. Professionally, I am a light microscopist, and one application for this scanner is to scan biomedical microsope slides. I have previously scanned and posted on the Internet a "whole slide image' of a mouse ( http://home.earthlink.net/~tiki_goddess/ ) using a Microtek 35mm slide scanner (Microtek 4000tf/Pathscan unit). The slide scanner does a much better job focusing and resolving fine details than the Epson V750-M. That said, unsharp masking improves the apparent sharpness of slide images from both scanners, with the Microtek being superior (also a bit more expensive at time of purchase 2 years ago).

The optical density range (a.k.a. Dmax) is ok, but a bit hyped, as tested using calibrated optical density step tablets and Edmund Scientific neutral density filters.

The Epson V750-M is far superior to any flatbed scanner from several years ago. If you are going to use it at high resolution (2400 dpi or higher), buy lots of computer RAM (RAM is cheap!), though recognize that Microsoft Windows (all versions) does silly things allocating RAM for applications.

Printing high resolution scans - there are now plenty of commercial and academic facilities that can print large enough posters to take advantage of your high resolution (i.e. 2400 dpi) scans. For example, my University photo place (http://calder.med.miami.edu/biomed/graphics.html) charges $8/square foot for archival quality prints on their Epson Stylus Pro 10600 printer ("up to 44" wide" in one direction, can be a very long banner in the other direction if you want). My calculations are that the family tree artwork I scanned for a colleague (~16x10", left and right scans merged in Photoshop) should look great printed full height on the Epson (i.e. ~64x40", for about $200 - not counting the price of an appropriate frame for his living room wall).

Great scanner, but not without flaws [Posted on 2007-12-03]
Folks buy this scanner mostly for scanning transparencies, and expect "drum scan" performance levels from it. It simply does not deliver anything anywhere close to drum scan. That said, for large format film, this is the cheapest acceptable option and the results are pretty darn good if you know what you're doing. For medium format and 35mm you should purchase dedicated scanners, this one simply won't cut it.

So, to recap, great scanner for large format slides and flat reflective originals. Look elsewhere for decent scans of 35mm, MF slides or negatives.

Sharp images intuitive to use. [Posted on 2008-02-08]
Quick setup, intuitive controls and function. Sharp images (extremely clear and sharp dust specks) correctable using the enclosed software. Contrast and brightness needs correction by editing. So far like it very much.

Somewhat bulky on the desk. Scans 12x35mm slides at a time. By the time I've selected the 12 images, put them into the slide holder, scanned, edited and assigned a name and replaced the slides in the box -- that's about all I can do in an evening. Maybe I'll get quicker and slicker as I learn.

Thousands of slides to go, but such nostalgia!

Superb scanner [Posted on 2008-04-02]
I purchased the Epson Perfection V750-M Pro scanner to replace an old (and failing) product from another maker. In short, the name says it all: Perfection! It handles negatives and slides better than my dedicated film scanner at resolutions up to 4800 dpi. If you put six small prints on the glass screen and push ONE button, it will recognized the prints as separate entities and scan them all separately with no intervention from the user. I've been using it to rehabilitate some very old prints, both B&W and color, and it has done an amazing job. Digital ICE and color correction are both built-in. I recommend this scanner HIGHLY.

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