Epson Expression 1680 Pro Scanner

Hi all
I just aquired an Epson Expression 1680 Pro Scanner off Ebay for a Steal (£50.00) and just scanned a few 120 negs from my Mamiya 645 Pro, and the Quality of the scans are just amazing. I was using an old Epson 124ou Scanner hooked up to a Mac as the epson 124ou didn't work with win 10 but i had a Mac so used it with that, but to be honest i found the scans at 3200 were quite dissapointing and the noise was just getting on my nerves, but with the 1680 the scans are fantastic.

When this Scanner was first sold it went for 1500$ and is comparable with the new Epson V700 and is compatible with Windows 10 and uses Epson Scangear. The only thing i did not get with the Scanner was the Negative Holders, But laying the negs directly onto the scanner works a treat.
Does anyone else use this scanner?
I would be interested with hearing from others if you do and your thoughts on this great Scanner.

Chris

Hi Chris,

I used this scanner since it first hit the market; used the Epson Expression 1600 before that. The only reason I upgraded to the 1680 is because the prior version really couldn't do true 1600 ppi scans. Epson's marketing material stated that it was a 1600 ppi scanner, but I as well as others of greater expertise than myself knew that it was really on 800 based on testing. The 1680, on the other hand, really does 1600 ppi; I scan for optical resolution only.

If you really want to see this scanner shine, buy SilverFast Ai Studio 8, a calibration target, and a betterscanning.com film holder. I also wet mount my LF film directly on to the glass with Kami fluid with a mylar cover sheet. If you scan B&W film, IMO you can't do better than using SilverFast to obtain a raw scan, then using ColorPerfect (c-f-systems.com) to convert to a normal looking image.

Vuescan also works well with this scanner, but doesn't have the dual-focus option that both Silverfast and the Epson software have. Therefore, though I do own Vuescan I don't use it with this scanner.

Nice score. We don't discuss scanners on APUG, so I have to close the thread. DPUG is the appropriate venue for digital subjects like scanning. We do that to keep the discussions and the archive here narrowly focused on analog.

By the way, welcome to APUG, glad to have you here. If you haven't introduced yourself, there is a thread for that.