Alan, with my Epson V700, I use Epson Scan with a technique that I learned at the link below, which works well in my experience (and I tested it against several other advanced scanning techniques that folks have developed for Vuescan, Silverfast, etc.)
Essentially, you do a scan preview (which sets the scanner's exposure), then adjust the input and output levels to make sure that you capture all the tones available in the film that you're scanning (within the limits of the scanner's capabilities). The result is a fairly "flat" scan — i.e. low contrast, possibly appearing a little underexposed (it's not really underexposed), and not crisp looking. The scan will typically need to be edited in Photoshop or Lightroom to enhance these qualities. But its advantage is that you're starting with the most possible information from the film (i.e. the scanning process doesn't discard usable tones and details, as it will if you use the straight default scanning settings that Epson Scan starts out with.)
One important note on this method: you must do the preview scan on the image area only — i.e. don't include any of the frame edges within the bounding box. Then set the levels as described in the link below. Then enlarge the bounding box to the full size of the frame (Epson Scan should not do a second autoexposure at this point, as long as you have the "Configuration" settings properly set as shown in the link below). Then do the final scan. You have to repeat the process for each new frame that you scan, but it only takes a few seconds.
Here's the link. The description of the method begins at the section entitled "Epson Scanner Preview - Too Harsh!"
http://www.kennethleegallery.com/html/scanning/index.php#bypass
