Epson V600 or a new camera for scanning 120 film

Hi!
Recently I bought myself a bronica ETR camera as my first step into medium format. Sadly that now means that I need to find a different way to digitize those images. Currently I have a Plustek 8100 for my 35mm stuff and it's fine The results are ok, the thing that infuriates me is the time I need to faff around with editing stuff in Silverfast too much to get what I like. And then usually even more time on final edits to get rid of dust and improve the colors.

So I am now looking at two possible options...
In terms of dedicated scanners the choices seem pretty slim to say the least. Epson V600 or something like the Reflecta x66-Scan (which looks more like a toy than a real scanner). I am not willing to spend more than 500€ for a scanner only.

However I am also in the market for a new digital camera so I am now looking into camera scanning. I would like to get a Fujifilm X-T30 with the kit 18-55 f2.8-4 lens. Not sure how good the kit lens would be for my purpose though. So I would maybe either get the MCEX-16 macro adapter or something like the 7artisans 60mm F2.8 macro lens. Combined with a light pad and something like the Essential film holder (or just a 3D printed one). Overall around 1400€ price mark.

What would be a better choice here?
Keep in mind the budget and the fact that I am just a hobbyist who sometimes likes to take some photos with film. So I am ok with "good enough". I very much hate spending ages scanning, correcting and editing my shots. So that is maybe something to keep in mind when suggesting stuff.

roli said:

What would be a better choice here?
Keep in mind the budget and the fact that I am just a hobbyist who sometimes likes to take some photos with film. So I am ok with "good enough". I very much hate spending ages scanning, correcting and editing my shots. So that is maybe something to keep in mind when suggesting stuff.

Click to expand...

Welcome aboard!

What are you scanning?
If you use true b&w then DSLR scanning is a probably a better choice as scans can be very fast with the right setup, ICE doesn't work with b&w and post work is very simple.
If you use slides then post work is just as simple as b&w, scans are faster but now the lack of ICE can add time in post work.
If you use color negatives then post work is no longer so simple even if scans are faster and no ICE.

I have a little Canon scanner. Not made today. I have scanned 120 Fujichrome got results that are quite good. I paid around 200 dollars for that scanner new. I use VueScan software.

My Epson Perfection 2400 with 4x5 light adapter is for sale if interested. It works on Windows 10 as well. PM me if interested.

Les Sarile said:

Welcome aboard!

What are you scanning?
If you use true b&w then DSLR scanning is a probably a better choice as scans can be very fast with the right setup, ICE doesn't work with b&w and post work is very simple.
If you use slides then post work is just as simple as b&w, scans are faster but now the lack of ICE can add time in post work.
If you use color negatives then post work is no longer so simple even if scans are faster and no ICE.

Click to expand...

Thanks!
I am scanning BW and color negatives. Probably a bit more color negatives but that may change with medium format. But it's gonna be both either way.

Old Gregg said:

@roli welcome to photrio.

You are about to receive a lot of conflicting advice. We have two small armies here: on the left you have the scanner lovers. On the right we have those who scan with digital cameras. Each group thinks of the other as uneducated and arrogant. My advice is to read the arguments from both sides, and then discard those who did not provide full-sized samples. I am in one of those camps and usually enjoy ridiculing the other, obviously uneducated and arrogant side, but tonight I'm not in the mood

One practical advice I have is this: if you decide to go with camera scanning, I suggest avoiding the EFH because its medium format mask is poorly designed. All other film holders have slanted edges at the bottom, but EFH frame edges are straight and square: they drop shadow on your film, you will be getting dark/vignetted borders because of this.

Click to expand...

Thank you. Yeah, I've read a few topics already. Sadly they didn't really lead me to an answer yet. That's why I've come here with slightly more concrete options. Either this specific camera setup (slight variations are possible), or this scanner (again variations are possible, although I can't find anything else in this price range).
Thanks for the EFH advice though. Will have a look what the 3d printed world offers.

If you go the camera scanning route, forget about those cheap chinese lenses, you will want precision optics for this project. There are plenty of Micro-Nikkor 55/3.5 floating around at reasonable prices.
For camera scanning, take a look at what www.Valoi.co writes about the process. They have a gear guide and technique guide.
One thing I learned the hard way is that you will want to pay for your inversion software if you don't enjoy spending hours fiddling with curves etc in editing software with steep learning curves.

I have a V600. I’m satisfied with my 120 scans, but I only scan black and white.

I too have a V600, and find it works well enough for my needs which is to show images online.

City Frame-1 by Eric Auer, on Flickr

City Frame-117 by Eric Auer, on Flickr

roli said:

Currently I have a Plustek 8100 for my 35mm stuff and it's fine The results are ok, the thing that infuriates me is the time I need to faff around with editing stuff in Silverfast too much to get what I like. And then usually even more time on final edits to get rid of dust and improve the colors.

In terms of dedicated scanners the choices seem pretty slim to say the least. Epson V600 or something like the Reflecta x66-Scan (which looks more like a toy than a real scanner). I am not willing to spend more than 500€ for a scanner only.

So I am ok with "good enough". I very much hate spending ages scanning, correcting and editing my shots. So that is maybe something to keep in mind when suggesting stuff.

Click to expand...

Is there much used gear where you are or can access? For instance you said Epson V600 and I can see from Epson's clearance center the V600 for $139 -> https://epson.com/Clearance-Center/...00-Photo-Scanner---Refurbished/p/B11B198011-N
If available at a good proce for you, also consider the previous models V7XX, 4990 which are even more capable. For instance I found locally on craigslist here the 4990 for a price I couldn't pass up.

Obviously the biggest advantage of DSLR scanning over dedicated scanners is capture speed. With the right setup (film holder, light source, lens, remote capture software) this can be seconds per frame while desktop scanners can take from tens of seconds (out of your budget) to many minutes per frame.

Obbviously most scanners these days have ICE (dust and scratch removal) and any method of DSLR scanning does not. and the higher resolution you get the more prominent these will be. Depending on how much there is will dictate how long you will spend on each and every frame. However, ICE from any brand/model does not work on true b&w films so the same amount of post work will apply to either method of scanning.

For color negatives, unfortunately there are no "standards for color" and we are left to our own devices. With this medium, ICE does work and therefore an advantage over DSLR scanning. With scanners, color negative conversion to positive is built-in but for dslr scanning you will necessarrilly need more post work to do so. There is one dslr with built-in color negative inversion and that is the Nikon D850 which I have not tried.

Now you have used a scanner with it's color negative inversion and found it tedious and others continue to express this as well. Perhaps the "higher end" models may provide some relief but likely that will only come with learning more about the workflow. Unfortunatley this is not much better with dslr scanning post work with the possible exception of the D850. I believe there are some here who do this as a business with very high competency of their workflow and can provide results acceptable to their customers at a price they are willing to pay for. However, most others workflow are not so optimized. Some have disclosed this method and admit it takes many minutes per frame and each setting does not necessarrilly carryover to the next. On youtube, there are many vids that show many different processes. In fact, there are even some who scan their color negatives without the inversion and apply this same post process to that image.

Since you plan to buy a digital camera, anyway, I would recommend using the money you would have spent on a film scanner or flatbed to buy the add-ons you need to digitize film with the camera. If you are "handy" and shop wisely, I am convinced that it is possible to put together a film copying rig that will produce very good results without needing to spend a very large amount of money. And the camera rig is going to be more adaptable to other film formats, as well as more future-proof than buying a dedicated film scanner.

If you are going to get a Fuji, you *do* want that 18-55 f2.8-4 "kit" lens, and getting it packaged with the camera will save you some money. However, that lens would not be my first choice for copying film. One of the great things about the Fuji digital cameras is the good selection of adaptors available, so you have a wide variety of glass available from many manufacturers. For my Fuji X-T1 <film copy rig> I bought a Fuji:M42 adaptor, a used M42 bellows, and adapted a moderately priced enlarger lens to the bellows. Here are some examples of <Delta 400> copied with my setup, and also, <Ektar 100>

On the other hand, it does take a fair amount of ingenuity and patience to put together a workable setup, as opposed to buying an off-the-shelf solution like a scanner.

As for: "I very much hate spending ages scanning, correcting and editing my shots." - a certain amount of that is unavoidable. Once you get your camera rig set up (which may be somewhat fussy), then the "scanning" part goes pretty fast. And, if you are familiar with your favorite editing software, then the correcting and editing part is not too tedious for b&w negatives and slides. However, if you shoot a lot of color negative film, be prepared to spend some time learning how to invert the colors and get results you are happy with. Depending on what software comes with the scanner, inverting color negatives may be one area where the scanner software may offer a slight advantage over camera copies. On the other hand, if the scanner software is crap, you might be better off without it. As far as I know, there is no truly quick and easy way to consistently get good color from color negatives, no matter what method you use to copy them. It gets a lot easier with experience, but there is a learning curve.

If you are currently shooting color negative film and having a lab process it, one alternative would be to have the lab scan it as well. But be advised that there are many labs that do a poor job of scanning, so it may take some effort to find a lab that will make scans you like.

Personally, I don't find the lack of ICE/dust removal to be a major consideration with the film I am shooting now. What little dust I see on film fresh from the lab can be removed with brush and blower. If you have a lot of old film that has been carelessly stored, it may be more significant.

runswithsizzers said:

If you are going to get a Fuji, you *do* want that 18-55 f2.8-4 "kit" lens, and getting it packaged with the camera will save you some money. However, that lens would not be my first choice for copying film. One of the great things about the Fuji digital cameras is the good selection of adaptors available, so you have a wide variety of glass available from many manufacturers. For my Fuji X-T1 <film copy rig> I bought a Fuji:M42 adaptor, a used M42 bellows, and adapted a moderately priced enlarger lens to the bellows. Here are some examples of <Delta 400> copied with my setup, and also, <Ektar 100>

On the other hand, it does take a fair amount of ingenuity and patience to put together a workable setup, as opposed to buying an off-the-shelf solution like a scanner.

As for: "I very much hate spending ages scanning, correcting and editing my shots." - a certain amount of that is unavoidable. Once you get your camera rig set up (which may be somewhat fussy), then the "scanning" part goes pretty fast. And, if you are familiar with your favorite editing software, then the correcting and editing part is not too tedious for b&w negatives and slides. However, if you shoot a lot of color negative film, be prepared to spend some time learning how to invert the colors and get results you are happy with. Depending on what software comes with the scanner, inverting color negatives may be one area where the scanner software may offer a slight advantage over camera copies. On the other hand, if the scanner software is crap, you might be better off without it. As far as I know, there is no truly quick and easy way to consistently get good color from color negatives, no matter what method you use to copy them. It gets a lot easier with experience, but there is a learning curve.

Click to expand...

Your examples from Ektar 100 looks very good to my eyes. How much time do you spend on post work to achieve these kinds of results?

Les Sarile said:

Your examples from Ektar 100 looks very good to my eyes. How much time do you spend on post work to achieve these kinds of results?

Click to expand...

I agree, but I do find the grain a bit odd when you zoom in.
There's a digital feel to them. But most things on a screen look more or less digital.

I've done fine with medium format in color and BW for ten years using my Epson V600. It's a solid machine. It does well enough with 35mm too. See my Flickr portfolio link below. They're about $225 in the US about 50% higher in Europe. about EU350. Good luck with whatever you choose. I have upgraded to the Epson V850 because I started shooting 4x5 film. The V600 is only good for 35mm and medium format although some people merge two scans of different portions of a 4x5.

Note that I mainly shoot chromes as I know immediately if I exposed correctly. I often bracket MF shots so I can pick the one out of three immediately that;s exposed right even before scanning.. With chromes, you don;t have to worry about getting the orange color cast removed during or after the scan, a problem with negative color film. Getting colors right is just harder with negative color film. Of course, you do have more stops with it and chromes can block up in darker shadow areas. See my Flickr portfolio link below. All my pictures are noted with film format and film type so you can judge for yourself.

Thanks everyone. I need to sleep this over a bit, but I think I am going to go with the Epson V600. I will still get the Fuji as a replacement for my camera... just a few month down the line and without macro lens.

What pushed me over the edge was actually trying this a bit. I got my lightpad (aka just the backlight from an old laptop), my Nikon D3100 with the kit 18-55 lens and I tried it. While the inversion process wasn't that difficult I had to spend more time on it to get similar results than what I got on the Plustek. And this was with BW. The result was way more less sharp as well although that can easily be attributed to the lack of a proper macro lens and not that high resolution of my camera. The lack of reasonably priced software to automate these things is kind of a downside as well. Negative lab pro is ok, but you need LR which I don't have - I prefer Affinity Photo since it's cheaper and one time payment.

Not sure if you can buy from Epson directly. But if you can, they currently have a refurbished V600 with one-year included warranty for $139.99 or EU119.
https://epson.com/Clearance-Center/...00-Photo-Scanner---Refurbished/p/B11B198011-N

Alan Edward Klein said:

Not sure if you can buy from Epson directly. But if you can, they currently have a refurbished V600 with one-year included warranty for $139.99 or EU119.
https://epson.com/Clearance-Center/...00-Photo-Scanner---Refurbished/p/B11B198011-N

Click to expand...

Thanks. I can’t find info if they ship to Europe without registering. But even if they did... when you factor in shipping costs and customs I am pretty close to what I would pay for a new one locally.

Les Sarile said:

Your examples from Ektar 100 looks very good to my eyes. How much time do you spend on post work to achieve these kinds of results?

Click to expand...

Thank you, Les. I can't say with any certainty how long it took to post-process those. I imported that roll into Lightroom at 5:14PM and uploaded the finished images to my website at 10:21PM. But I doubt I worked on them the entire time, so it was almost certainly less than 5 hours for the roll. But that time included not just color adjustments, but also writing captions, assigning keywords, and editing the metadata to include the aperture, shutter speed, lens, correct capture date, etc. all of which takes a significant amount of time. Next time I convert a roll I will pay more attention to the time I spent actually editing the image, not including the metadata.

Two years ago, when I first got the Negative Lab Pro plug-in for Lightroom, I really struggled to get results I was happy with. That roll of Ektar, which I processed in July of this year, was the first time I felt like I was able to get somewhere with NLP without banging my head against a wall. Maybe after a few more rolls I can make some improvements in efficiency, as well.

If you're scanning for showing your pics on the web then a flatbed like the v600 is a good choice.

If you intend on printing and enlarging (digital enlarging), it is not a good choice since they discard a lot, a LOT of resolution and -even worse- add aberrations to the image (chromatic aberration, halos, plus sometimes grain aliasing) that diminsh image clarity. Then some people will use digital sharpening to "restore" crispness but it will exaggerate grain or other defects.

In terms of image quality it's a non-contest really, the flatbeds lose.

If you want to print then DSLR scanning or really expensive dedicated scanners are the way to go

For scanning MF film, the V600 is definitely your baby. Also mine. I've had one since 2010 when they were first sold in Australia and it has always served me well. Also a Plustek 7600i for 35mm. Between these two, I've not had any need to go the way of camera processing, which may or may not have its plusses over the negatives (yes, bad pun here) but I do know several dedicated photographers/scanners who went that way (with the camera) and gave it away to return to conventional scanning.

As with anything else to do with photography, there is a learning curve to good scanning. Epson's instruction manual for the V600 is quite lengthy but quite easily read and mastered, unlike Silverfast for m Plustek which required several readings and no end of fiddly (and at times annoying) tests before I began to get good scans from my negatives - oddly, not so much my slides and far less so from my B&W, but as for the Kodacolors and Fujicolors, ahem!!

I don't intend to be critical in any way of camera scanners who like to do it their way and seem entirely satisfied with their results - which going by the images I've seen tend to be too high in contrast and with odd if mostly minimal color shifts for my own requirements or tastes, but that's maybe just me. Certainly I never did produce any images with my Nikon copying gear that I would have been happy to send to any of my publishing clients, back in the days when I sold more stock than I do now.

With camera scans I found the best advantage was I could see immediate results, and then decide what if any small adjustments had to be made to the next scan. Okay, the same can be said of scanners as it's no great effort to check images on my PC screen, but with the camera it involved pushing only one button, which was a big plus for me. For all this, I still went back to my scanners, and I'll stay with them.

I think flavio81 (#19) summed it all up well even if I (mildly) disagree with his opinion on flatbeds. The V600 is capable of quite excellent work but it takes some effort and the post processing can use up endless time. He is entirely correct about the lower resolution/loss of resolution, tho this can be compensated for if your original image is good.

Also auer (#9), who posted two fine images in support of his comments. Many of us mostly post images online these days and the flatbeds are entirely adequate for this, even for '35'.

Horses for courses, as they say. (I really never did figure this one out, but then I'm not a racing fan anyway.)

I use Silverfast mostlyt these days, version 8 (i think) came free with the V600. Specifically for color negatives, the Colorcast removal works very well and is the closest I can get to my local camera shops Fuji Frontier.
Like Ozmoose I find many camera scans very saturated and quite often see them as rather un-film like. But whatever, that's me.

Portra 160 at ISO640, Pentax 645N, Cinestill CS41, Bleach Bypass.

Auer said:

I use Silverfast mostlyt these days, version 8 (i think) came free with the V600. Specifically for color negatives, the Colorcast removal works very well and is the closest I can get to my local camera shops Fuji Frontier.
Like Ozmoose I find many camera scans very saturated and quite often see them as rather un-film like. But whatever, that's me.

Portra 160 at ISO640, Pentax 645N, Cinestill CS41, Bleach Bypass.

Click to expand...

If that image illustrates what you like about the color rendition of flatbed scanners, I can see why you don’t like camera-scans.

runswithsizzers said:

If that image illustrates what you like about the color rendition of flatbed scanners, I can see why you don’t like camera-scans.

Click to expand...

Absolutely.
I 'm not expecting HDR crap from a Bleach Bypass.

Auer said:

I use Silverfast mostly these days, version 8 (i think) came free with the V600. Specifically for color negatives, the Colorcast removal works very well and is the closest I can get to my local camera shops Fuji Frontier.

Like ozmoose I find many camera scans very saturated and quite often see them as rather un-film like. But whatever, that's me.

Click to expand...

Lucky you. Mine came with the Epson software which is okay but nothing special. My Plustek had Silverfast version 6.6, but that was in the late Iron Age (2009).

I did think of upgrading to the latest Silverfast, but I'm now an age pensioner and too mean (= skint) to invest all that dosh in it.

To be fair, I think most camera scanners are entirely satisfied with their oversaturated colors and HDR-like contrast, but my publisher clients are not. For me, that's end of story. Needs must.

PS To me your posted photo is super good. I like complex images and trash cans are one of my naturals. Me, I would pull the red a tad and maybe even out the grey a bit or darken it a little, but even as is, it's a beaut shot.

ozmoose said:

Lucky you. Mine came with the Epson software which is okay but nothing special. My Plustek had Silverfast version 6.6, but that was in the late Iron Age (2009).

I did think of upgrading to the latest Silverfast, but I'm now an age pensioner and too mean (= skint) to invest all that dosh in it.

Click to expand...

Currenty produced and supported Epson flatbeds are eligible for free Silverfast SE 8 software (because the new Epson Scan 2 doesn't support ICE and old Epson Scan doesn't work on all new operating systems). So, it doesn't matter if your scanner didn't have Silverfast when you bought the scanner, you can download it now for free.

brbo said:

Currenty produced and supported Epson flatbeds are eligible for free Silverfast SE 8 software (because the new Epson Scan 2 doesn't support ICE and old Epson Scan doesn't work on all new operating systems). So, it doesn't matter if your scanner didn't have Silverfast when you bought the scanner, you can download it now for free.

Click to expand...

I believe Epson Scan 2 is for Apple. I use the regular Epson Scan on my Windows 10 desktop. I think you have to upgrade the freebie SE8 to take advantage of color-correcting negative color scans. The SE8 is a loss leader and not better than Epsonscan IMO.