Epson v850 Pro vs Epson GT-X980 scanner

I've been using a Nikon Coolscan LS8000 for all my medium format and 35mm scanning until it crashed. I've stuck a good sum of money into it and it's still in crashed mode. I'm seriously thinking of parting it out and using my Sony A7RII with slide/film copier for 35mm and buying a new Epson V850 Pro for medium format and larger. I just checked eBay for the heck of it and noticed the Japanese are unloading hundreds of Epson GT-X980 scanners brand new for about half what I could buy a used V850 Pro for. They claim it's the same as the V850 Pro, but I have no idea if it is or not. Also, almost all the Japanese sellers offer free shipping to boot. I would assume these have no warranty, but eBay has a very good buyer protection plan so it might not be a bad deal. Has anyone here bought one of these GT-X980 scanners and if so how do you like and compare it to the V850?

Yeah, appears to be the same scanner. Just a different model number for the Japanese market. The power supply may also be a different one; verify that the scanner comes with a power supply that'll work with your US outlets. Voltage will likely not be the issue - most of these SMPS units are 100~240V 50/60Hz rated anyway, but check that, too. Verify it has the proper plug and if not, but it does have the proper voltage rating, then get an adapter to go with it.

Sorry, no hands-on experience. If the price is really half that of an 850, I'd just go for it if you feel you need to own a scanner.
Don't expect the same kind of quality from any flatbed that you got from the LS8000. It'll be OK for 4x5", on medium format you may find the flatbed scans very 'fuzzy', but they generally print well up to significant enlargements still. With medium format, I suspect you'll get better overall image quality if you use the Sony digicam for it. Sheet film may be past the tipping point, although ask yourself how many pixels you need in your 4x5" scans anyway.

Maybe, thinking this through, in your shows I'd just start with the Sony and then see if you find it lacking in any way, after having thoroughly optimized the setup.

I don't know what "half the price" means in $ or €, but it might not be a bad idea to jump on it. There are rumours of EOL for Epson higher end flatbed scanners (V850, 13000XL).

koraks said:

Yeah, appears to be the same scanner. Just a different model number for the Japanese market. The power supply may also be a different one; verify that the scanner comes with a power supply that'll work with your US outlets. Voltage will likely not be the issue - most of these SMPS units are 100~240V 50/60Hz rated anyway, but check that, too. Verify it has the proper plug and if not, but it does have the proper voltage rating, then get an adapter to go with it.

Sorry, no hands-on experience. If the price is really half that of an 850, I'd just go for it if you feel you need to own a scanner.
Don't expect the same kind of quality from any flatbed that you got from the LS8000. It'll be OK for 4x5", on medium format you may find the flatbed scans very 'fuzzy', but they generally print well up to significant enlargements still. With medium format, I suspect you'll get better overall image quality if you use the Sony digicam for it. Sheet film may be past the tipping point, although ask yourself how many pixels you need in your 4x5" scans anyway.

Maybe, thinking this through, in your shows I'd just start with the Sony and then see if you find it lacking in any way, after having thoroughly optimized the setup.

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Yes, I know I won't get the same quality scan I got with the Coolscan LS8000, but I think it will be fine for 4X5/8X10 film. 120 film scanning will take a little hit, but I don't plan on making giant digital prints from medium format anyway. I still wet print and any negative really worth top quality would be wet printed also. The Epson would be for digital logging and quick proof type printing. I've used an old Epson 2450 and now a 3200 for 4X5 with pretty darn good results. A friend gave me his Microtek M1 scanner, which scans under the glass top bed and it works even better than the older Epson scanners. The only down side to the Artixsan M1 is it's quirky and not as easy to use as the Epson scanners. I think I'll do a little more research on the GT-X980 and if it prove worth while I'll go for it. Koraks, as usual, you give well thought out advice.

The flatbed will be fine for your purposes, I think. It's exactly what I use mine for. I'm not sure if I'll replace it when it breaks, but I admit that I hope that point is far off, still (well, it broke the other day, but I have provisionally mended it).

koraks said:

The flatbed will be fine for your purposes, I think. It's exactly what I use mine for. I'm not sure if I'll replace it when it breaks, but I admit that I hope that point is far off, still (well, it broke the other day, but I have provisionally mended it).

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You don't know how much you miss something until you don't have it anymore. I'm going to give my Nikon LS8000 one more little try repair, but I'm just totally frustrated with the scanner at the moment. I still want a good flatbed for speed and ease of use. The deals on the Epson GT-X980/V850 look very tempting at the moment.

Yeah, I know. When something snapped in the transparency adapter, I did have a "oh sh...." realization for a moment.
I understand the situation; this is one of those "toss a coin" situations as far as I'm concerned. Or maybe toss a couple of coins and hope they land favorably!

One thing I couldn't quite figure out from the information I saw was whether the Japanese model comes with the same variety of negative and slide holders that the v850 pro includes in the box.

MattKing said:

One thing I couldn't quite figure out from the information I saw was whether the Japanese model comes with the same variety of negative and slide holders that the v850 pro includes in the box.

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On the big auction site I checked a GT-X980 from a Japanese seller and it comes with four holders just like the V850 comes with. I'm still doing a little research yet, but will decide on whether or not to purchase later tonight. I'm leaning toward taking a chance.

Well, I didn't wait until midnight to click "buy-it-now". My new Epson GT-X980 is on its way from Japan. Final cost after taxes was $739.67, which is a pretty good deal for a new V850/GT-X980 scanner. I also just found out on YouTube that Epson is truly bowing out of the high end scanner business. The V850 is the end of the line. That's another reason I jumped a little faster. Oh, and the fact that the new administration will probably start slapping tariffs on Japanese goods also. Just read that new buyers of Chamonix large format cameras are now going to pay 35% more per camera and that FedEx will tack on another 2% to collect the tariff. Glad I bought my 45N2 when I did. I sure hope Hugo can stay in business after this hike.

Congrats on the new scanner!
It makes business sense that the V850 turns out to be the swan song of 'prosumer' flatbed scanners. It's still a little sad, of course. The reality is that scanners have been going out of fashion for a long time; about a decade ago, I was at trade fair aimed at the heritage/museum sector and I noticed that the imaging solutions offered were all based on a big digital Hasselblad mounted on a glorified copy stand.

koraks said:

Congrats on the new scanner!
It makes business sense that the V850 turns out to be the swan song of 'prosumer' flatbed scanners. It's still a little sad, of course. The reality is that scanners have been going out of fashion for a long time; about a decade ago, I was at trade fair aimed at the heritage/museum sector and I noticed that the imaging solutions offered were all based on a big digital Hasselblad mounted on a glorified copy stand.

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Maybe I should have saved my money and just bought a digital back for my Hasselblad. Ha-ha! For me, digitizing 35mm with my 42mp Sony is very practical and fairly easy to do, but when going to larger size negatives I just figure the new scanner is easier and faster. No lining things up, no stitching just the time it takes to do the scan.

I received the Epson GT-X980 I ordered from Japan today. Blazing fast shipping, I must say. It was picked up by FedEx in Japan at 1:13pm 2/10/25, and I received it in northern lower Michigan today 2/12/25 at 1:23pm. I didn't get a chance to play with it since I had to head south for two doctor's appointments tomorrow. Can't wait to get back to the cottage to try this thing out. I still can't believe how fast it got here.

I made it back to my cottage and set up the GT-X980/V850. It was a piece of cake! The only thing in Japanese was the written manual that came with it. I just pulled up the V850 version off the web. The software disc was all in English. No power adapter is needed. It probably took me a total of ten minutes, and I was up and scanning. I just used Vuescan that I already own. I'll compare it to Epson scan tomorrow, but so far it works great with Vuescan. I'm glad I pulled the trigger on this one.

Brilliant, nice to hear!

John Wiegerink said:

I made it back to my cottage and set up the GT-X980/V850. It was a piece of cake! The only thing in Japanese was the written manual that came with it. I just pulled up the V850 version off the web. The software disc was all in English. No power adapter is needed. It probably took me a total of ten minutes, and I was up and scanning. I just used Vuescan that I already own. I'll compare it to Epson scan tomorrow, but so far it works great with Vuescan. I'm glad I pulled the trigger on this one.

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How was your first scan? Very interested to learn about this deal. Thanks for sharing.

Hasslebad said:

How was your first scan? Very interested to learn about this deal. Thanks for sharing.

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I didn't do any fancy scanning. I scanned two rolls of 120 Kentmere 100. Both were out of a couple of Zeiss folders that I'm setting focus on. The scanner seems sharper and faster than either my old Epson 3200 or the Microtek Artixscan M1. The 120 film holder seems a little flimsy, but worked just fine. Haven't tried 4X5 or 35mm yet. I do know that it plays very nicely with Vuescan and I suspect it will with Epson scan also. All I know is that I saved a few dollars and will use that to buy some film or whatever.

That’s great news!

I just bought myself a GT-X 980 as well, my V800 unfortunately is unrepairable.

I was just wondering if the scanner came with the assorted film holders, Epson Scan work alright?

About a year ago I purchased one of the GTX 980 from Japan and can confirm it came to me quickly and 100% new in box. All the documents are in Japanese so you will need to download english ones online. It shows up in my Vuescan software as a V800 so I am assuming that the V800 V850 and GTX-980 are all the same hardware and the only difference is what it was shipped with in terms of packaging, documentation, software, and film holders. IF my memory serves me correctly the V850 originally came with 2 each of some of the film holders as a 'bonus' over the V800? The GTX-980 comes with one each - but they are the ones with a clear plastic element in the holder that has a surface treatment that I assume is to combat Newton's Rings.

Note that the film holder has some adjustable "feet" that is used to calibrate the focal plane. I purchased one of Vlads Test Targets for medium format and calibrated my focus and found it to be right in the middle of the adjustable feet settings. The plastic holder frames are a bit finicky if you ask me. It is sometimes a struggle to get them snapped shut and then when I open them I feel like I am going to break them. As of now I am not going to go after the ones you can get on the aftermarket because they seem expensive for what you get. As I understand it the optical path is different when using items placed directly on the glass vs those placed in a holder. There are two different focal planes - I think the setting in Vuescan between print and transparency scanning selects the focal plane to use, but I might be wrong on how this works.

I have heard people claim that there is no reason to use this Epson scanner above the 1600 dpi setting because it can't get higher resolution. So, I also performed a test using the test targets to see if the resolution of the Epson hardware can really get to 6400 dpi. I scanned a small portion of the test target (the smallest details on the target) multiple times in a row without physically changing anything at 1600, 3200 and 6400 dpi. It is easy to see the resolution increase from 1600 to 3200 AND there is an increase in resolution from 3200 to 6400 but from my eye the difference is less noticeable. This suggests to me that there is higher resolution than 3200 but that maybe the test target itself, the focus, or something else in the optical path is decreasing the sharpness. The machine outputs a file with 6400 dpi but it is only judged to my eye to be a little sharper than the 3200 dpi version. It doesn't really matter though because my computer chokes on a 6X7 negative scanned at 6400 dpi scanned to a RAW file.

About the v850 holders for 120 - my neg strips are of 4 frames, 3 strips (to minimize end frames). Not only the holders are not long enough for 4 frames, the clamping feature would puncture the film if it ran out beyond the frame.
When I scan 120, I tape (with blue painting low stick tape) the edges of the film down onto a piece of anr glass, and place the glass e-down on the scanner, separated by strips of aluminum and shimming at the sides. I determined the necessary height (for focus) by buying 2 feeler gauge sets, cleaning them up and testing trial and error with the glass/neg setup until sharpness was optimum. (On my scanner, it's 3.25mm).
It's how I scan all 120 and usually 4x5. And with 4x5, if you place carefully, you can mount 2 4x5's vs the single one using the holder.

Sorry for your loss. I just lost my second DiMage 5400 and opted for Plustek 8200. I compared the Epson using the AN glass inserts from better scanning with the Plustek 8200 at 1200 and 3200 and not much difference IMHO, but yea nothing beats the Nikon.

I had sent my Nikon LS-8000 out for repair (main board needed a firewire fix IC controller). When I got it back I was able to scan three negatives and it puked again. I then bought a good replacement main board and installed it. Still a no-go. I played around and played around. Still no-go. That's when I decided to buy a Japanese V850 to cover me until I decided for sure what to do with the Nikon LS8000. The V850 filled the bill, but wasn't a Nikon LS8000. Then one evening I was doing my normal searching the Internet for any ideas as to what could be wrong with the LS8000. Bingo! I read where the coupler that drives the autofocus for the lens has just one screw and sometimes that screw works itself loose as a goose. Well, I tore it back apart and sure enough that blasted screw was loose. There are two threaded holes in the coupler, but only one screw is used from the factory. Go figure??? I tightened it up and it then went through all its pre-setup tests and the LED worked as should. Fingers crossed I scanned a 120 negative and was thrilled. I had my scanner back by just tightening one little screw. Well, I should say two little screws since I put a screw in the empty factory hole where Nikon should have put one. Now it's double secure. I do have to slightly realign the CCD since it's just a little skewed, but not bad. I'm happy as a pig in a mud puddle to have my Nikon LS8000 back up and running.

George Collier said:

About the v850 holders for 120 - my neg strips are of 4 frames, 3 strips (to minimize end frames). Not only the holders are not long enough for 4 frames, the clamping feature would puncture the film if it ran out beyond the frame.
When I scan 120, I tape (with blue painting low stick tape) the edges of the film down onto a piece of anr glass, and place the glass e-down on the scanner, separated by strips of aluminum and shimming at the sides. I determined the necessary height (for focus) by buying 2 feeler gauge sets, cleaning them up and testing trial and error with the glass/neg setup until sharpness was optimum. (On my scanner, it's 3.25mm).
It's how I scan all 120 and usually 4x5. And with 4x5, if you place carefully, you can mount 2 4x5's vs the single one using the holder.

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the 3.25 mm you state. Is that 3.25 mm from the glass of the scanner to the under side of the ANR glass or to the negative? I am assuming 3.25 mm to the ANR glass and so to get a measurement to the plane which the negative is in we would have to add the thickness of your ANR glass?

IF you ever calibrated the v850 holder for the focal plane were the slider ramps near the center? IF yes then I could start my focus calibration for a similar ANR Glass device based on your 3.25mm

I hate it that the Epson 120 holders are not long enough to hold one more frame of 6X7 negative ... then it would match the typical medium format storage sleeve.

Any tricks you have discovered on how to keep dust under control? There are several planes to keep dust free to get a good scan (the glass of the scanner bed, 2 sides of a negative carrier, 2 sides of a negative, and the glass of the "door" on the scanner that has the back light in it.

thanks for any thoughts you might have

Don't forget that glass is optically thinner than what it measures -- that is, due to index of refraction, light rays will focus closer than clear space plus glass thickness, compared to no glass.