Epson V800 vs V850 — The 5 Differences and Which You Should Buy

They aren’t cheap, but I’m a big fan of the Lomography DigitaLIZA masks. I have 2 each for 35mm and for 120 so I can load one while the other is scanning. By far the quickest and most consistent process I’ve tried
https://shop.lomography.com/us/digitaliza-120-scanning-mask
https://shop.lomography.com/us/digitaliza-35-mm-scanning-mask

why ?

You can scan with V700 negative holders which hold 6 strips of 6 negs.

Hi! Did you ever figure this out? Which scanner do you like better now that you have used both?

Are you using the same resolution scan? Check to see that the resolution is not just set to Auto. Also note that the high resolutions are different.

Here is example of a print: https://www.eclosque.com/prints/effuse-abstract-fine-art-print
And here is an example of one of my textures pack: https://www.eclosque.com/digital/heartful-watercolour-textures

Hi Anastasia! Did you ever get one of these scanners and did it work out for you? Love your work. I want to scan photographs but there is a few artwork pieces of my daughters that I would like to digitize.

You should be using a film scanner. because you have so many slides. See if you can get a used Nikon scanner (the 5000 is better than the 4000) with an automatic slide feeder. They do at least 36 at a time. So you can walk away from it. Minolta was the best slide scanner however they were tricky. So only get one that you can return if it does not work. If you can find an Imacon , it is THE BEST but very pricy. (if you use one, look into wet scanning from ScanScience in Canada. The epson also ha a way to do wet scanning. Imacon is also a bit tricky to work with and slower to load than using a nikon with bulk feeder. Scan them at the largest size you can and at 16 bit. The nikons do 4000 dpi and the minolta about 20% larger. Both have a scratch and dust removal feature, which is great. I used it at the lowest level. if you slides are untouched, then you don’t nee this, but most likely you will need it. Do a test at the larges size scan and then look carefully at it in photoshop or other app to see how much retouching it will need. when you scan with any scanner, Use only a maximum size equal to the native scanning capability. specs are often given with two values 800 / 1600 dpi. Use the lower one. The upper one means it is interpolated to be larger. you can do this in photoshop IF you need it. If not, then no reason to degrade the original scan by making it larger.

The Epson scanners only have a resolution of 2300 for 35mm (about 6.7MP). So, if you set the scans higher you only get large bloated files with no extra detail (as the optical lenses are the real limitation, not the electronics, so the scans look somewhat out of focus on an HD monitor). Manufacturer specs tend to boast about the high CCD resolution and hide the low optical resolution (very misleading).

Moderately priced film scanners are available that will do 4100-4300 (about 23-24MP, sufficient to resolve grain and dye clusters and display crisply on a 4K UHD TV or quite well with some scaling on an 8K UHD TV).

Pacific Image (aka. Reflecta in Europe) have a variety of models with varying degrees of automation (manual is the cheapest). They seem to give good results (search for brand/model on Flickr to see examples), but there are reports of poor build quality (may not be long lived and reliable).

But market choices are now very limited. Nikon quit in 2009 and running a secondhand Coolscan will likely require the software driver and software to be installed in a virtual machine due to incompatibilities with modern OS. They are very expensive compared to the modern units when found new (up to 10x the price), have slightly less resolution but better shadow detail retrieval (and are solidly built). I suspect even a secondhand unit will cost significantly more than a modern alternative.

Some informative reviews and comparisons are posted on filmscanner(dot)info. The site is a bit eccentric: awkward dense wordy phrasing; no mention of supported colour gamut (no reviews or scanner spec sheets ever mention this very important specification, and some scanners are locked to sRGB which is significantly less colour range than film, modern monitors and TVs); sample scans are displayed as tiny 256 colour GIF files, etc. But still, a good start on getting a handle on what’s available.

Tricera 604 733 5702 experts in high end scanners and printers from epson

It does not, Greg. The Epson V850 Pro can’t work independently. It’s strictly a flatbed scanner that cannot work unless it’s connected to a computer with either internal storage or external storage also connected.

If you are looking for something portable and independent from a computer, consider something like the Flip-Pal. There are a lot of quality/software compromises when stepping down this far compared to the highest-end flatbed like the V850, but you will at least be extremely portable.

amazon sells replacement holders for the v600

I’ve read and heard nothing to make me believe a new model is coming out anytime soon.

Check out this comment thread started by “Peter” and my answer here on this same article.

The Epson V600 flatbed will handle up to 4 slides in a batch and two strips of 35 mm negatives, or several medium format slides or negatives, as well as reflective materials (prints) up to 8.5×11″. The much more expensive V800 & V850 will also do the same size reflective originals, but will do more slides or negatives in a batch. They will also do transparent originals up to 8×10 inches. The EpsonScan software included with all Epson scanners lets you crop to scan just the image you want, without extra space. VueScan Pro (VSP), less than $100 USD from Hamrick Software, works with thousands of different scanners. It also lets you crop and scan multiple individual images, regardless of whether they’re prints, slides, or negatives. I’ve consistently found VSP to cut my scanning time almost in half for scanning the same originals while giving me many more scanning options. It’s well worth the investment. Be aware that the less expensive VueScan program does NOT work for slides or negatives, so don’t bother with it when you want to scan slides. Check out the VueScan User Guide at https://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc.htm to learn how to use the software. It’s very informative.

Hi Brian, can you please explain how the V39 “leaves a lot to be desired on photos?” I am about to embark on a photo scanning project of our late grandparents’ photos and I had been planning on using it. Thank you.

The V750 holders work on the V850 so I expect the newer ones would work on the V750.

Hi Julia,

The Epson V8xx series scanners, I believe, will scan a maximum of just over 8.5 x 11.7 inches at one time. If your artwork is larger than that, you’d need to do each piece in two or more sections and later splice them together in software. You also probably don’t have a computer capable of handling the humongous files you’d get from scanning anything letter-size or larger at 6400 dpi. A 4″ x 6″ print at 6400 dpi would give you a file of (4×6400) by (6×6400) pixels (25,600 x 38,400 pixels) or about 983.4 megabytes. Your scanning time per image will likely be measured in minutes, as will the time it takes your computer to load such a huge file into any image editing program. Storage will also be an issue for just a few images of that size.

How large do you contemplate printing any of your digital images? Remember that the larger a display image, the further away the viewer needs to be to be able to view the entire image. Even highway billboards are printed at 300 dpi or less, although they appear acceptably sharp at normal viewing distances.

You’re likely to have difficulty finding any scanner with a larger platen than legal size (8.5 x 14″) at any price with anywhere near 6400 dpi. Even if you did find one, do you have sufficient space to set it up and a table/desk strong enough to support its weight?

You might check with nearby art galleries or museums to see how they digitize their artwork.

To digitize artwork of any size larger than 8.5 x 11″, you’re probably better to use a digital camera with a macro lens that lets you shoot in RAW. You could then take a shot of the entire piece of artwork and take additional shots by moving in and shooting smaller parts of the image to enlarge significant detail areas. You’d get about the same, or better resolution, depending on the capability of the camera, with much smaller file sizes, and in fractions of a second per shot. My Sony A-77 Mark 2 has an image sensor of 4,000 x 6,000 pixels and gives me ARW (Sony’s version of RAW) files of about 25 megabytes. Cameras with higher resolution sensors, common in newer models, would give correspondingly higher image resolutions, but still nothing like the 6400 dpi from scanning.

Hi Julia, at 6400 dpi the file sizes may become too large even if your computer can manage them. Photoshop has limits as well, as do many storage devices that limit the size for individual files.

As Art mentioned, a 4″ x 6″ at 6400 dpi would be almost 1 gigabyte. A common 8 x 10 would be over 3 gigabytes! Photoshop duplicates the file numerous times in virtual ram to allow for layers, history levels, etc. You’re quickly into a high end processor / RAM combo just to do light editing on your files.

Here’s an example of mine that might work for you as a fellow visual artist and perhaps clarify your dpi needs. I scan drawings on an old Epson A3-size flatbed scanner at 1200 dpi in Vuescan. An A3 drawing page, for example, is 11.75 x 16.5 inches. The scanned image is 14,100 x 19,800 pixels. That’s about a 300mb file, but it gets worse. That same file will consume over 1gb when loaded in Photoshop because the system allots extra memory for history and levels. Nevertheless, it is usable once loaded, and in Photoshop or other image processing software you can convert without resampling that 1,200 dpi file down to 300 dpi (the latter is adequate for printing on most textured “fine art” substrates) and your A3 original will print at a very impressive 47 x 66 inches, too large for the 44″ inch printers on the market! I knock mine back to 40″ to print on an Epson 44″ printer. That 1200 dpi scan is usually plenty for most artwork and much easier to work with than higher res scans.

In other words, you will definitely encounter limitations when working with 3 gigabyte files if you decide to scan A4 or letter-size artwork at the full 6400 dpi, or even the 4800dpi. Even on a very fast computer with 16gb or even 32Gb of Ram and gobs of virtual ram space on your disk drive, most Photoshop tools, rendering, filtering, etc will be very sluggish … if the file even loads. If the original artwork is much smaller, then yes there may be times when you will want the added resolution if you plan to print huge.

Hi Amali,

Regardless of what the manual or online sources may say, so long as your negatives scan so that any printing in an image appears the right way to be read, continue putting your negatives into the holder as you’ve been doing. The “shiny side” is the “base side” of the film which holds the emulsion layers that give the colors. With slides, the “shiny side” goes toward the screen and the “base side” goes toward the projector lamp. If your scans have any text in the image appearing as a mirror image, or men’s shirt buttons are on the man’s left side (viewer’s right), you should flip the strip of negatives the other side up since it’s upside down.

Thanks Sam. 🙂

If you’re speaking of the unique coatings on the V850 Pro that I mentioned in #1 of the article, those coatings are actually on the optics (lenses) and mirrors inside of the scanner, underneath the scanner glass. If you also purchased the optional Epson Fluid Mount Accessory would be loaded with your film, sandwiched inside with fluid, and then this whole mount would then be placed on top of the scanner glass — as shown here in diagrams on one of Epson’s support pages.

Hi Jim, I’ve scanned in almost 50,000 family slides and negatives using the V750 Pro. I think the main benefit to the 850 is the led light and hence faster startup time. I’m sure you’re aware that the V750 will go to sleep and then need to warm up again before it starts scanning. Also, you can use a firewire instead of USB 2.0. Might help a little bit. Anyway….if you can get a good price for your 750 it might be worth it….but if you can stick to scanning fast enough that the scanner doesn’t go to sleep then I think you’ll be fine with the 750.

Hi Peter, I haven’t heard anything regarding Epson producing a v900 or v950 scanner. There was some rumor mill in Australia about a launch there, but that was 2 years ago. Epson doesn’t have any such mentiojn on their site or in their launch material. They do have the 9000 printer.

Peter, I spoke with a representative from Epson in person a month ago, about many different things. One thing I recall him bringing up in our conversation was the V800 and V850 were really only released to bring parity across the rest of their scanner line, to include an LED lamp. Additionally, he said they also wanted to address the concerns many had with the film trays, and update their design to meet user requests.

So, given the amount of time it took them to update the V7xx series to the V8xx series, and from the things the representative told me, I think it’s a fair assumption Epson doesn’t view their Perfection flatbed scanner line like Apple views their iPhone “cash cow.” I think they are quite proud of their V8xx series as is, and likely has no intention of updating the two models anytime soon.

Oh cool Zak. It sounds like you have a great collection to work with — Thanks for sharing!

And glad to hear my review helped you, and that you are going with the 850. I’m sure many will be jealous! 😉

Hi Andrea,

You should be able to manually scan your View-Master reels on the V800. Use which ever slide/negative holder will fit their outer diameter (probably the 4×5 but possibly the 5×7), and lay a reel on the glass. You may need to use popsicle or similar thin sticks under the outer edges of the reel to keep it level and parallel to the glass. After doing a Preview scan, simply crop in to fill the scan with a single frame image. If your software lets you scan a batch of images in sequence, turn on that feature and crop as many images per reel as you can for each batch. Once you’re happy with the crop(s), go ahead and do the scan. No doubt it will be a lengthy, time-consuming process, but it should get the job done. It’s unlikely Epson or any other company will produce a commercial holder for View-Master reels, since probably few people who still have any will be interested in digitizing them. A couple of years ago, I did find an individual on the Web who used a 3-D printer to make custom-sized slide holders for the V600 so people could scan 126 Instamatic and 110 Pocket Instamatic, and possibly also Kodak Disc negatives, but you’d need to google for his name and web site. If he’s still offering such services, he may be willing and able to help you with an appropriate holder. Good luck in your project.

Hi Andrew,

I share your sentiments about needing to subscribe to any program, such as those from Adobe. A good alternative to Adobe’s Lightroom, which so far as I know is still available (version 6) as a buy-once and use “forever”. (Lightroom should give you virtually all of the editing features you’re likely to need.), is ACDSee Photo Studio 2018, although it’s only available for Windows at the moment. There is a Mac version, but I don’t believe it has all the features of the Windows version. There’s also Adobe Photoshop Elements (currently version 2018 which just came out about 2 months ago). Many people find it satisfactory for image editing. It’s also an outright purchase instead of a subscription. For cataloging your images, and videos, as well as adding tags, keywords, and more metadata, download the FREE Adobe Bridge (available for Mac and for Windows). It’s more useful for such metadata additions and editing than any other program I’m aware. You do NOT need a subscription to any Adobe program to be able to download, install, and use Bridge for working with metadata, although you do need at least Adobe Camera RAW (ACR), or a subscription to either Lightroom or Photoshop CC to do image editing within Bridge. If you’re interested in adding more information about the provenance of each image, (who created it, who has owned it, how it came to you, etc.) there’s a free add-on to Bridge called the IPTC Cultural-Heritage Panel you can download and install. Google IPTC Cultural-Heritage Panel to find the source for it. One of the greatest benefits of Bridge, with or without the C-H Panel, is that the metadata is written directly to each image file so it stays with the image if it’s copied or moved. Most other programs require a separate step to write metadata to the images instead of only to their own proprietary databases. As I understand it from many reports I’ve read from Mac users, the Mac OS, Aperture, iPhoto, and Photos for Mac trap metadata in their own databases and do not write it to the actual image files. Any images moved to another computer, uploaded to a web storage site, etc. are permanently separated from their metadata so all the time and effort spent adding lots of data is lost.

Another program you may want to investigate is AnalogEXIF. I’m not sure if there’s a Mac version of it, but the web site does have some screen shots and information about the metadata that can be added with it. It’s designed for people scanning film originals so includes information, which is likely no longer available in your situation, unless the negatives/slides you mention actually show up, about what specific film was used, the developer type, time, temperature used to develop the negative, the camera, lens focal length, exposure settings, etc. Unfortunately, the program itself is of only limited use to many people because only a dozen or so film camera models were ever sold that recorded the camera information. It was a good idea, but by the time it was introduced to film cameras, digital cameras, which added more information, had captured much of the market. However, with a review of the kinds of information AnalogEXIF is capable of recording, you may decide you want to add at least some of it for your scans. If you ever find the negatives/slides, there are some web sites that will help identify specific types of films used throughout the last 125 or so years. Maybe you already know what kind(s) of camera(s) and film(s) your Dad regularly used, so you could add that information.

Remember, the more information you can add as metadata, especially when it’s written directly to the actual image files, the easier it will be for you and anybody else to find one or more specific images quickly. Check out the free Adobe Bridge and IPTC Cultural-Heritage Panel since you can use them without any subscription. They also write the metadata directly to your image files, without trapping it in a proprietary database that forces you to use a specific program to view or use your metadata.

I’d say you’ve made a good choice in going with the V-800, but I recommend investing another $90 USD (or UK Pound equivalent) in a copy of VueScan Pro software. You’ll likely find it speeds up the scanning time significantly. Using it with the V-600, I’ve found it cuts the time per slide/negative/or print to almost half of the time required with EpsonScan while giving much more flexibility in choosing your optimum quality settings. It’s available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux and works with any of over 2,500 different scanner makes and models, including the V-800. Many users have reported preferring it to any version of Silverfast, such as that included with the V-800.

Thanks Andrew for all of the compliments of my website. I really appreciate that! 🙂

Congratulations on your V800 purchase! I’m sure you will really enjoy partnering with this for your big project. I think you made a great decision if you were really worried about the amount of film frames you could scan at a time. You definitely want to sleep well knowing that you bought as good of a scanner as you wanted to. No regrets makes good peace of mind.

I’m sorry to hear about the loss of your family’s negatives. But, don’t feel like you are in the minority. After hearing a similar story for many many people over the last 10 or so years since I started this website, I can assure you you are not alone. I’m quite sure my Mother threw out a lot of our negatives through the years as well, before she discovered later there was someone in the family that care about them and saw a purpose for them. But, I understand even understanding why they were tossed out, doesn’t make you still wish every day you had them. 😉

Thank you for expressing your feelings about camera scanning. I know camera scanning may be an amazing option for some who are already comfortable with using a DLSR or have the desire to invest and learn. Others, like yourself and many I help, see a flatbed scanner as a much easier device to wrap their heads around how it will fit into their life. The time it takes to scan a single photo may be a bit longer, but there are other tasks you will want to do that you can do while a batch of photos are scanning — such as cleaning the print/film you are about to scan next or renaming the files that were just scanned — the time in my head probably works out to be about the same.

And thanks Andrew for taking the time to write me and share your thoughts with everyone here. Congrats again on your purchase. I wish you the best on your new project!

Cheers!
Curtis

Your feedback is well thought out. You have a good handle on your needs. I scanned over 1500 old photos from 1910 to 1980s of all the family photos and then disseminated to family members on thumb drives. I use both Mac & PC, even have my 2016 12″ Macbook with Parallels for both Mac OS and Windows, and it works well. You probably know this, but I’ve done these projects and I always recommend, back up onto an external hard drive. I’ve used some of iCloud for storage, but the photos don’t always go up the original size. Thus, I use a Western Digital EX2 Cloud at home. For your needs, the V800 should do well. I’m opting for v850 as I have old negatives to scan and need eliminate as much distortion and noise possible.

Hi Ed,

Probably you’ve seen little mention of the Reflecta 6000 and similar scanners based on various slide projectors on Curtis’ blog because few readers have invested in one of them. A Google search for that model will show several pages of results, many of them being reviews. One of the most common comments I’ve seen indicate that there is a common tendency for any except thin plastic slide mounts to jam between the slide tray and the scanner, either on the way into or out of the tray. Glass mounts may break with potential damage to the film. Cardboard (“carton” mounts, on at least one review I saw) tend to bend and buckle the film, leaving permanent creases in the image.

The optics are usually set to cover about 37.5 x 37.5 mm so they’ll cover either portrait or landscape format 35 mm slides with image area of 24 x 36 mm. You can, at least in theory, put 110 slides (in 2″ x 2″ mounts), 126 slides, and several variations of Superslides into any of the recommended slide trays. However, even if you don’t encounter problems with the mounts jamming, there is no way to crop out the part of the mount around either the 110 or 126 format images, since they’re much smaller than the standard 35 mm image. Parts of the Superslide images is likely to be cropped off since they tend to have larger image areas than the optics can properly cover. The V800/V850 let you crop each slide individually, no matter what size the image area is, so you don’t encounter this problem.

Finding a reliable slide tray, or two, that seldom cause slide jams, seems to be something of a challenge. Even if you do succeed with such a project, you still need to spend time loading and unloading each tray. Since most of the suggested trays take either 50 or 100 slides, this can be a lengthy project. Several reviews I’ve seen indicate that the time per slide scan is so slow that a tray of 100 slides can be an overnight job, assuming nothing jams the projector. With the Epson V800/850 (or older V700/750) slide holders, you can be safely scanning one batch, with no fear of jamming, while you load a second holder with the next batch.

While you mention you currently are interested in scanning only slides, no negatives, if you some time in the future find some negatives in your collection, or somebody gives you some, unless you cut them apart and put each into a slide mount, the Reflecta and similar slide scanners won’t work for you. With the Epson scanners, you simply put any negatives into the appropriate, provided negative carrier(s) and proceed to scan them.

Likewise, if you come across prints you want to digitize, a slide scanner won’t be any use. The Epson flatbeds work well for prints and other reflective materials as for slides and negatives.

For the price of either scanner you mention, I think you’d get far better value and versatility with either the Epson V800 or the V850, probably with a lot less frustration.

Hi Aaron Ruby.

While I have no personal experience with any of the Canon scanners, specifically the “CanoScan 9000F Mark II” or its older version, I’ve seen a number of reports on various web sites from users who have experienced both Canon and Epson scanners (various models of both brands). Their consensus seems to be that the EpsonScan software is generally easier to use than the Canon software and offers more user input options for those who want to get the best possible quality scans from their originals. Either brand of software is generally felt to be easier to use than any version of SilverFast, although SilverFast does potentially give better results after you become comfortable using it. Ed Hamrick’s VueScan Pro software, available only from http://www.hamrick.com, works well with any of the Canon, or Epson scanners and costs less than $100 USD with free life-time updates included in the price. Any version of SilverFast is tied completely to the specific make and model of scanner. For example, if you were to buy the 9000F II, and if there’s a version of SilverFast made for it, then you eventually decided to go with an Epson V550/V600 (the most comparable models), you’d need to buy a new version of SilverFast for whichever scanner you had. With VueScan Pro, you could change your make and model of scanner to any of over 2,500 different ones. The only time you’d need a new version of VueScan Pro would be if you switched from Windows to Mac or Linux, in which case you’d need to buy a version for your new Operating System.

Be aware that regardless of how well the price, characteristics, and actual performance of the Canon 9000F II might compare with the Epson V550/V600, Curtis was writing about the V800/V850. Either of them will let you scan many more slides or negatives in a batch than the Canon or the lower-number Epson models. Only the V800/V850 will let you scan larger-than-medium format slides of negatives — 4×5″, 5×7″, 8×10″. There’s really no alternative flatbed scanner from any company available to do such sizes of originals, so if that feature is important to you, you have no real choice other than between the V800 and the V850. Review Curtis’ post and consider whether either model will serve your needs better than one of the less costly models from either Canon or Epson.

Whatever scanner you go with, I recommend investing the money in VueScan Pro (VSP) and learning how to use it. It’s not particular difficult to use, if you work your way through the settings under each of the tabs in a logical sequence. “The VueScan Bible”, also available from http://www.hamrick.com, is also an excellent investment since it shows and describes all of the available settings. I’ve found VSP cuts the scanning time per slide almost in half when compared to scanning the same four slides in EpsonScan’s Professional Mode, the only one I recommend using if you want maximum quality. That’s even after individually cropping and skewing each slide before scanning on either the Epson 2480 (about 10 or 12 years old) or the more recent V600.

You might ask a local camera store, camera club, or genealogy society if they could introduce you to somebody who currently uses either the Canon or Epson scanners so you could arrange a demonstration of them, and possibly have a chance to see and try their software with your own originals to see if you prefer one brand over the other. Of course, such an experience will have little value if you need either the V800/V850 for its particular advantages over the other models. Only you can decide for sure which make and model will best meet your current and likely future needs for a scanner.

Go here:
http://www.filmscanner.info/en/CanonCanoScan9000FMark2.html

Congratulations! A fine purchase. :coffee:

I’m sure you’ve probably already noticed, that Amazon now has both models in stock and available to ship via Prime. I’ve read or heard nothing to indicate Epson is preparing a new model, nor that they are discontinuing these models. Considering how long the previous V7xx series was for sale, the V8xx series (that replaced it) is still fairly new when comparing it to a similar lifespan length. I personally just believe it was a temporary shortage of supply for any number of possible production reasons.

The scanners themselves should be compatible with any Mac that has at least one available USB 2.0 port. I’m not sure that SilverFast or EpsonScan are compatible with the latest Mac OS, but VueScan Pro, in many people’s opinions a superior program to at least EpsonScan, is available for Macs. It’s also compatible with both the V-800 and the V-850. It must be downloaded and installed from the Web, so no CD/DVD drive is required for installation. If your Mac doesn’t have a CD/DVD drive, and you don’t have an external USB one, you can probably download and install both EpsonScan and SilverFast as well, IF they’re compatible with your OS. Check the respective web sites for their system requirements and which versions of Mac OS they support.

Yes, they are. My friend uses the 850 Pro, but 800 also works.

Bobbie, as long as you’re willing to scan documents one at a time, most flatbed scanners — including the V800/v850 — will be just fine. Because of the size of documents, you won’t need to scan with high resolutions, and typically require very little correction to get them looking nice. The cost of the V800/V850 is really overkill if documents is all you need it for.

It really comes down to whether you want to scan your documents and save them in their current look in an image format like .JPG or TIFF like they are more like “photographs”, or whether you want to scan them and do optical character recognition on them — so they are searchable — and save them as .PDF files.

Hi Tracy,

I’m not sure about either version of Silverfast included with these scanners, but I don’t believe it includes any kind of RAW file support. If you want RAW support, and I hope you do because of its superior editability, buy a copy of VueScan Pro from Ed Hamrick at http://www.hamrick.com. It works with virtually any scanner, even older, discontinued models from most manufacturers (unlike any version of Silverfast), costs less than $100 USD, and gives you the option to save each scan as a DNG (Adobe’s Digital NeGative format – a universal version of RAW), TIF, JPG, PDF as any one format or in any combination of formats that you may want. The DNG format records ALL of the data your scanner and computer are capable of capturing so it can be processed as often as you want at any time. All your edits are recorded as text files and get written to the actual image only when you use the Save As option to save your edited image. If you’re serious about preserving the maximum quality of your scans, VueScan Pro is definitely the way to go. Some users have also commented about Silverfast having a fairly steep learning curve, but you can find an html version of the user guide for VueScan Pro at http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc.htm. You can order a print copy of the VueScan Bible on the hamrick web site. It’s worth the money.

Terry, I have no experience with the SilverFast software, or the latest version of EpsonScan included with the V800/V850, but the latest update of EpsonScan downloaded from Epson is significantly slower with my V600 than VueScan Pro for scanning the same originals. Even if I work through all of the numerous settings in the Professional mode of VueScan Pro (VSP), setting individual crops and skew if needed for each slide or negative, it consistently takes about 3 minutes per original (with Digital ICE turned OFF) versus about 5 minutes each (at 3200 spi, 48-bit color) with EpsonScan. Since EpsonScan has significantly fewer features and controls for setting image quality pre-scan, and can save images in only one format per scan, instead of VSP’s wide range of quality settings and ability to save DNG, TIF, JPG, and PDF files for each image from a single scan, I normally don’t even think about opening, let alone using, EpsonScan. If you have VSP and SilverFast (either version included with the V800/V850) I’d be interested in learning your results of a side-by-side comparison, using the same originals. I suspect Curtis and others would also be interested.

I wouldn’t expect a replacement anytime soon. Unlike an industry such as smartphones, that seem to upgrade very often, the flatbed scanner industry upgrades at a glacier pace. The V700 series was out for many years before they finally replaced it with the V800 series.

I’m not positive when the V700 series was first released, but I believe it was late into 2006. And the V800 series came out in the fall of 2014. That should give you an indication how fast flatbed scanner technology evolves. 😉

As Curtis has mentioned, flatbed scanners are released as new models very rarely. It’s possible a V-9xx series may appear some year, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it. Most of the pro photographers who have large collections of negatives, prints, and slides to digitize have already finished their conversion or at least have a suitable scanner and are progressing with their project. Because of the necessary time to clean each neg/slide or print, position it in the appropriate carrier or on the platen, do the actual scan, and save the scanned image, many of those pros have resorted to using their DSLR cameras with macro lenses, lightboxes, and copy stands to re-photograph their analog images as RAW camera files in fractions of a second per image instead of minutes. Non-pros, who have large collections of analog images, may get satisfactory results for their needs with scanning apps and their cell phones. If they happen to already be interested seriously in photography as a hobby, they probably already have a suitable digital camera, possibly with a macro lens. Even if they need to invest in a copy stand, lightbox, and lights (for prints), that equipment will likely cost less than either Epson V-8xx scanner. The equipment will probably take the same or less desk space to set up and it can be used for more than just digitizing flat subjects. There are several Youtube videos about digitizing slides and negatives with a digital camera, as well as several e-books at Amazon dealing with the Pros, Cons, and how-to of digitizing with digital cameras. Several photo museums have switched from using Epson V7xx scanners to working with DSLRs, simply because they can get equal or better results in just a fraction of the time. When they’re looking at digitizing a single collection of 40,000 – 50,000 slides or negatives, they simply don’t have the staff or the time to use flatbed scanners for the bulk of their work. They may resort to the flatbed for particular images they want to make display prints from (prints larger than 24 x 36″), but such images are going to be few and far between.

See “Scanning Slides and Negatives” by Gary W. Clark, “Film Scanning For the Best Quality” by Christian Thorsten, and Peter Krogh’s “Digitizing Your Photos with Your Camera and Lightroom” for excellent guidance for digital camera ‘scanning’. All 3 authors name the equipment they use and include in their e-books links to learn more about their equipment and possibly buy it. If you’re face with the job of digitizing massive quantities of slide, negatives, or various sizes of prints, and are considering buying a scanner such as either of the Epson V-8xx models, hold off spending your money until you at least read about the benefits of ‘camera scanning’ as described in these books.

I had been considering the V-850 for my thousands of slides and hundreds of negatives, but for less money, I can buy a decent light box, a pair of lights to light prints, and a macro lens for my DSLR and tripod/copy stand to do the job in much less time. My other concern about the V-800/V-850 is limited desk space to hold either one.

My guess is that the V-8xx scanners are likely to be the last high-quality flatbed scanners to be released at any price. There simply doesn’t appear to be sufficient demand for such scanners to justify significant R & D investment in newer models by Epson or Canon. HP seems to have left the flatbed scanner market except for their various multi-function (printer/copier/scanner/fax) machines. There are a few companies selling high-end, high-priced slide/negative scanners, but those are much more expensive than even the V-850. Several such scanners are essentially modified slide projectors so they won’t work with negatives unless the negatives are cut apart and mounted in slide mounts. If you want to scan 4 x 5″ or larger negatives or transparencies, as well as prints, your current options are the Epson V-8xx flatbeds or the DSLR camera scanning technique.

L.A., for years I’ve been building this website mainly for the people who truly want to dig in and really show a dedicated passion with scanning and archiving their collection.

This means it’s not done fast. For those looking for a really fast way to scan their paper prints, there’s always this solution Epson came out with. But, if you’re looking for a route that pays more attention to detail and higher quality, then I would go with one of the photo scanners I recommend.

When I first started scanning my print and slide collection, I couldn’t really afford or justify the expense of the highest quality scanner out there. So, I went with the next best thing, and picked up the Epson Perfection V600. It’s really a fantastic scanner for the money. It gives you great print quality, and decent film scanning quality, all for a lot less than the pro level of scanners above it. I scanned at least 8,000 photos with this scanner.

If I had it to do all over again, knowing what I know now, I probably would have gotten either the V800 Photo or the V850 Pro in the beginning of my project (The equivalent models then were called the V700/V750).

It’s not so much these two scanners will give you that much better quality when scanning paper prints — though they will be a little sharper and will extract a little more detail in your high quality prints. It’s really for the thousands of my Dad’s slides I scanned years ago that would have benefitted more from the higher quality lens in the V800 series. These scanners are much better with the more challenging film in your collection with a lot of dynamic range. I’m mainly talking about the places in your pictures with really subtle details in the dark shadows areas that less expensive scanners aren’t as good with.

And slides take more time to scan than prints, so I also probably could have scanned all of those slides a little bit faster too. Though, it’s not the end of the world because I was working on dusting the next set of slides while the previous set was scanning.

But, if you don’t need or expect the highest quality out there, especially if the majority of your collection is made up from paper prints, then the V600 is still a very attractive option because of its affordable versatility.

Valid point Terence. Thank you.

When I wrote this article, I was very focused on the intended audience of those shopping for a new scanner, and so I made the assumption they would only be paying attention to models in the current lineup for comparison. But, I still should not have made it sound like the dual lens system was new and unique only to these two models. Especially considering there is a second-hand market where people could be shopping for older models like the 700 series.

I just took your advice and decided to update the top of that section to now state:

Both scanners are equipped with a Dual Lens System — unique to the V800 series of scanners in their current lineup. (This system was also available in the V700 series the V800 series later replaced)

I think this now makes it clear.

Hi Roy. Yes, of course your question is okay for this article. Thank you for reading my article. 🙂

I’m afraid I don’t have or have every used a Reflecta Filmacanner, so I’m not much help vouching for its quality or lack thereof. In the interview I linked to above with Mark Roslon, I do recall him saying that Epson feels (and I’m paraphrasing from memory now) that Epson’s technology with their V800 series has narrowed the gap with the quality of flatbeds vs dedicated film scanners, and therefore the need to buy a dedicated one just for our film is almost non-existent now. Maybe he wasn’t so strong, but he definitely held my attention when he made his statement.

It’s hard to argue against a high-quality film scanner for those trying to seek out the best quality in their film shot by professionals or those experienced enough to capture frames with lots of dynamic range. That’s where dedicated film scanners can really shine, when they are trying to pull out details and sharpness from dark places too subtle for lesser quality scanners to capture. If all of your collection is made up of 35mm film, and you really think your film has this dynamic range, then I could certainly argue that it’s worth looking into a dedicated film scanner. Especially if later in post, if you really need/want that extra (effective) resolution to “push in” and extract out a tight cropped frame from a lot of your negatives. Many of us however, were hobbyists with average 35mm cameras and fairly inexpensive lenses, and probably didn’t really know how to shoot in areas of low light — where we really need access to the dynamic range abilities of a scanner.

The great Nikon film scanners we’ve all heard about aren’t made anymore, and were very costly when they were (thousands). Now, many dedicated film scanners can be found in the $500 and sometimes under range. And at some point, it’s hard not to start to question the old saying, “You get what you pay for.” And we also have to remember some of the cost of these dedicated film scanners covers the license for the included scanning software — it appears it’s Silverfast in the case of the two scanners you mentioned. Point I’m trying to make is, be sure to weigh in the possibility that even though he hear and read all over that most everyone still feels dedicated film scanners are probably (still) better (sharper and more effective in resolution), this “overall belief” might go back to the original days of dedicated scanners when they were upwards of $2k-4k a piece or more, and were intended for professional use. So, I would definitely spend a fair amount of time reading reviews of how others felt of the quality and user experience while using the scanner before deciding on one. (You certainly don’t want a bad experience if at all possible). For example, some people have told me they weren’t happy using Silverfast, so they spent more on the side to buy a license of VueScan Pro (that works with pretty much any scanner).

However, in addition to your 5-600 negatives, if you also have some medium format film and paper prints (like most of us have lots of), you might find the V800 flatbeds (and the option to also use EpsonScan software if you so choose) will give you the ability to digitize them all, at a very acceptable quality.

I don’t know if I answered your question, or made it harder on you to decide. I was just hoping to maybe strengthen your own gut feeling possibly by sharing my opinions, or maybe at best, I brought up a couple points you hadn’t considered yet.

K Boer, I think the closer you are to having more paper prints in your collection than film — especially those taken back in the days with an inexpensive automatic camera and developed on the “inexpensive” side at a “quickie” photomat — the less you would need the V850. The V850 is truly meant to “eek out” every last bit of quality in the high end. And high end in this case is with film.

If you think you’ve got some great film in your collection, and you will sleep better knowing that you’ve scanned it at the highest quality you possibly could for your skill level at the time, then I can see some arguments for the extra money. But, I don’t expect you will really see any noticeable differences in the “average quality” paper prints most of us have in our family collections, scanned on both models — though I would love to have the chance to compare them side-by-side for myself! (hint hint Epson)