35mm Negative film strips

The other holder for 35mm is the Film strip holder, this takes four strips of 6 exposure film. The holder is well built although awkward to load,especially if your film has a slight curl. Once loaded you have to snap the detachable film clamp back into place, on this review sample the click home was not very positive, you also have to press the centre studs to make sure it fits tight. Incidentally, you are prompted to load your film strips Emulsion side up (illustration on holder). This is not because you are going to get better quality by doing it this way, but purely so your previews appear in the correct orientation. The scanners optics are actual under the film. From my darkroom days we always had the emulsion facing the lens. Having said all that, there is not real quality difference in loading the film either way.

Awkward to load film strips	Make sure all the points are pressed down
58 seconds to generate 24 thumbnails	22 seconds for whole holder preview

Generating thumbnails of all the negatives took 58 seconds - longer if you have just turned on the scanner as the the lamp has to warm up first. Scanning the whole holder took 22 seconds, but you then still have to make individual selections. On thumbnail mode all the images are selected by default (tick in each box), so if you just want to scan in frame number 2 then you have to deselect all the other frames. Fortunately there is a very quick way to do this, just click on the All button and then click on any selection box to deselect and all the images will be deselected. Now highlight the frame(s) you want and click to select them.

Straight 16 Bit Greyscale scan at 3200pi - no adjustments made

Scanning in a B/W negative at 3200dpi took 1 min 31 sec, not a fast speed, but not unacceptable either. The quality of scan is superb, showing good tonal values throughout. I scanned the above picture in both 8 and 16 bit Greyscale and there was very little difference in the two, the Histogram in Photoshop could barely register any difference. In my opinion just stick with 8 bit for B/W scans (24 bit for colour).

Silver halide B/W negatives and KodaChrome do not work with Digital ICE - period. However, Chromagenic B/W and colour negative films will work. Maybe Epson should re-write the film type selection menu so ICE only becomes available when Chromagenic B/W or C41 (colour neg.) films are selected. Having said that you are only likely to make this mistake once or twice before the penny drops.

Small section of negative without Digital ICE

Same section with Digital ICE turned on.

I have just had an email from Epson who wanted to point out why the EpsonScan software Dust Removal filter should be included with this scanner.

The reason for including it is that with B/W film the Digital ICE does not work.

OK, we have shown this to be the case.

The EpsonScan software has been included for B/W film dust removal

OK, lets run the test again with B/W film, I don't want to be unfair in any aspect of my review

Without EpsonScan Dust removal filter

With EpsonScan Dust removal filter (Medium)

As I said earlier in the review the EpsonScan Dust removal filter has its problems, although on the above sample it has produced a better result than Digital ICE. I still have my reservations about keeping this filter in.

Colour negatives

Just to conclude the 35mm film strip scanning I have included a couple of colour negative scans. My test negs are in strips of four shots and once loaded they have a snug fit, i.e. they don't slide about when you tilt the holder. I have deliberately only loaded two strips of four shots in non adjacent holders and EpsonScan produced 8 thumbnail shots perfectly. Using the thumbnail mode can speed up bulk film scanning, but make sure there is a clear space between frames. You can view the thumbnail at full size and make your custom crop, but you can't make a scan as the scan button is not available until you switch back to thumbnail mode. A problem I found, is that you can also make image adjustments in the Full size view but as soon as you fine tune the crop area your adjustments are reset. However, if you click on the Configuration button and deselect the Continuous Auto Exposure, then the problem is solved.

No Grain reduction	Low Grain reduction
Medium Grain reduction	High Grain reduction

The film used for the above scans was Kodacolor Gold, achieving the correct colour with EpsonScan wasn't any problem. The exposure was slightly bright using the Auto exposure button and colours needed a slight increase in saturation. There is enough scope to accommodate most exposures, even if they were not spot on at the time of taking. I also tried the Grain reduction filter and as you can see from the above 100% enlargements on a 3200dpi scan, they get progressively softer, albeit they do as they say - Reduce the grain.

A good exposure on David

I had intended to show you close ups of David to show you how well dust could be removed on C41 film, but I thought better of it - take my word for this, Digital ICE works perfectly on colour negative film, it removed all the little hairs.

35mm scanning conclusion....so far

During the last three days I have done many more scans than I have shown you on these pages, but my overall view on 35mm scanning with the V700 is that the quality of scans are as close to a dedicated film scanner as I have seen. The V700 scanner with 35mm film stock has outperformed every flatbed scanner that I have ever reviewed and it comes very close to the Nikon 4000 film scanner. Of course I have only just started the review, we still have medium format and large format films to scan. And ......

I am awaiting some technical information on the dual lens system, but in short one lens is used for reflective scanning up to 4800dpi and this also includes film scanning when the Film Area guide is fitted. The other lens is used for film scanning up to 6400 dpi using the Film holders. When you select your document type it automatically performs the lens switch. I will give you more info as soon as I get it