A few days ago I received a package with the brand new flatbed scanner Epson Perfection V500 Photo. I think it’s the cheapest option of scanner which scans medium-format film and gives quite a good results for a affordable price. I bought it in the last moment – in the last internet shop which was selling with with the old low price, all others increased the price probably because of the flood in the Thailand. Probably Epson had there theirs factories or suppliers, or what’s more probable distributors increased prices because the flood for some brands.
I have to admit that quality of the scans, especially with the high value od dpi: 2400, 3200 are really good. Unfortunately the size of the image after scanning is between almost 5000×5000 for 120 film and the file has between 4 and 10Mb, so it have to resized or immediately burned to the DVD.
The quality of the scans is really good, some are much better than those which I had from the lab – especially when I ordered the cheap option with the low DPI value, and when the photo shouldn’t be scanned with the standard settings and there was the need to manipulate with sliders a little bit.
[EDIT] I’ve just noticed when scaling images that in the lab they cut off top part of the photo with the clouds. It’s because Rollei Auto does photos a little bigger than 6×6… maybe it’s 6×6,5 or more or less, but it’s not a square but rectangle. Without proper scanning – with standard setting 6×6 part of the photo is cut off. [/EDIT]
You can compare the results by yourself. On the left photo scanned by the lab in 256dpi (around 1024x1024px) on the right scan by Epson V500 in 2400dpi (around 2500x2500px). Of course if we want to do a Real comparison we would have to scan it with the same DPI and settings than the fight would be equal, but I just wanted to show that that scanner is just enough for enthusiast like me – and it gives quite good results (of course not-so-good when compared to real professional scanners like Nikon’s).
Lab
Epson
Can you see the difference ? With greater resolution the difference is much more visible.
BTW. do you remember my post with comics of Bohdan Butenko? I’ve recently noticed the instant soups with the funny comics made by Mr. Butenko to decorate the wrapping. Nice – I will always recognize that Line. And of course it was another occasion to check the capabilities of the new scanner ;) Check the tomato instant soup wrapping… there are also other drawings on other soups..
Butenko – Tomato Instant Soup wrapping
Butenko – author’s autograph – for the proof :)