All of yesterday I was developing and then scanning film with a new toy: an Epson V700 that replaces my $100 Canoscan 8400F that has served me for the past three years since I began shooting film again. The V700 cost me a pretty penny but I was growing increasingly tired of double-scanning my 4x5s and the v700's backlight area is large enough to do 4x5 in one shot. Plus, I was hoping for some increase in quality, obviously.

My initial conclusions:

• this thing dwarfs my Canoscan
• the contrast is immediately way better
• sharpness is noticeably better
• the Silverfast SE software interface design is retarded
• still the Silverfast software offers way more options and nitpicky controls
• have not had good luck with grain yet
• quieter than my Canoscan. I can scan at night now without fearing for annoying my apartment neighbours
• the negative holders are about as flimsy as my Canoscan's and don't hold them as flat as the Canoscan's
• the fact that it can scan a full 24 frames in one shot is much better than the six the Canoscan could do with its limited backlight area

Incidentally, I shot all of these in the morning on a photowalk with the Vancouver Flickr Gang. That's them above.

It also marks the first time I processed three C-41 rolls in the same tank. I used the same 1L amount of chemicals and it did them fine. One of the problems I still have to overcome, though, is some drying artifacts that are a bitch to clone out in Photoshop. These pictures were shot with a batch of Kodak 800 that also have some grain.

I had in mind to do a proper scan-off between the Canoscan 8400F and the Epson V700 but really the scans turned out so different I don't know how to do a proper comparison. Right out the colors are very different and I don't have the same software for both. I probably will do a scan off of black and white just to show the difference in resolving power, though. That will come later once I have had more experience with Silverfast.

You can view a gallery of that photowalk here on Flickr.