Railfan Technology > Has Anybody Ever Used This Scanner for Slides

I have a EPSON Perfection V500 Photo and have only used it for scanning prints because I have a really good slide scanner. I was wondering if anybody has experience with it scanning slides and if it is as good quality wise as a dedicated slide scanner.  My brother has it now and I'm wondering if it is worth shipping here.

Thanks,
Marty Bernard

I've been using the Epson V500 for a few years, it appears to have a limitation related to focusing point and slide, or slide carrier thickness. I find a few slides just never get sharp, even though they appear to be ok using a loupe or when they were projected. I'm scanning 35mm and also 6x4.5, I post them on PBase and have a link attached to my TO name.

The V500 works out ok, there are better and there are worse. We have had a number of discussions in the past recommending a few fixes, like shimming the slide or using custom made carriers. I have had almost no trouble with the software or operations. If you were purchasing a scanner I would suggest the Epson V700 or similar, but in this case the price seems to be right and the quality is acceptable.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/15 11:18 by TCnR.

I've had and been using a Epson V500 for quite a few years. I've scanned about 4,000 slides and like the results.

Stanley Jackowski
Valrico, FL

I agree with the previous poster. It is a very good scanner but it has it's limitations.  Sometimes it just cannot scan a certain slide and make it come out good but most of the time it comes out pretty darned good. Is it archival quality probably not. But if all you need to do is post a few slides to the net or make a pro show it is plenty good at least for me. Sure you can spend a lot more money and get better results but the V500 is cheap and easy to use. I got mine on sale with a coupon a few years ago for about $100 I don't think you can get it that cheap anymore. Here is a link to one I posted a bit ago here http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3628004,3628004#3628004

Scott O'Dell
 

While I can't speak for the V500, I have a V550, and I have found it does a very good job with slides, and so far I haven't had any issues with slides not being in focus when scanned; so maybe Epson addressed the focusing limitations of the V500 when designing the V550.  After some experimentation, I settled on scanning all slides in "raw" mode and saving them as TIFF files (in other words, not having the scanner software make any corrections), I then open the TIFF files in Photoshop Elements and make all necessary changes in there.  Despite this, with the first few scans where I let the scanning software make changes, the results were exceptable (if I didn't try to overtweak the settings, such as turning on the digital dust remover).  An example of a slide where I had the software make corrections is the one I posted Monday morning in the Nostalgia section of Santa Fe motorcar #M190.  In contrast, all of the Al Chione slides I've been posting were done in raw mode and corrected in Photoshop.

Love my V500-more than good results for what I need it to do !!!

Sample scan attached.

Mike Bannon
St Catharines, ON



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/05/15 18:59 by algoma11.

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I have a V500 and a Nikon Super Coolscan.  I have used the V500 primarily for 120 negatives and it does an excellent job with the negatives, and it can also scan prints.  I have tried a couple of 35mm slides in it, and it is fine for scanning slides to post on the internet.  At the relatively low resolution of the internet you can hardly tell the difference between the V500 and the Nikon scans after running both through Photoshop.  But with closer inspection the V500 scans are clearly less sharp that the the Nikon scans, even though both are done at a nominal 4000 dpi.  The V500 is going to fall short if you want to make large prints or do a lot of cropping with your 35mm slides or film.  On the other hand the V500 is less than $200 and the Nikon unit 5 times that when it was new, and more than that if you can find one now.  For dedicated slide scanning I would guess there are better units available for the money, but for a variety of formats the V500 is pretty good.

JBWX 

Just a thought, how long will they be making consumer grade 35mm slide scanners?

I don't know how many new slides are being made, so there's not much new professional market. It would be mostly hobbyists working with their old slides, kinda like what we're doing. No sure how long they re going to be around.