Hi,
There is a guy in my area selling a Nikon Coolscan IV for $200 and there is also another person selling an Epson V600, which scanner should I get? I am only shooting 35 mm film right now. I don’t know if there are any experienced scanner’s who could give their opinion?
Thanks,
Seth
Coolscan IV will be far ahead in just about every way for 35mm, you might need to clean the mirror depending on how it has been stored, but it’s worth the effort. If you use Windows, you can use Nikon Scan after a bit of troubleshooting, or you’ll need to factor in a vuescan or Silverfast license into the cost
I second bbbbbb. Nikon Coolscan IV is a much better scanner. The original software is no longer supported but VueScan will do the job very well indeed. Silverfast is arguably more sophisticated but also more expensive and more complicated.
How well does the Epson V600 or Nikon Coolscan IV handle 120?
The Nikon Coolscan IV is 35mm only so at least the V600 can actually scan 120. It’s not stellar though, actual measured resolution is only around 1800 ppi if I remember correctly, and it will be slow.
Flat bed scanning negatives feels like yesterday … as the following site does:
The two models you mentioned aren’t listed on the site, but it might still get you a ballpark idea of what you can expect. Depending on what you want to achieve or invest, equipment or services can be found for almost all requirements.
What do you want to do?
What do you have?
An old-fashioned site with old-fashioned navigation, they are listed under the individual manufacturers:
The V600 only achieved 1560ppi in fact, and only if you scan at 3200ppi:
The Nikon Coolscan IV review is only in German, it’s a very old scanner though: