Scott Fillmer

I have a hate hate relationship with scanners.  I have had scanners of all types and none have been anything worth keeping and not throwing out the window
at any nearby target.  I started long ago with an HP slide scanner, actually one of the better performing scanners specifically designed to scan slides.  Since I shot almost all Fuji Velvia 50 or a Kodak 100 positive film back then, the slide scanner was something I was really excited about.  It cost a fortune, worked ok, for a while, game mediocre results, and I ended up scanning only a hand full of slides.

Fast forward about 10 years and 5 scanners.  My current scanner, the Epson Perfection V500 Photo scanner, is supposed to be a great one for scanning all kinds of film, 35mm negatives, positives, 120, just about the only thing it can’t do is wet scans.  But, results, up to this point (I have had this scanner almost a year now) have been dismal, until yesterday when a friend and fellow photographer (Jak) told me to try a few different settings and software.  I do this every so often, try again and get lousy results but this time I started messing with the color profiles and other areas and it didn’t turn out so bad.

This was a scan of an original Velvia 50 transparency taken back in May 2002 of Deb kayaking on Lake Erie in Ohio exploring the coves.  Contrast is a little bit high but this is how it came out of my scanner, far better than any I have tried before.  The shot below shows the sharpness at 100%, not bad for a scan on a scanner I thought didn’t work.

Like most things, it takes practice to get it right.  This scan was straight out of the scanner, no post processing corrections (hense the artifact above Deb’s head).  A polorizer would have also helped here but as I remember, I was in my kayak trying to hand hold a very expensive camera while trying not to tip over like a turtle thus ending my photography as I knew it at the time.  I will try to get some other dated scans done and post them periodically.