Review on Epson Perfection V850 Pro Scanner: Professional Grade Scanning Performance by Shawn Vennakota

I bought this scanner mainly to scan 120 medium format negatives, mostly black and white and it stays mine only concern is the use of the equipment. It works perfectly satisfactorily. The film holder 120 is made of durable plastic with glass that protects against Newton's rings. Loading the film is a bit tricky as it is difficult to position the film both flat and centered in the holder, especially with roll film (I usually scan three 6cm x 6cm images at once) but once the holder reaches the film has, it holds the film firmly and firmly evenly. The holder is simply positioned on the scanner. Epson offers two scanning programs: Epson Scan and Silverfast SE Plus. For 8-bit scans the Silverfast software is sufficient, but for 16-bit images you need the full Studio AI version of the Silverfast software to get proper control over the scan. So for 16-bit scanning I use the included Epson Scan program, which is much more limited than Studio AI but is perfectly capable of producing contrast and level-balanced 16-bit RGB images, which is my preferred scanning method for color and and is for black and white negatives. Importing this image into Photoshop CC allows me to adjust the types of contrast and curves I could create at the time of scanning with Silverfast Studio AI. I usually scan my negatives as 8-bit RGB (24-bit) via Silverfast SE Plus just to control file size, but for images I value above others I use Epson Scan for full 16-bit images for a slight increase in quality scanning (most noticeable in detail in shadow areas). The quality is excellent, details are clearly drawn and the grain (always reduced compared to 35mm in medium format) is realistically displayed. The tonal range is good, perhaps a bit weak compared to imaging a negative with an enlarger and photosensitive paper, but more than adequate for most purposes. The scan time is about 2 minutes for a 6cm x 6cm image scanned at 3200dpi, which is definitely fast enough for me.