Comparing 5 Epson Film Scanning Techniques

What's the best technique for scanning film on the Epson Perfection flatbed film scanner?



Mmm, mhmm, yes. That's a good question. That's what Nick Carver wanted to find out. So he sets out to compare 5 different scanning techniques on my Epson Perfection V750 Pro scanner. The techniques were:


1. Using the good old Epson film tray
2. Dry mount to a piece of ground glass
3. Fluid Mount with the Epson fluid mount station
4. Fluid Mount directly to the scanner glass
5. Inverted Fluid Mount using the Betterscanning.com Variable Height Mounting Station

Listed above is just about every technique I could think of for scanning film on a flatbed film scanner. And by the way, I know, dedicated film scanners are better than flatbed film scanners. But I can't scan such a wide variety of formats on a dedicated film scanner. Unless it's a Hasselblad Flextight film scanner. But if I had the kind of scratch for one of those, I wouldn't be photographing buildings every week, you know what I'm saying?

I digress.

The Epson may never be up to competing with a drum scanner, but seeing as how I'm not going to drum scan every ones of my negatives (again, wouldn't be photographing buildings every week...) I figured we might as well find out what technique would squeeze out the highest quality file.

In doing this comparison, I of course looked at sharpness, but I also compared things like grain, chromatic aberrations, and dynamic range.

And you're never going to believe what I found out!

That's a lie. You'll believe it. It's not a big surprise. But okay, enjoy the video and thanks for watching! - said Nick Carver on his YouTube Channel -