Which scanner should I get? Canon, HP, or Epson???

I see that a lot of people recommend Epson's Perfection V500, but Canon's CanoScan 8800F looks very promising as well, and HP's Scanjet G4050 is the cheapiest among these three.

After a bit or research, I am leaning toward the V500 or 8800F. The V500 seems to have the most votes in this forum, but the 8800F has the highest Interpolated and Hardware resolution, while the V500 has the highest optical resolution. Although the G4050 has the lowest resolution among the three, it's the cheapest and it has color depth of 96-bit (vs. 46-bit for V500 and 8800F)

Bottom line, which one of the above (or any other one) should I get for both negative and print scanning (note: no slides or other formats)??

Any suggestion and advices will be helpful and appreciated.

Happy New Year

Boy I was hoping someone would have responded. I've narrowed it down to the same set of scanners, Epsons V500, CanoScan 8800F, and HP G4050. I'm leaning toward the Epson or Canon as well as it seems that the HP is very slow and the software is clumsy.

Which did you settle on? Anyone have any recommendations?

i need to know this too! my grandpa has a billion old slides that need to be scanned!

I kind of like the HP as it has a six color scanner and from what I have read the color reproduction is very good. It also has internal 96bit processing which I guess also helps with color accuracy. But I have also read that to scan a full deck of 16 slides takes 2 1/2 hours at high resolution. That is real slow.

The Epson V500 looks nice as it has a nice software set. The one I know least about is the CanoScan 8800.

Have you considered dedicated film scanners? Minolta did some pretty good ones and so do Nikon. I only ask because all the ones mentioned seem to be flat bed scanners.
Unless I'm missing the point of course... it has been known before

Bill Roberts wrote in post #7027875
Have you considered dedicated film scanners? Minolta did some pretty good ones and so do Nikon. I only ask because all the ones mentioned seem to be flat bed scanners.
Unless I'm missing the point of course... it has been known before

The bulk of what I am scanning is prints. I have most of the old B&W ones done but my old scanner is loosing it so it's time to replace it.

ok from my own reading online it seems that the scanners the OP first mentioned all have trays to lay in the scanner bed for slides/negatives right?

Also, does anyone no of a reasonably ($200ish) yet good quality dedicated slide/neg scanner? All the ones i found were low res and cheap or REALLY expensive

gjl711 wrote in post #7028238
The bulk of what I am scanning is prints. I have most of the old B&W ones done but my old scanner is loosing it so it's time to replace it.

In that case it makes perfect sense John

I posted a couple of test scans of a 35mm color neg using my Canon 8800F on a thread. File sizes and Timing information on scan times is provided.

https://photography-on-the.net …hp?p=6905043&po​stcount=12
https://photography-on-the.net …hp?p=6906104&po​stcount=14

and a scan of an 8x10 Cibachrome, from another thread

https://photography-on-the.net …hp?p=5515315&po​stcount=19
https://photography-on-the.net …hp?p=5515020&po​stcount=17

Wilt wrote in post #7031381
I posted a couple of test scans of a 35mm color neg using my Canon 8800F on a thread. File sizes and Timing information on scan times is provided....

Thanx Wilt.. Those look really nice. Are you happy with the performance of the 8800?

gjl711 wrote in post #7031607
Thanx Wilt.. Those look really nice. Are you happy with the performance of the 8800?

I don't normally use the 8800F photographically! I normally use it only for the occasional posting for POTN, and for making photocopies and PDF of hardcopy items!

I still have not tried to set up the auto dust removal, although I did get directions from Canon on how to do that recently. I can certain see what that would be essential for film scannning at high DPI, as I posted in one of the links. I am super satisfied with the color rendition issue! You can't tell the difference between the scan of the Cibachrome, and the original, in terms of color reproduction.

I'm very content with my V500. Have scanned hundreds of negatives and slides with good results. Have also scanned some very old negatives that are odd sizes with excellent success.

Detail is excellent. I've yet had to scan at the highest resolution that it is capable of.

The LED light is a good feature, I think.

The software is also easy to use.

Only complaint would be that negatives aren't stretched tightly using the plastic mount-thing provided, as they would be if they were mounted as a slide. Don't know if the other scanners mount negatives any better.

Well I went out this weekend and got to try both the Canoscan 8800 and the V500 side by side at Office Depot. Though I was leaning towards the Canon, the Epson really impressed me. It scanned a bit faster, I liked the software interface better, and the color was much richer so I ended up giving Epson the nod. I got to play a bit yesterday and I got to say, the Epson is not disappointing me. At a full 6400dpi scan it is sharp enough to clearly see the grain of the negative. It’s still slow, almost 45 minutes for 8 negatives, but much faster than the HP which was about twice that. All in all I'm really happy with it.

gjl711 wrote in post #7060711
Well I went out this weekend and got to try both the Canoscan 8800 and the V500 side by side at Office Depot. Though I was leaning towards the Canon, the Epson really impressed me. It scanned a bit faster, I liked the software interface better, and the color was much richer so I ended up giving Epson the nod. I got to play a bit yesterday and I got to say, the Epson is not disappointing me. At a full 6400dpi scan it is sharp enough to clearly see the grain of the negative. It’s still slow, almost 45 minutes for 8 negatives, but much faster than the HP which was about twice that. All in all I'm really happy with it.

In my earlier link, negative was scanned in 4 minutes...that is faster than 5.6 minutes, not the other way around! but also not as high density at 4800 dpi as the Epson's 6400 dpi.

UPDATE ==> I finally got the Epson V500 and used it over the weekend. It's been really good. I've only scanned my negatives at 6400 dpi, but that's already better than what I expected. On average, it takes about 30 to 35 minutes to scan 6 negatives, which is not bad IMO given the resolution (i.e., 6400 dpi). I chose the V500 over the Canon 8800 mainly based on a recommendation from my frined, who has used both V500 and 8800. He told me that based on his experience, the 8800 is better for flat prints while the V500 is superior for negatives.