I’ve fallen hard for medium format photography, and as I dive headfirst into this new photographic pursuit, I realized something. Here I am shooting expensive film, on a beautiful (thanks Sarah!) camera, paying for quality development, then scanning the negatives on whatever happened to be lying around. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful to even have access to a scanner capable of digitizing 120 (thanks Rob!), but as often happens in this passion of mine I found myself dreaming of something more.

Read on for some geeky scan comparisons…

The more I researched, and believe me I researched, the more I began to hear murmurs about the v700. I decided it was the perfect solution for me, and the combination of a loving family/upcoming birthday resulted in a new scanner delivered to my door. But having the scanner wasn’t enough, I had to have the betterscanning.com negative holders to ensure everything was PERFECTLY flat for maximum sharpness. Those who know me will laugh, but even though I knew I would eventually pony up, I agonized about the decision for a few weeks.

Fast forward to today, and I now have my v700 and holders dialed in (after millimeter by millimeter adjustments and tests ensuring the holder height was perfectly calibrated for my machine…of course). I can still remember calling Lauren into the office to marvel at the difference quality from that first scan. She was less impressed than I, but for a guy who had come to accept muddy scans as the status quo, the new Epson was blowing my mind. Things I thought were sharp suddenly cut like a knife. On the other hand, shots that I thought were fine suddenly looked unusably blurry. The resolving power was that much better, it was like somebody had smeared butter over my old scans and I was too naive (or hungry) to notice. Anyway, I can go on and on about how happy I was, but I figure it might be better for those visual learners to see the difference I am talking about first hand (click on each image to enlarge for full effect)

Exhibit A: The Elliott Family (Left Side: Canoscan 9950f, Right Side: V700 and Betterscanning holders)

I took this photo of the Elliott’s on an outing to the Brooklyn flea market, and I made sure to stop down a bit because I was still uncomfortable focusing the ‘Blad at the time. When I first scanned the negative I was happy to see everyone in focus, but I wondered if I couldn’t have done better because their smiling faces were still a bit soft. At this point, it’s pretty hard to see the difference in these web-crunched comparison images, and looking back that’s probably why I didn’t really notice how soft my first scans were. But let’s get a bit closer…

Canoscan 9950F Crop:

In isolation everything looks good, but then the V700 comes along…

V700 Crop:

HOLY S***! That’s what I’ve been missing?!?!?! That’s why everyone raves about the Zeiss lenses on the Hasselbald?!?! I know it might not seem like much to most, but the difference is substantial. I mean, just flip back and forth between the two crops, you don’t even have to blow them up to see the sharpness difference. This has made medium format that much more irresistible

The Final Product:

Exhibit B: The Intrepid (Left: Canoscan 9950F, Right V700 and Betterscanning holders)

In this comparison, if you looks closely you can see that not only is sharpness greatly improved, but the v700 also does a better job with the blacks. Can you tell I’m excited about this thing?

Canoscan 9950F Crop

V700 Crop:

The Final product:

Exhibit C: Light Walker (Left: Canoscan 9950F, Right V700 and Betterscanning holders)

This is one of those examples where the sharpness of the V700 can come back to bite you. When I scanned this with the Canoscan, I thought it was one of the sharpest photos I had taken yet. Maybe it’s the contrast and the shadows that fooled me, but it really looked like I nailed it.

Canoscan 9950F Crop:

V700 Crop:

Looking at the V700 crop, I realized that I had missed focus by a bit. To be fair I was zone focusing to be a bit more discreet, but you can see that her jacket is  sharp, and it falls off near her face and even more so with the son. Regardless I still think the photo is stunning, but it was a funny to have the bump in resolution uncover a previously unnoticed fault.

The Final Product:

So there you have it, the V700 is here to stay. To anyone considering making the jump, GO FOR IT, I know I needed to hear those words when I was thinking about the upgrade. And while you’re at it, spring for the betterscanning.com holders, makes life so much easier. Yes scanning will still take time, and yes dust will forever be the bane of your existence, but you can rest easy knowing that you are getting (close) to the most out of your negatives