[BCMA] Best Scanners

Thu May 19 14:17:42 PDT 2016

Hello Jane,

                I can personally attest to the quality of the V600. I've used it in the past at another position and the results were great. I originally looked at the V700/V800 range of scanners but what I read and could see, the extra cost was hard to justify. You're looking at over 3x the cost for not a ton of difference. The V600 had no problems doing anything I threw at it. We scanned thousands of images back to back at 1200ppi and 48 bit without an issue from it. The EPSON software is good and provides enough flexibility to use in a museum, just make sure to turn off all the retouching options that it will default to out of the box. It was nice that we could set up profiles for different types of scans so the operator could easily change between them without having to monkey with the individual options (i.e. negatives, positives, high quality, low quality). For the price it'd be hard to beat. I've actually ordered another one for my current position, really good product. It has a medium format negative scanner in the lid so that can be handy as long as you don't have a large collection of large format negatives.

                For the larger format scanners on the link you sent I've briefly used the Epson Expression 11000XL Photo. This is a BEAST. While it cost more than the car I was driving at the time, if you have the grants or external funding available it's a great piece of hardware. I wouldn't personally recommend it if you're using your own funds as I think the V600 is a great budget friendly choice but if you get some funding that'll cover it, go for it. It's, as mentioned, a large(r) format scanner so that was great when scanning images that wouldn't fit on a traditional scanner. If I remember correctly it also had a negative scanner that was nearly as large as the positive scanner, another plus if you have large format negatives. The quality of images that came out was excellent but honestly for 13x the cost the images weren't 13x better. On some the quality did appear possibly better than the V600 if you got right in there but for the average person you wouldn't notice the difference. One interesting feature I remember is the focus of the scanner was variable so if your image isn't lying flat on the scanner it would adjust the focus for the image as it went. I didn't get to test this out too much to find the limitations but it may be a useful feature for some images. Of note the scanner is probably 3x the size of an average scanner so you'll need plenty of table room. I used this less than the V600 so I can't comment on the long term stability of it in an intensive digitisation operation but for the cost I can hardly see it having any issues. The 11000XL Graphic and the 11000XL Photo are the same scanner but the Photo comes with a replacement lid that holds the negative scanner. The Graphic just has a standard lid without a negative scanner. So if you' don't have negatives in your collection and don't plan on it you can save yourself $500 or $600. The lid can always be ordered later if need be.

                My personal vote would be for the V600 as the extra cost is hard to justify on the V700/V800 and the 11000XL when the quality and options are close enough to each other. The only thing the V600 isn't good for is large format negatives but you can probably find an option between the V600 and the 11000XL that's a bit more budget friendly, such as the V800.

William Shepherd
Collections Officer
Swift Current Museum
44 Robert Street West
Swift Current, Saskatchewan
S9H 4M9
Phone: 306-778-4815
Fax: 306-778-4818

From: bcma-bounces at lists.vifa.ca [mailto:bcma-bounces at lists.vifa.ca] On Behalf Of Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv.
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2016 10:43 AM
To: bcma at lists.vifa.ca
Subject: [BCMA] Best Scanners

Hello All

We are a small museum with a very large photo collection and quite a lot of maps. We are shopping around for a decent scanner to start archiving the collection. Do you have any advice on what type or brand of scanner we would be best to get.

This is what I am currently looking at:

The scanner we have is an Epson V700 which has been replaced with the V800. It's the only photo scanner I've used and can recommend it but it's only 8.5x11.7.  Retails for $925.  http://www.epson.ca/cgi-bin/ceStore/jsp/Product.do?UseCookie=yes&sku=B11B223201

The large format high res are much more expensive like this 12.2x17.2 which is $3k http://www.epson.ca/cgi-bin/ceStore/jsp/ProductCategory.do?UseCookie=yes&oid=-15489

Epson V600 8.5x11.7 retails for $275 - http://www.epson.ca/cgi-bin/ceStore/jsp/Product.do?sku=B11B198022
London Drugs stock it too:  http://www.londondrugs.com/epson-perfection-v600-photo-colour-scanner---b11b198022/L4284634.html?cgid=computers-scanners&prefn1=brandDescription&start=5&prefv1=EPSON

Thank you

Jane

Jane Roberts-Manager

Bralorne Pioneer Museum
3767 Pioneer Rd, Bralorne, BC, V0K 1P0
(250)238-2349
bralornepioneermuseum at gmail.com<mailto:bralornepioneermuseum at gmail.com>
Check out the facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/bralornepioneermuseum/
To donate please go to:
http://brvca.ca/services/bralorne-pioneer-museum/

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.vifa.ca/pipermail/bcma/attachments/20160519/addafa28/attachment.htm 