Epson Expression 1600 Film Scanners

Epson Expression 1600 Film Scanners 

DESCRIPTION

The highest resolution in its class. The fastest scanning speed in its class. Combine them and it’s clear: the EPSON® Expression® 1600 is in a class by itself. In fact, it’s one of the few scanners fast enough and powerful enough to complement the newest Power Macintosh® and PC systems.

USER REVIEWS

Showing 1-6 of 6  
[Jan 06, 2002]
Dieter Dittrich
Expert

Strength:

Very fast and quiet with great colour accuracy. Excellent film holders. A real bonus is that I can also use it to make contact sheets for sorting and filing my 35mm negatives. As a flatbed scanner it is almost overkill.

Weakness:

Epson doesn''t support Firewire with Microsoft Windows.

It is like a good quality, dependable utility vehicle, getting you where you want to go when you want to go. Photographers looking to purchase a scanner of any kind should be familiar with intendet use of the digitized image. Having at least basic knowledge of how the dots per inch of a scanned image relates to the printed image is very valuable. Having several Kodak Pro Photo CDs on my shelf and almost crying when looking at the quality of the scans it is very reasuring to see the Epson 1600 Pro Firewire on my desk. 6x7 and 4x5 negatives and transparencies to be printed on my Epson 1200 is the main reason for me to have my images digitized, and the 1600 dpi is more than adequate. The film holders are top quality and are a joy to use. At first I thought that a mistake was made shipping me such a flawless unit, as I had heard some horror stories from others here in town who had the same scanner. Some people came by to tell me of specific problems they had, watching me do some scans of some 6x7 transparencies,leaving them totally speachless after also seeing some 11x17 prints. From the start this scanner has been the most fun piece of electronic equipment I have used. I use an Athlon 1ghz, with 512mb PC133 and Photoshop 6.0

Customer Service

none needed.

Similar Products Used:

IBM 16 flatbed

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
[Jul 25, 2000]
greg kozlik
Expert

Strength:

Easy installation - good color negative scans.

Weakness:

B&W - major problem with B&W T-Max film. Cannot seem to get scanner to focus - scans look blurred. I am disappointed.

This scanner is great for Medium Format color negatives - it doesn't do a good job with B&W negs.

Customer Service

They are trying to do something with B&W problem.

Similar Products Used:

Microtek III, Nikon LS-2000

OVERALL
RATING
3
VALUE
RATING
4
[Jun 04, 2000]
Paul Roark
Expert
Model Reviewed: Expression 1600

Strength:

cheap way to get medium format film scans

Weakness:

not a serious film scanner

My 1600 is able to see only 25 line pairs per millimeter when scanning a high resolution test slide. Scans of medium format Portra NC color negatives have lines across them that are visible even in an 8 by 10 inkjet print. Frankly, I expected more. Epson has not returned my e-mail inquiry, so I don't know whether this is what all should expect of this machine. So, the scanner gets me quick access to my MF color negative, and 8 by 10s can be made if one is prepared to do a fair amount of work cleaning up the scan lines. The scanner is not, however, the answer to getting affordable and good MF scans -- it just does affordable.

Customer Service

no response to my e-mail request to Epson

Similar Products Used:

replaced my HP 4c

OVERALL
RATING
2
VALUE
RATING
3
[May 10, 2000]
bart de puij
Professional
Model Reviewed: Expression 1600

Strength:

The imagequality of this scanner is what one would expect from the info Epson gives you. Bought this one for scanning mediumformat film for printing with the Epson 1200 for my portfolio.
To me the (1600 dpi)quality is also good enough to use it as a 35mm scanner. The mediumformat scans on this one give me the same quality as 35mm on my Polaroid 35es. Slides are even better. The optical density is enough to handle the high contrast and wild colors of modern films. The scanning speed (SCZI) is high.
The interface shows a big preview, good enough to use the scanning tools. Automatic exposure does a good job. It makes the scan ready for putting it through automatic levels in Photoshop. Then hardly any adjustments are necessary anymore. The film adaptors work great and I don't need the unsharp mask of the scanner. This silent machine is built well.
I can't see the difference between an interpolated 1200dpi to 1600dpi scan (in Photoshop) and a real 1600dpi scan, but I don't think the higher resolution will hurt.
Installing the scanner was a piece of cake.

Weakness:

no.
One could complain about the volume (the machine looks like two scanners put on each other)but according to the quality I don't care about that.

This is a sensational scanner. Need I say more?
(ok, I don't work for Epson)
Some notes to my review after doing several extra scans: although the (film)scans (medium format)look great, they are not as sharp as if they were scanned on a 35mm scanner (from the smaller 35 mm film) such as the Polaroid even at a lower resolution (1350dpi) The best result still comes from flatbedscanning of a large photoprint.

Customer Service

haven't used it.
Epson NL has been good when my printer broke down.

Similar Products Used:

Umax 1220S plus transparency unit.
Scanning film on that one to me was only good enough for making contact sheets.

OVERALL
RATING
5
VALUE
RATING
5
[Aug 30, 2000]
Robert Smith
Intermediate

Strength:

High resolution, especially for scanning medium and large format film and for print enlargements. I've had very good results using this scanner, particularly scanning 4x5 inch transparencies. With such a large original image, and up to a 3200 dpi scan (non-interpolated), I have pixels to spare, and usually end up throwing much of it away (resampling down), resulting in a nice, clean image. This scanner does an excellent job revealing low-level detail.

I've also scanned 6x7 cm negatives and transparencies with excellent results. When I show my resulting prints (using an Epson Stylus Photo 1270), most people (including professional photographers) can't tell it's a digital product.

36-bit scanning is a nice capability also, although I don't know if it makes much difference. (There appears to be a little less scanning noise when I use 36-bit.)

I've also scanned a few prints, and the resulting color and detail are excellent.

Installation (on my Mac G3 system) was very easy; works every time.

Weakness:

I've heard that the 35mm scans are second-rate at best, although I have also scanned a few, and they come out well, with a little corrective sharpening.

You can see some noise on the raw scans, but I've never seen this translate to poor printed image quality.

I don't like handling film, especially 35mm film. If I did a lot of 35mm, I'd purchase a dedicated 35mm scanner. So this is not a criticism of this product per se, but a criticism of the format (flatbed used for film scanning).

Also, this scanner is big and heavy, which may or may not be a problem.

The preview in the twain driver does not show very accurate color, so I find the adjustment options at that point fairly useless (i.e. I get better results when I leave it alone). The twain controls are a little non-intuitive also.

I also wish Epson would specify a color space for the output. To their defense, they include a copy of Monaco EZcolor, so you can create an accurate conversion profile for flatbed input (you need to purchase a transparency target separately).

Definitely worth a look; for my immediate purposes, it's excellent.

Highly recommended for 4x5 photographers and medium format; provides a very good value for these applications.

Customer Service

Haven't needed any yet.

Similar Products Used:

None.

OVERALL
RATING
4
VALUE
RATING
5
[Feb 02, 2001]
Diane
Intermediate

Strength:

Fast when doing photos. Epson Twain Driver Pro easy to use.

Weakness:

Purchased PRO version to do medium format file. Color shift towards green so went to use MonacoEZ software (ncluded) to color profile. That's when I discovered they deceive consumers by not telling them they have to purchase an additional $100 product to color correct the transparency cover.

Buyer beware and don't trust their press releases! Written to mislead consumers by omission.

Customer Service

Monaco Systems marketing reps blew me off, saying that that the are producing a software product only and are not responsible for providing the hardware (IT8 film) with their promised bundle. Didn't care that the promised alliance between them and EPSON was misleading and incomplete about being able to set everything up out of the box and use.

Similar Products Used:

None

OVERALL
RATING
3
VALUE
RATING
2
Showing 1-6 of 6  

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