Epson F-3200
Epson are well known for their printers, limited camera range (R-D1), and scanners, including a wide range of flatbed scanners with transparency adapters. They are not as well known for their production of film scanners.
The Epson F-3200, sometimes be touted as a flatbed scanner turned up-side-down with a limited feature-set, unable to scan many paper sizes is one of their few film scanners.
Released in Japan around 2004, and later as a short lived international release in the USA and Europe. The scanner, for some reason did not appear to sell well.
Personally, this is one of my favorite film scanners, and if I was only allowed to keep one, this would likely be the one. I rarely shoot colour film so Digital ICEDigital ICE Digital ICE or Digital Image Correction and Enhancement is a set of technologies related to producing an altered image in a variety of frequency spectra. The objective of these technologies it to render an image more usable by Fourier or other filtering techniques. These technologies were most actively advanced in the 1960s and early 1970s in the fields of strategic reconnaissance and medial electronics. Read more on Wikipedia (or similar) isn’t important to me, and the scanner is capable of scanning 135 film135 film 135 film, more popularly referred to as 35 mm film or 35 mm, is a format of photographic film with a film gauge of 35 mm (1.4 in) loaded into a standardized type of magazine (also referred to as a cassette or cartridge) for use in 135 film cameras. Read more on Wikipedia, mounted slides, 120 medium formatMedium format Medium format has traditionally referred to a film format in photography and the related cameras and equipment that use film. Nowadays, the term applies to film and digital cameras that record images on media larger than the 24 mm x 36 mm (0.94 in x 1.42 in) used in 35 mm photography (though not including 127 sizes), but smaller than 4 x 6 in (100 mm x 130 mm) (which is considered large format photography). Read more on Wikipedia film, and 5×4 large formatLarge format Large format refers to any imaging format of 9 cm x 12 cm (3.5 in x 4.7 in) or larger. Large format is larger than "medium format", the 6 cm x 6 cm (2.4 in x 2.4 in) or 6 cm x 9 cm (2.4 in x 3.5 in) size of Hasselblad, Mamiya, Rollei, Kowa, and Pentax cameras (using 120- and 220-roll film), and much larger than the 24 mm x 36 mm (0.94 in x 1.42 in) frames of 35 mm format. Read more on Wikipedia film.
As the name implies, the F-3200 has an optical resolution of 3,200 dpiDots per inch Dots per inch (DPI, or dpi) is a measure of spatial printing, video or image scanner dot density, in particular the number of individual dots that can be placed in a line within the span of 1 inch (2.54cm). Similarly, dots per centimeter (d/cm or dpcm) refers to the number of individual dots that can be placed within a line of 1 centimeter (0.384 in). Read more on Wikipedia. With micro-stepping this can be increased to 6,400 dpi, and with VueScan, 9,600 dpi. In my opinion, there’s often little reason to scan negatives above 3,200 dpi. A 6 x 9 medium format negative scanned at 3,200 dpi, produces an image in the region of 80 megapixels, or just under 13 megapixels for a 135135 film 135 film, more popularly referred to as 35 mm film or 35 mm, is a format of photographic film with a film gauge of 35 mm (1.4 in) loaded into a standardized type of magazine (also referred to as a cassette or cartridge) for use in 135 film cameras. Read more on Wikipedia frame.
Specifications
| Feature | Value |
|---|---|
| APSAdvanced Photo System (APS) Advanced Photo System (APS) is a discontinued film format for still photography first introduced in 1996. It was marketed by Eastman Kodak under the brand name Advantix, by FujiFilm under the name Nexia, by Agfa under the name Futura and by Konica as Centuria. Read more on Wikipedia | No |
| 135 film | Yes (Strips of up to 6 frames, scans 12 frames at a time) |
| Mounted slideReversal film In photography, reversal film, or slide film is a type of photographic film that produces a positive image on a transparent base. Instead of negatives and prints, reversal film is processed to produce transparencies or diapositives (abbreviated as "diafilm" or "dia" in some languages like German, Romanian or Hungarian). Reversal film is produced in various sizes, from 35mm to roll film to 8x10 sheet film. Read more on Wikipedia | Yes (Up to 8 mounted slides at a time) |
| Medium format | Yes (6x4.5, 6x6 and 6x9) |
| Large format | Yes (Up to 5x4 in) |
| Interface | USBUniversal Serial Bus (USB) Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that allows data exchange and delivery of power between many various types of electronics. It specifies it's architecture, in particular its physical interface, and communication protocols for data transfer and power delivery to and from hosts, such as personal computers, to and from peripheral devices, e.g. displays, keyboards, and mass storage devices, and to and from intermediate hubs, which multiply the number of host's ports. Read more on Wikipedia, FireWireIEEE1394 FireWire IEEE 1394 is an interface standard for a serial bus for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer. It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple in cooperation with a number of companies, primarily Sony and Panasonic. It is most commonly known by the name FireWire (Apple), though other brand names exist such as i.LINK (Sony) and Lynx (Texas Instruments). Read more on Wikipedia, Standalone (Can connect via USB1.1, USB 2.0, FireWire 400, or standalone, saving to memory cards) |
| Resolution | 3,200 dpi |
| Dust removal | No |
Pros & Cons
- Wide range of film sizes
- Decent resolution
- Reasonable scanning speed (for personal use)
- Works with VueScan
- Multiple connection methods and a standalone mode
- Original scanning software works really well – better than any other OEM film scanner software I’ve used
- There are some quirks with VueScan
- Standalone mode offers limited and obscured settings
- Film trays are perspex backed, glass would be great, but perspex is a dust magnet
When using VueScan, the entire film tray is treated as a single image – as it would with a flatbed scanner, negatives are then highlighted for scanning. As negatives aren’t handled individually, all negatives are scanned with the same brightness level, rendering automatic brightness useless unless selecting a single negative at a time for scanning. As the original EpsonScan software works so well, I can look past this.
The one thing I would like to change, and may well attempt one day, would be to replace the perspex backing of the trays with optical glass to reduce dust.
Accessories
135 film tray
Mounted slide tray
Medium format tray
Large format tray
6×4 print tray
Optical cleaner
Software
Windows
Mac
Documentation
Sample scans
