Setting the Focus Distance on the Epson V700 Scanner

The biggest problem with the otherwise quite splendid scanner Epson "Perfection" V700 (pretentious little product name there) is hitting the right focus distance... and keeping the film flat. Here are some little hints to solve part 1 of that riddle, to find the right focus distance.

The usual procedure is to make a series of test scans, setting your film carrier to each of its three possible heights (or, if you bought the Betterscanning holder, an binary search through a lot of different heights).

The problem with that is, assuming you're using large format (or even "baby large format" 6x9cm, like me), that you won't really be able to see any grain to focus on. So you'd have to rely on having a sharp negative. But how sharp is sharp? When I tried it at first, I didn't know if I'd hit the edge of what's possible with the scanner or if my negative was really not that 100% sharp. So here is what I've learned.

First, switch off any ICE (or in VueScan "infrared") dust removal. It will give you a slightly reduced sharpness, which makes your job to find the right focus hard. It will also speed your tests up a bit, since the scan head doesn't have to make two passes.

Second, use a large resolution, even if it's more than you usually would need. 3200 spi (samples per inch, also called "pixel per inch" sometimes) is probably safe. To save some time, I set the output format to JPEG and only 24bit RGB. I learned to resist the temptation to try to do something that you can later use at the same time.

Third, the real secret: Use a color negative with some parts that are underexposed (e.g. stuff that is in the shadows). You will get big, fat grain in those parts. See how the grain looks in the "ghosts" of these people there? You can see that you have the right focus distance, even though that part of the image is not technically "sharp".

This is a small piece of that big picture, some people looking at the sunset. The scan is done at 1600 spi, you'd see it even a bit better at 3200 spi. (The small sample pictures are at 100% of the 1600spi scan resolution and not sharpened.)

Here is the same piece of the image, with proper color correction and "curves" adjustment layer applied. The grain has disappeared, because well, it's in the shadows anyway.

Fourth, for once, dust is your friend. As much as we hate dust on our scans usually, here it helped me quite a bit. Because dust has 100% sharp outlines most all the time. So when you see a little spec of dust that is sharp... well, you're quite close to the optimal film focus height. The difference of the height of the dust spec probably won't matter much.

As for the 2nd part, getting the negative flat, I can't be of much help there yet, still fighting with that!