My Epson film scanner and I have been fighting lately. For the past two weeks I just can't seem to get a good scan. I can't seem to get a sharp scan. I can't seem to get a scan with the correct color. I can't seem to get a scan with the proper exposure. I even had a day I couldn't get it to select a negative in the software to scan. I had it with my scanner. I was done. I am getting rid of this thing and getting a 'proper' scanner. I was so frustrated with the dealing with this... I decided to uninstall all of my software. Reinstall it and try one last time and attempt to scan the roll of Ilford 400 XP2 from Popeye Camera. I dropped the negatives on the scanner and sure enough I get a great set of scans. I was actually very happy with how they came out.

During my Epson Hate fest I had begun researching what is available for higher end scanners. There seem to be three on the market and one that I can actually afford which is the PlusTek OpticFilm 120. This is running about $2,000 USD which is a massive investment. I would need to sell a lot of prints to justify spending that on a scanner so if each of you could commit to buy 1 or 2 then I'm going for it. I'm only half joking - seriously go buy a print otherwise this might need a little more consideration. I would be very interested if anyone is using this scanner and has an opinion on it. The one thing I found very strange is that it needs to sit 8 inches away from the wall as the tray exits in the back during scanning. Seems inconvenient.

The higher end options are the Hasselblad Flextight X1 and Flextight X5 which cost $16,000 and $25,000 respectively. These are far out of my price range. I am not opposed if a wealthy ShootTokyo readers wants to buy them for me or if Hasselblad wants to give them to me. For the reader, you'l get a complimentary print of anything I put up in my Print Shop. For Hasselblad, I'm happy to write a review of the scanner and even wear a Hasselblad T-Shirt sometimes. What a great deal for either of you!

Anyways, since neither of these are going to happen...

I love how the bokeh in this first picture came out.

Today’s configuration: Hasselblad 501cm with a Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm shot on Ilford 400 XP2.