Epson v750 pro with soft and noisy results

[mickbobjoe]

Hi there,
i have a question and going to see if anyone out there can help. ive had my epson v750 for about a year and never been truely happy with the results. I mainly scan kodak 160 and 400 nc 5x4 and some fuji 120 film and trannie. however the results never come out pin sharp and there is always some kind of noise. this is very annoying when scanning looking at my contacts to see that my 5x4 negs are pin sharp but the scans never live up to it.
I am now at the point of having to buy a new film holder from the states to see if that will improve the situation or if i have a cable or settings issue. I have been told by a few sources that this will make the situation better but i would like to know people's thoughts before i spend more money.
I run my scanner on silverfast 6.4 ai with a mac pro and calibrated eizo screen and feel it is letting me down

thank you

[LSI_Ketelhohn]

Dear mickbobjoe,

a certain amount of noise is always present in every scanning process.
This is a physical effect in the scanner sensor.
The noise can be reduced using the MultiScan or MultiExposure Features of SilverFast.

kind regards
Arne Ketelhohn

[joevitone]

You may have already remedied your problem in that your question was made two months ago, but if you're still having problems you may consider the following that addresses soft scan but NOT electronic noise. Fairly common knowledge that Epson ships its V750 scanner with the film carrier spacers pointed to "0". Sharper scans are typically achieved by popping these out (from the bottom of the film carriers) and reversing arrow orientation so that it points to the "+". This slightly increases lens to film distance and typically results in a sharper scan. (Again, note this would have no affect on noise but on sharpness.) Another note here is that Multi-Scan can actually produce a softer scan if the film is not securely held in position during the scans by some method such as wet mount since the film's gelatin emulsion tends to dehydrate during process of multiple scans and move the image plane just a bit when the film is only secured by a film carrier.