Friday 27 June 2008

HP Scanjet G4050 Review part 1: First Impressions

Tobias Key of tobiaskey.com, Chichester and Sussex portrait photographer reviews:

What's in the box:

Film holders for mounted 35mm transparencies, 35mm negative strips and a combined 120/4x5 holder. The holders are on a par with the Epson holders for the 4990, in other words adequate but nothing special. The 120 holders can't hold negative strips completely flat and I doubt the 4x5 could either, again not unusual at this price bracket.

The Software installed without a hitch (I'm using Vista). The most unusual thing I found was that there is no icon to operate the scanner from your desktop, instead you have to press one of four buttons on the top of the machine depending on what you want to do.

I didn't like the scanning software. It's very clunky and only offers 8 bit greyscale scans. I already had a copy of hamrick's excellent vuescan so I quickly started using this instead. Vuescan transforms this scanner's usabilty and produces much better scans. I honestly don't think I could recommend this scanner if I had only used it with HP's own software. In fact, I think I would have taken in straight back to the shop, the HP software does not offer the enthusiast anything like enough control and has a horrible user interface. If you want to buy this scanner for scanning black and white negatives, budget for a third party software package like vuescan or silverfast if you want to get decent results.

Next: some scanning examples

Review: HP Scanjet G4050 Introduction


Scan made with HP G4050



Chichester photographer, Tobias of Tobias key Photography review his latest scanner:

So after a few years service my Epson 4990 scanner died and I was forced into another scanner purchase, for scanning my 120 black and white negatives. For someone like myself, a scanner purchase is a thorny issue. One of the downfalls of mainstream film use was the time and expense involved in getting a negative into digital format. Now, a long time after the horse has bolted, there are a good range of affordable flat bed scanners that claim to do that job at previously unheard of prices, like the sub £200 Epson 4490 and HP G4050 up to the far more sophisticated Epson V750 at over £500.

I decided to buy a scanner at the cheaper end of the market to proof negatives for drum scanning. I felt that if I was to ever want make a big enlargement of a particular negative I'd either have a wet print made or get a drum scan. To my logic getting a V75o was pointless as I'd never be confident in using a consumer flatbed for a large canvas or exhibition print, my flat bed would really be little more than an alternative to contact sheets and 7x5's. And it is with this in mind that I'm reviewing the G5040.

Next: Installation and First Impressions