Valoi easy35 V2 Review: How Does the Perfect Scanning Tool Get Better?

The original Valoi easy35 is one of our favorite negative and slide scanning tools. The system is so user-friendly that even those new to film scanning can rush through a roll of scans with ease. Flatbed scanners are slow and dedicated film scanners are expensive. The team at Valoi helped bring an affordable and super quick solution to this some years ago. Now with the Valoi easy35 V2 they’ve gone and improved upon an already excellent product.

You’d have to agree that there’s a certain irony in the recent revival of analog film photography. A generation that’s only grown up in the digital world, where information is processed and life passes by at lightning speed, wants to slow down. Deliberately and definitively. And one of the ways they find themselves doing this, is by shooting analog photos on film cameras. Passing on the urge to snap 36 photos in one spot, and instead spreading that across multiple days or weeks, taking the time to carefully immerse themselves in the process of every single click becomes deeply therapeutic.

Film Scanning Shouldn’t Be A Chore

Of course, the fact that you want to shoot film becomes a little complicated when it comes to realizing that shooting is just one half of producing the images. There’s a second, usually cumbersome process of having to scan and digitize those images in order to print them and show them to the world. If you think film shooting is expensive, and rightly so, the added costs of sending them to labs for scans can put off people from shooting analog often. Helping alleviate some of those worries for a few years, is the team at Valoi who made the wonderful Valoi Easy35 that we tested out last year. The concept is straightforward – the easy35 attaches directly to your macro lens, holds your film flat and in position. Using a built-in light source, it lights the negative while you shoot it. No copy stand needed, no tripod – just a lot of relaxation.

In our review we noted

I felt unchained. I could sit on my couch with a cup of chai by my side, and scan film almost as easily as flipping channels on TV. That increase in comfort made me fall in love with the workflow. The film-feeding process is simple. You insert your strip of negatives, advance it frame by frame with your hand, and press the shutter. It feels like shooting a roll in reverse. The scanner’s backlight is strong and consistent. It gave me confidence that I wasn’t dealing with uneven exposures

A few months ago when the team at Valoi reached out to let us know that the Valoi easy35 V2 was releasing soon, we immediately asked them if they could send us a test unit, and they readily agreed.

What’s New In The Valoi easy35 V2

Aside from the clear difference in the way the two units look visually, a lot has changed inside as well. The lighting source inside the Valoi easy35 V2 works very differently compared to its predecessor. Now the light is diffused before it hits your negative (or slide), using a patent-pending diffused dome. Valoi says this improves light consistency across the frame to almost 100%, and we could notice that the vignetting in the negatives was significantly lower compared to those we scanned using the earlier gen scanner. Having no light falloff on the edges means quicker results, without having to correct for vignetting in post-processing.

A surprising removal was the temperature control dial. in the Valoi easy35 V2, you don’t have an option to adjust color temperature, or the strength of the light. Both these are now fixed, and instead of dials, there’s only a single power button to turn the unit on or off. But what they did do to support analog enthusiasts, is give them the ability to plug in the Valoi easy35 V2 and run it off a power source, in case the battery wasn’t charged beforehand for any reason. This was an issue with v1 where I remember running out of battery during a scan session and then tried unsuccessfully to turn the light on while having it connected to the mains.

Build And Finishing

While the earlier model had an exterior finish that almost made it seem like it was 3d printed, the Valoi easy35 V2 has a more refined exterior. It feels lighter but definitely still durable, even if we didn’t do any drop tests with it. The change isn’t just on the main unit; even the film and slide holders benefit from the same improved build quality and finish. Everything is well-machined, has tight tolerances and feels consistent across every component. One issue I had on the original model was with the slide holder’s speed of use. on v2, it does seem a bit faster to load new slides during the scanning. I still do think it could be improved by having a poker mechanism system instead, which would make it easier to push out the older slide and push in the newer one perfectly.

Who Is The Valoi easy35 V2 For?

If you’re someone who’s new to film scanning and is mortified by having to buy a light source, a copy stand, and film holders at an exorbitant price, then this product is definitely what you need. It’s a system that doesn’t demand a steep learning curve, specialist equipment or the need to allocate a dedicated workspace.

If you’re an existing Valoi easy35 owner who wants to scan even faster and not have to worry about light falloff issues, then you can even look at the Valoi easy35 v2 Upgrade Kit. This has the easy35 v2 main units, a standard 35mm Film Holder and USB-C cable. It allows you to use the extension tubes and filter thread adapters from the previous generation easy35 to attach the new unit onto your macro lens.

We always recommend handling negatives with lint-free gloves in order to minimize dust on the scans, but you also have the option of purchasing the easy35 v2 Duster as an accessory, the bristles of which acts like a dust trap as you pass your negatives through it onto the light source.

Valoi continues to impress with their design thinking and the results their products deliver. The easy35 v2 is a more finished, more consistent and more enjoyable product than its predecessor in many ways. In an industry peppered with improvised and often compromised solutions, that level of refinement is worth appreciating.

Declaration of Journalistic Intent

The Phoblographer is one of the last standing dedicated photography publications that speaks to both art and tech in our articles. We put declarations up front in our reviews to adhere to journalistic standards that several publications abide by. These help you understand a lot more about what we do:

• At the time of publishing this review, Valoi is not running direct-sold advertising with the Phoblographer. This doesn’t affect our reviews anyway and it never has in our 15 years of publishing our articles. This article is in no way sponsored.
• None of the reviews on the Phoblographer are sponsored. That’s against FTC laws and we adhere to them just the same way that newspapers, magazines, and corporate publications do.
• Valoi sent the easy35 v2 to the Phoblographer for review. There was no money exchange between us or their 3rd party partners and the Phoblographer for this to happen. Manufacturers trust the Phoblographer’s reviews, as they are incredibly blunt.
• Valoi knows that it cannot influence the site’s reviews. If we don’t like something or if we have issues with it, we’ll let our readers know.
• Valoi paid for shipping of the unit. This is a standard practice in the world of journalism.
• The Phoblographer’s standards for reviewing products have become much stricter. After having the world’s largest database of real-world lens reviews, we choose not to review anything we don’t find innovative or unique, and in many cases, products that lack weather resistance. Unless something is very unique, we probably won’t touch it.
• In recent years, brands have withheld NDA information from us or stopped working with us because they feel they cannot control our coverage. These days, many brands will not give products to the press unless they get favorable coverage. In other situations, we’ve stopped working with several brands for ethical issues. Either way, we report as honestly and raw as humanity allows.
• At the time of publishing, the Phoblographer is the only photography publication that is a member of Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative. We champion human-made art and are frank with our audience. We are also the only photography publication that labels when an image is edited or not.

More can be found on our Disclaimers page.