We present measurements of the structure function $F_2$ in ep scattering at HERA in the range $ 3.5 < Q^2 < 5000 $ GeV$^2$. A new reconstruction method has allowed a significant improvement in the resolution of the kinematic variables and an extension of the kinematic region covered by the experiment. At $Q^2 < 35 $ GeV$^2$ the range in $x$ now spans $ 6.3 \cdot 10^{-5} < x < 0.08$ providing overlap with measurements from fixed target experiments. At values of $Q^2$ above 1000 GeV$^2$ the $x$ range extends to 0.5.