Any thoughts on Pacific Image film scanners?

DougK

DougK

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I've been thinking about picking up a film scanner and these look to fit my budget better than the KM Dual Scan IV. Does anyone have experience with these scanners? My intended purpose is color slide and B&W negative scanning for online use and inkjet prints up to 8x10.
 
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I had a PI 1800U I used for more than a year with good results. Only reason I got rid of it was it would do medium format and 1800 dpi limits you to a max print of about 8x10 (5x7 is better). It did seem to have trouble adjusting to the different color neg emulsions -- had to do a lot of tweaking in Photoshop.
 
dkirchge said:
I've been thinking about picking up a film scanner and these look to fit my budget better than the KM Dual Scan IV. Does anyone have experience with these scanners? My intended purpose is color slide and B&W negative scanning for online use and inkjet prints up to 8x10.
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Check out the Canoscan 8400f can be found at Newegg.com for $137. It might be possible to get one at CompUSA for $99. They were on sale there last weekend.

Newegg is very good on deliveries and they accept Paypal.

See the attached image for a sample scan
 
FWIW, I'm pleased with my Epson 4180 which will scan at 4800x9600 dpi. I paid $199 at Staples but also received a $50 rebate in about three weeks. Final Cost was $149. It does 35mm and MF.

Walker
 
Thanks for the feedback, folks!

I forgot to mention that I'm currently using an Epson Perfection 2580 Photo, ok but I'm not blown away by the results, particularly from slides although I didn't expect the best from a flatbed to begin with. If anyone can pass along some tips about how to get the most out of this scanner while I budget for the new film scanner, that would be awesome too.
 
One more comment on the PI 1800 model (I got a rebranded - Mediax - one): I simply hate it! This scanner is a total POS, I regret every single Euro I spent on it - check out my gallery: the 'Welder' pics were scanned on a friend's Minolta Dual Scan III and are quite acceptable; the toned pics are mostly prints scanned on a cheap UMAX flatbed, and are also OK; but all the newer stuff was scanned with the 1800 - look at the 'Rewolfinger' and 'Turl Rewitz' series - the quality is really bad; those were difficult negs, however - pushed film, very high contrast range, thin shadows, dense lights - but even with that kind of film the Dual Scan coped much better (as you can see in the 'Welder' series); even with regularly exposed middle-of-the-road negs (contrast- and density-wise), quality is rather low, every once in a while the scanner makes weird stripes right through the scan, sometimes I have to make three or four scans before I can get an acceptable one.
Since 99% of my films are conventional, silver-based B&W, I don't know whether results would be better with color negative or slide film.

Roman
 
Thanks Roman. I see what you mean about the differences in the scans. I'm actually starting to move away from my color slide dependency (gasp!) into shooting more black-and-white film, so that's definitely good information to have as I go forward.
 
The Canoscan does MF? That's good to know, as I have a couple of MF cameras I muck about with now and again. I certainly wouldn't want them to feel neglected.
 
Yeah, I plan to have an Iskra... so that extra feature helped me to decide. I was first considering a KM Scan Dual iv. But, I am not a Pro and Couldn't see myself purchasing a "mono-tasker" since I need to scan prints and other stuff more often than negatives and slides.
 
Since 99% of my films are conventional said:
I didn't scan a lot of silver-based b&w with the PI 1800U. It did a decent job if youu didn't want to go larger than 5x7 but it took a lot of time to get decent results. Didn't have much luck at all with slides. To have any chance at all, they had to be relatively light -- it would handle dark scenes at all. I used it mostly for color negative. The color profiles for the different emulsions left a lot to be desired. I guess the best way to sum it up would be the scanner might be OK for someone doing an occassional color neg scan but probably isn't much good to a serious photographer. I got mine for $99 from Costco on line two years ago which was about the lowest price you could pay for a film scanner in those days.
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I sprang for one of those Canoscan 8400F scanners which were on sale this weekend. So far I've only tried using it with medium format negatives. For the money, $130 before my $30 mail-in rebate, it aint' too bad.
 
Solinar said:
I sprang for one of those Canoscan 8400F scanners which were on sale this weekend. So far I've only tried using it with medium format negatives. For the money, $130 before my $30 mail-in rebate, it aint' too bad.
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I have the Canoscan 9950F which can handle up to 4x5 but is more pricey than the 8400F. The 9950F has had mixed reviews but I like the results I get from it. I went ballistic when I discovered you can't useu the dust and scratch removal feature with silver-based films until someone on the forum pointed out that NONE of the major scanning software can handle D&S removal on silver film. Live and learn.
 
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