alienmeatsack
Well-known
I have some thoughts on this scanner myself. Not good ones. So please take my own experience with this with a grain of salt and understand that I am just giving you thoughts on my own use of the device and software.
I got in on the Kickstarter campaign for this and was very excited by the idea of having means to do quick and dirty scans of 35mm film in the car or on the go, from work, etc.
That excitement went right straight into "meh" when I received the unit and used it. At the time, the software was not out, so you had to use the built-in camera for your device and then invert the image and adjust it in whatever app you had available to you. I was using Photoshop Express and FX Photo Studio for iOS to do this. And the results sucked. IMHO. I am no beginner here, I know what I am doing, I've scanned thousands of 35mm shots, hundreds of medium format, and I could not for the life of me get results with this unit that I thought were usable for anything except the most basic glimpse at your work. Honestly, I'd rather wait till I got home and scan the negatives on an actual scanner.
I thought maybe it was my device that was the problem. I have an iPhone 4S, an iPod Touch 5th gen, and an older Droid X I use for MP3s. I tried it on all three and the results were not good on any of these. Maybe I am overcritical, but I expected better then what it does do for me, even using Apple's camera.
First problem I ran into, getting focus. The in-OS camera would lose focus and keep trying to refocus over and over. When it did finally get it, it wasn't also truly focused. Second issue was the exposure that is selected when you use the in-OS camera and touch the image, if you accidentally touched somewhere outside of the correct spot your image would be blown out or too dark. You'd have to leave the camera and come back to it for a fresh view.
I didn't have as much of this problem with the other apps I used like Photoshop Express and FX Photo Studio. And both of those at least had the ability to invert the image once the photo was taken. But even then, the result was very disappointing.
For iOS, the software for it is now on the App Store and it is just awful. I am sorry to say this but it is actually so bad that IMHO it should not be on the store. Some of the functions don't work and are just placeholders, others crash the app repeatedly. Lomography has said they are taking feedback to improve the app, but the problem is, they should have beta tested it a lot better before putting it up to use. You are better served using another existing app for your phone's OS over their app. It's that bad.
In their app, if you try to use any of the filters to invert the image, turn it B/W, etc, it crashes. (For all of my iOS devices.) It has a button that takes you to your camera's photos and then just kind of ends there with no actual functionality. Many of the mode buttons cause it to crash as well.
The unit itself is not too bad. You load 2 AA batteries into it and use the appropriate number of stackers to get the correct spacing between the device and the image. For the iPhone 4S, 2 is the right number. Then you turn it on, fire up the camera, get the phone situated just so, put in the film and roll it to a frame. Then you have to zoom in to fill the screen/camera with th image, let it get focus and snap the shot.
It's small enough you could carry with you somewhere on the go. But honestly, you would probably get just as good of a result with a battery operated portable backlit loupe or similar and snap a shot in that.
I got in on the Kickstarter campaign for this and was very excited by the idea of having means to do quick and dirty scans of 35mm film in the car or on the go, from work, etc.
That excitement went right straight into "meh" when I received the unit and used it. At the time, the software was not out, so you had to use the built-in camera for your device and then invert the image and adjust it in whatever app you had available to you. I was using Photoshop Express and FX Photo Studio for iOS to do this. And the results sucked. IMHO. I am no beginner here, I know what I am doing, I've scanned thousands of 35mm shots, hundreds of medium format, and I could not for the life of me get results with this unit that I thought were usable for anything except the most basic glimpse at your work. Honestly, I'd rather wait till I got home and scan the negatives on an actual scanner.
I thought maybe it was my device that was the problem. I have an iPhone 4S, an iPod Touch 5th gen, and an older Droid X I use for MP3s. I tried it on all three and the results were not good on any of these. Maybe I am overcritical, but I expected better then what it does do for me, even using Apple's camera.
First problem I ran into, getting focus. The in-OS camera would lose focus and keep trying to refocus over and over. When it did finally get it, it wasn't also truly focused. Second issue was the exposure that is selected when you use the in-OS camera and touch the image, if you accidentally touched somewhere outside of the correct spot your image would be blown out or too dark. You'd have to leave the camera and come back to it for a fresh view.
I didn't have as much of this problem with the other apps I used like Photoshop Express and FX Photo Studio. And both of those at least had the ability to invert the image once the photo was taken. But even then, the result was very disappointing.
For iOS, the software for it is now on the App Store and it is just awful. I am sorry to say this but it is actually so bad that IMHO it should not be on the store. Some of the functions don't work and are just placeholders, others crash the app repeatedly. Lomography has said they are taking feedback to improve the app, but the problem is, they should have beta tested it a lot better before putting it up to use. You are better served using another existing app for your phone's OS over their app. It's that bad.
In their app, if you try to use any of the filters to invert the image, turn it B/W, etc, it crashes. (For all of my iOS devices.) It has a button that takes you to your camera's photos and then just kind of ends there with no actual functionality. Many of the mode buttons cause it to crash as well.
The unit itself is not too bad. You load 2 AA batteries into it and use the appropriate number of stackers to get the correct spacing between the device and the image. For the iPhone 4S, 2 is the right number. Then you turn it on, fire up the camera, get the phone situated just so, put in the film and roll it to a frame. Then you have to zoom in to fill the screen/camera with th image, let it get focus and snap the shot.
It's small enough you could carry with you somewhere on the go. But honestly, you would probably get just as good of a result with a battery operated portable backlit loupe or similar and snap a shot in that.
