Reflecta ProScan 7200 or OpticFilm 8200i Ai

[Joosep]

Say you have to pick one of the two (only these two please), then which one would you pick ?

I care only about the quality, I have time, would only scan one or two from a role (have a good workflow for average quality scans already).

Please keep the comments between these two.

 

[joeswe]

Say you have to pick one of the two (only these two please), then which one would you pick ?

I care only about the quality, I have time, would only scan one or two from a role (have a good workflow for average quality scans already).

Please keep the comments between these two.

I have only used the ProScan 7200 so far and think it is very good value for the money. Sharp, quick and the hardware scratch/dust removal works well. I recommend at least Silverfast SE (in case you buy a bundled version make sure you get the new version 8, it is much better than 6.6).
It seems the 8200i Ai would come with Silverfast Ai and a target, which is good if you scan slide film. But filmscanner.info has given it only a so-so review and ranks it a bit below the ProScan. Resolution is similar, but density range and quality of hardware scratch removal is a bit inferior to the Reflecta.
You can read reviews of both scanners in Denglish here:
http://www.filmscanner.info/en/PlustekOpticFilm8200i.html
http://www.filmscanner.info/en/ReflectaProScan7200.html

 

[crispy12]

I read a bit about the Reflecta this afternoon. Apparently the software is horrible and Vuescan support is scant too. I have the Plustek and use it with Vuescan. Thoroughly recommended.

 

[Joosep]

I have only used the ProScan 7200 so far and think it is very good value for the money. Sharp, quick and the hardware scratch/dust removal works well. I recommend at least Silverfast SE (in case you buy a bundled version make sure you get the new version 8, it is much better than 6.6).
It seems the 8200i Ai would come with Silverfast Ai and a target, which is good if you scan slide film. But filmscanner.info has given it only a so-so review and ranks it a bit below the ProScan. Resolution is similar, but density range and quality of hardware scratch removal is a bit inferior to the Reflecta.
You can read reviews of both scanners in Denglish here:
http://www.filmscanner.info/en/PlustekOpticFilm8200i.html
http://www.filmscanner.info/en/ReflectaProScan7200.html

Yes. Thats what I got from there too...
For the Plustek : "210 Megabyte, but indeed only 42 Megabyte of picture information are existing"
For the Reflecta : "70 million pixels, but from which approximately 56 millions are redundant, thus useless."
It seems the plustek gets more info ? And the multiexposure should work better ?

But here you can see the test results from the 8200 (not 8200i) vs 7200.
To me the 8200 looks better (tho yes the wineglass is not so visible, but everything else seems to be better). The 8200i Ai is essentially the same, but with dust removal and 16 bit histograms and IT8 calibration....
Its so hard to decide between those two......
What you think ?

 

[brbo]

Yes. Thats what I got from there too...
For the Plustek : "210 Megabyte, but indeed only 42 Megabyte of picture information are existing"
For the Reflecta : "70 million pixels, but from which approximately 56 millions are redundant, thus useless."
It seems the plustek gets more info ? And the multiexposure should work better ?

But here you can see the test results from the 8200 (not 8200i) vs 7200.
To me the 8200 looks better (tho yes the wineglass is not so visible, but everything else seems to be better). The 8200i Ai is essentially the same, but with dust removal and 16 bit histograms and IT8 calibration....
Its so hard to decide between those two......
What you think ?

No. Read again. They are basically the same in resolution department (around 3200dpi).

I don't know about Plustek looking better than Reflecta on side by side comparison. Both look bad as far as colors are concerned.

 

[Joosep]

No. Read again. They are basically the same in resolution department (around 3200dpi).

I don't know about Plustek looking better than Reflecta on side by side comparison. Both look bad as far as colors are concerned.

Dont like comments like that... :bang:

Yes I am fully aware of the dpi. But as I stated, the page said, there seems to be different amount of useful information.

 

[brbo]

No. Effective resolution is the same. You are probably just not reading carefully enough and are confused with MB (file size) vs. MP (picture size) of useful data that those scanners can extract.

 

[Joosep]

No. Effective resolution is the same. You are probably just not reading carefully enough and are confused with MB (file size) vs. MP (picture size) of useful data that those scanners can extract.

WHAT ? Look three posts back.

I hope the next post will be about the Plustek vs. Reflecta.

 

[brbo]

Look for what?!

This?

For the Plustek : "210 Megabyte, but indeed only 42 Megabyte of picture information are existing"
For the Reflecta : "70 million pixels, but from which approximately 56 millions are redundant, thus useless."

In the above quote, what makes you think that any scanner has more useful information than the other? Without breaking out my calculator, 14MP seem in line with 42Mb (at 8bit/channel), wouldn't you say?! Any why wouldn't you, if you can read in that same review that measured effective resolution (scanning USAF targets) for both scanners is equal (3250dpi).

Reflecta has potentially more useful information as it's better at penetrating the deep shadows. You will only notice this with slide film.

Features...

resolution: tie
DMax: Reflecta
ICE: Reflecta
speed: Reflecta
software: Plustek
price: Plustek

Usage...

slide & negative color film: Reflecta
BW: Plustek
don't care about ICE: Plustek

 

[D.Page]

Having previously owned the Proscan 7200 (and with use of the trial version of Silverfast Ai Studio 8), let me highlight an apparent limitation of this scanner, which all prospective buyers should be aware of.

As ScanDig/FilmScanner's review suggests, and as I will confirm, having used it for prolonged periods myself, the ProScan 7200 is clearly a very good scanner and is capable of producing high quality scans (especially when using it with Silverfast software), but it seems to have a limitation, in the form of subtle vertical banding when scanning (particularly denser) images containing large plain areas, such as sky. I will cut a long story short by saying that I have gone through five ProScan 7200’s (some from different batches), and every one had this problem to some degree. I have spoken about this on other forums and there have been subsequent comments posted, saying this problem affects their ProScan 7200 also. One possible cause, which was put forward, is a ‘flatfield’ issue, which seems to affect this scanner in general, though I have also seen similar reports made by owners of the RPS 7200 model.

Let me be clear – this banding is subtle, and many people who spot it with scans made on their ProScan 7200 may conclude to themselves that they can live with this problem. However, if you have perfectionist tendencies (like myself), you may be disappointed with this apparent limitation, which, I can tell you from personal experience, is highly frustrating, as it is, otherwise, an excellent scanner, which I would be more than happy to use for all my scanning needs, if it was not for this issue.

I am undecided, at present, as to whether to look for an alternative scanner in this price bracket, or continue to try to see if I can acquire a ProScan 7200 which has this problem to a relatively minor degree, and, therefore, am able to tolerate. It is quite ridiculous to have to face such a dilemma, but there you go. I am very aware of the favourable ScanDig/FilmScanner review of the ProScan 7200 and, as I say, I am very happy with this scanner in all other regards. With all this in mind, I would prefer to be able to acquire a ProScan 7200 I can persevere with in this regard, than to go for any of the Plustek models in this price bracket.

 

[Andrea Taurisano]

..a limitation, in the form of subtle vertical banding when scanning (particularly denser) scans containing large plain areas, such as sky.

Interesting. Could you post a couple of sample images to give us an idea of what this looks like and whether it would bother us or is something we could live with?

 

[D.Page]

Interesting. Could you post a couple of sample images to give us an idea of what this looks like and whether it would bother us or is something we could live with?

Here is a very good example. Hopefully, you can see the banding clearly enough, given that I can only send attachments of very small file size.

 

[Andrea Taurisano]

I see. Well, that would indeed bother me, especially if delivered by dedicated film scanner. Now I wonder if similar baning has been reported also on images from the Reflecta RPS 7200 Professional.

 

[D.Page]

I see. Well, that would indeed bother me, especially if delivered by dedicated film scanner. Now I wonder if similar baning has been reported also on images from the Reflecta RPS 7200 Professional.

If I insert this particular negative into the film holder upside down, scan the same frame of film, and then rotate the image 180 degrees in Photoshop in order to get it the correct way up once again, as you might expect, this banding is present on the opposite side of the frame. Obviously, if the image to be scanned is more 'busy', the banding will, in most cases, be hidden.

Just to be clear, the example I sent is a fairly dense negative, with a fairly plain area of sky in the location of the banding. I have other examples of scans containing plain areas of sky where the banding is less of an issue, as that particular negative is not as dense. What I'm trying to say is that the severity will appear better or worse, depending of the density of the film and how uniformly-toned any plainer areas are in the image, in the location of where banding will present itself. Anyone who has a large volume of film to be scanned will, no doubt, have some images which are likely to show the problem to the kind of degree as in the example I've sent.

Also, let me point out that this problem was much less noticable when using the supplied Cyberview software (the image I sent was scanned using the Silverfast software). The ProScan 7200, when used with the Silverfast software, is clearly able to scan with noticably superior image quality than when using the supplied Cyberview software, but it seems to be less forgiving of the scanner having these kinds of problems in the first place. I have heard it said that the Silverfast software attempts to squeeze the maximum amount of image quality out of scans, but I presume in doing so, it places more demands on the scanner functioning without any issues of this kind in the first place.

As you have probably gathered from my original post, I am very fond of this scanner but I would be buying a scanner to scan, to a high quality, any of my images I want to scan - not just images which happen to be busier, or less dense, or images which do not contain large amounts of more uniformly-toned areas, such as sky! Is that too much to ask? I think not.

 

[k__43]

I have seen heavy banding with my Plustek 8200. I have to scan at 7200 dpi to avoid this.

 

[kennylovrin]

Regarding the resolution discussion and the filscanner info website, this is from the Reflecta review:

According to our resolution table, this results in an effective resolution of approximately 3250ppi. This is approximately 90% of the nominal resolution of 3600ppi announced by the producer.

And this is the same thing for the Plustek:

The effective attainable resolution like expected hasn't changed: It still is at about 3250 dpi. Because of this we aren't go into detail at this place but refer to our test review for the Plustek OpticFilm 7600i. Only this shall be said: With this effective resolution the OpticFilm just delivers some more than 50% of the nominal resolution mentioned by the producer. Despite of this 3250 dpi is an acceptable value: With this prints up to a size of DIN A4 (21 x 29,7 cm) can be realized at good quality .
Naturally the high nominal resolution has the same disadvantage like the predecessor. One has to scan with 7200 dpi, to get the effective 3250 dpi. This leads to very long scan-durations and to swollen picture files, which afterwards again have to be edited/ compressed.

So this means that when you scan at 7200dpi on the Plustek, you get the same actual data as you get when you scan at 3600dpi on the Reflecta. The difference is that the plustek scan will be much larger in file size. Essentially hat you are achieving is the same thing as taking a Reflecta scan and upscaling it in Photoshop to 7200dpi.

Of course, there are other differences, but to get the same amount of actual data, you have to scan at 3600dpi with the Reflecta, and 7200dpi with the Plustek. That is the reason I chose the Reflecta over the Plustek.

But of course, there might be other differences that still makes the Plustek the "better" scanner depending on what the needs are.

 

[D.Page]

Having been in conversation with Reflecta via email, they have disclosed to me that they are, indeed, aware that some ProScan 7200’s exhibit a banding problem. They told me that they will ‘re-engineer’ (as they put it) the ProScan 7200, presumably so that it eliminates (or at the very least, minimises) any banding issues.

However, rather than recalling the current stocks, the ProScan 7200 is available to buy right now, presumably with many of these units liable to exhibit the banding problem(?). Could it be possible that Reflecta’s strategy is to keep this banding problem hushed up, and continue to sell all the current stocks of this scanner, and then revert to selling stocks of ‘re-engineered’ or updated ProScan 7200’s – without anybody having any knowledge of when the stocks of the ProScan 7200 have changed over to the updated units?

 

[Jonik]

what would you guys suggest(between the 2) to somebody that shoots 95% B&W 5%colour (no slides).

the "scan the whole film in low res>check>scan in high res what u want>cut>store" sounds so.. nice

but the banding problem (for me at least - i shoot a lot of minimal /formalism with nothing BUT huge large areas full of nothing )
sounds so.. scary

 

[D.Page]

I would hold on for the moment, Jonik - Reflecta have, in the last few days, released a new ProScan model, called the ProScan 10T. It looks identical to the ProScan 7200, but for the change of model name and a 'MagicTouch' legend/badge, but it is a much more capable scanner, on paper at least. It is too new, yet, for anyone to have tested it and compiled a comprehensive review, and Silverfast have not released any compatible scanning software for it yet, either. Also, it is only available in Germany, at this moment in time. Hopefully, it will be on sale in the UK and elsewhere very soon (Edit: the ProScan 10T looks to be a clone of the Pacific Image PrimeFilm XE, which has been available in the US for months).

I will wait for a review to see how good the ProScan 10T is. I would hope that Reflecta would have learned about any inherent design problems with the ProScan 7200 leading to banding problems, and designed the 10T to avoid such problems. The suggested retail price of the ProScan 10T is not a great deal more than the ProScan 7200, and it claims to offer a top resolution of 10,000 dpi ! (hence the name '10T', the 'T', no doubt, denoting 'thousand') - though it takes 7 minutes to scan a frame of film at this top resolution. Even if it achieves only, say, 50% of the quoted 10,000 dpi in practace, that's still a very high amount of detail, and close to the theoretical limit of 35mm film - I'm sure a future ScanDig/filmscanner review will let us know what it can actually achieve, in due course. Of course, you don't have to scan as high as 10,000 DPI if you didn't want to (bear in mind, it will take more time to scan, and the filesizes will be humungous), but it's nice to have the option, though.

However, the most important consideration, for me, is: has the banding been sorted out with this new model. I await a comprehensive review by the ScanDig/Filmscanner website.

 

[jwcat]

Interesting, I guess this is the scanner I asked about in the above post.

John