Has anyone tested the Wolverine F2D film scanner?

[Al Dykes]

Cheap.

http://secure.serverlab.net/shop/me...de=F2D200&Category_Code=F2D&Store_Code=T00107

For the price, my requirements and expectations are not high. "Good
enough for Flickr" and reasonably fast would be fine. Getting my
slides and negs online would allow me to make a story around them and
pick any that deserve better scanning.

 

[Barry Watzman]

An issue you did not mention is that these have cheap plastic lenses and
the optics are not capable of capturing even the low resolution detail
of the not-very-good low resolution sensors.

 

[Barry Watzman]

Well, we both know what the "right" solutions are. But the "right"
solutions have drawbacks that most people think are unacceptable
(although in some cases the reality is that they are not really that big
an issue, e.g. getting a SCSI card for $10 and installing it).

That said, you can't judge ANY scanning solution by printed specs of the
scanner. My main document scanner is an HP 5470C/5490C. It is great,
fantastic, "there is no better flatbed document scanner" product. I
sing it's praises from the highest hilltop.

And it has an XPA (transparency adapter) and it can scan slides and
negatives at 2,400 dpi (true, real hardware resolution).

And it's scans of slides and negatives just plain SUCKS.

Do your friend a favor: Take one of his slides or negatives, do a top
quality scan on a Nikon LS-2000 scanner with Digital ICE at full resolution.

Let HIM compare his scan of the same slide on any other hardware that he
is considering to the Nikon. That will be the end of the argument.

 

[Barry Watzman]

Just get him to lend you ONE slide so that he can understand what the
situation is.

The "light source reflection devices" (light reflector) are a bad joke.
But part of the problem is that a lot of people do not know how to
even use them. They have to be laid out horizontally. If they are laid
out in any other orientation, they don't work. The exact orientation is
critical.

BTW, the HP that I have has an "XPA", a "real", powered light source
accessory.

I'm not familiar with the LS-20, but a lot of the pre LS-2000 Nikons
have the same resolution as the LS-2000, but lack Digital ICE. A more
critical factor is that they are chronologically old and therefore
likely DIRTY (dusty optics). And, on top of that, their software sucks,
and is often incompatible even with Windows XP.

I guess I should point out (although I suspect that you know this) that
Ratoc makes both SCSI to Firewire and SCSI to USB converters that do
work with the LS-2000 and LS-30. Thus, no SCSI card required. However,
the converters are $100 (give or take), and you have to use Hamrick
Vuescan software instead of Nikon Scan. Other than that, they are
completely viable solutions. [And, in particular, they fully support
use with Vista and Windows 7 and all version of the Mac OS. AND they
fully support 64-bit Vista and 64-bit Windows 7.]

[I think that these work with LS-1000's also, and you can pick up
LS-1000's for as little as $10-$25; the resolution and basic quality of
an LS-1000 (with clean optics) is the same as an LS-2000, however there
is no digital ICE.]

 

[Barry Watzman]

I'm curious as to the differences between the LS-10, LS-20 and LS-1000.

Apparently the LS-1000 DOES have an infra-red channel, and with VueScan
this can be used to, effectively, implement "Digital ICE" (or, more
correctly, a "Digital ICE-like" cleaning).

This is fairly significant, because VueScan also supports XP, Vista,
Windows 7, in both 32-bit and 64-bit, and the Ratoc SCSI to {Firewire
and USB} converters (2 different converters).

This could "revive" the viability of the LS-1000 especially, given that
it's resolution is the same (2,700 dpi) as that of the LS-30 and
LS-2000. 2,700 dpi is fine (it's 10 megapixels). The remaining issue
would be how clean the optics would be in a 15-year old device.

But the prices of other scanners have gotten SO high that it may again
make these scanners viable.

It would be nice to figure out how to take these apart and clean the
optics, but I did open one up once and I can tell you that they were not
meant to be taken apart. I never did figure out how to do it, and quit
since I was dealing with a perfectly good working scanner.

Back to my question about the differences, the LS-10 and LS-20 do not
have an infra-red channel, but the LS-1000 apparently does although
Nikon never used it (e.g. the Nikon software does not implement "Digital
ICE" or any equivalent thereof). Presumably there are some other
differences?