Scanner advice - Epson 3170 or alternative?

[Sagittaria]

I'm looking for a new scanner and hoped to get some opinions here. My
immediate project is to scan in 15 years worth of 110 and 35mm color
negatives, not professional quality, just home photos. But I probably
don't want a dedicated film scanner because I will also have occasional
photos or documents to scan. Someone recommended the Epson 3170 because
it worked great for them, but I wondered if that was still likely to be
my best choice. Thanks for all replies.

 

[Gerry]

I too am trying to decide between the Epson 3170, or the newer Epson 2580 or
the Canon 8400F. I also know that I do not want a dedicate film scanner
because I also need to do documents etc in addition to my old photos and 35
mm slides. Anybody have experience or is aware of good reviews of these?
Or what about Epson vs Canon - - are the two equally good in terms of
flatbed scanners? Thanks.

 

[Howard Nelson]

I too am trying to decide between the Epson 3170, or the newer Epson 2580 or
the Canon 8400F. I also know that I do not want a dedicate film scanner
because I also need to do documents etc in addition to my old photos and 35
mm slides. Anybody have experience or is aware of good reviews of these?
Or what about Epson vs Canon - - are the two equally good in terms of
flatbed scanners? Thanks.

I have an Epson 3170 and the hardware is great. The software is useless and
crashed my OS (Win2KSR4) forcing me to reinstall the OS. I have not been
able to get the Epson twain driver to work on two of my systems. Epson
support has been unable to help. They referred me to Microsoft. Do a google
search of the net and usegroups for "Epson twain driver problems" before
making the purchase. If you plan on using different scanning software such
as vuescan or silverfast then the hardware seems pretty good for the price.

Good Luck
Howard

 

[-]

I would really encourage you to get some example scans made somehow to see
if this scanner produces output that meets your standards. Each person has
different standards for what is acceptable. What about buying a Minolta
Dual Scan IV, scanning your archives, selling it on ebay and recovering the
majority of its investment, and then buying a normal flatbed to keep? I
don't know if the DS IV has a holder for 110, but it certainly would do a
much better job if it can handle 110 compared to a 3170. 110 is just so
small. The 3170 doesn't come with a 110 holder.

My $.02,

Doug

 

[CSM1]

The Minolta ScanDual IV does not come with a 110 film holder.
If you wanted to use a ScanDual IV for 110 film, you would have to make your
own adapter.