thought's on Pacific Image Film Scanners - Like the PF3650U has anyone

[Guest]

Any thought's on Pacific Image Film Scanners - Like the PF3650U has anyone
used it yet? For the record I sure better film scanners maybe had like Nikon
or Minolta but I don't have that kind of money this is my hobby not my
career
I look forward to your reply
thanks
Mike K

 

[mwrew]

I just bought the Primefilm 3650U from costco.com ($250 USD shipped.)
Let me say, it's exactly what I expected it to be ... cheap,
serviceable, but not much more.

I was mainly interested in the 'ICE' (infrared dust/scratch removal)
feature, because the 3650U is the only 35mm film-scanner in its price
class to offer this feature. It almost completely conceals small
dust specs and scratches. For larger spots, scratches, the ICE'd
output is noticeably 'disturbed' (but better than no ICE.)

The color-quality is quite poor. The box claims '48-bit color', but
really the hardware is closer to 36-bit. The driver software can send
data in 48-bit format (with the lower bits padded to 0s.) This is
noticeable when adjusting gamma or color/exposure in photo-software.
In the digital-world, this scsanner has very little 'exposure latitude.'
If you need to darken or lighten some negative/slide, the adjusted
colors suffer from severe posterization and color-banding. Instead,
you get better results by adjusting the 'exposure-level' and re-scanning
the entire frame (a time consuming process.)

PIE's previous film-scanners (1800U, 2700U) suffered the exact same
problem, leading me to believe the 3650U uses the same basic A/D
converter module -- it stinks.

And mechanically, the 3650U is just like the 1800u/2700u. It's a
'clamshell' design with no auto-loading of any kind. The user must
position each frame (of a strip) or slide in the scan-window, by hand.
That's fine for scanning a few slides or negatives -- but if you need
to batch convert several rolls, you'll waste a lot of time doing
each frame one by one.

The low-end Minolta (Dual Scan IV) probably has better color-quality,
but it's only 3200dpi, and more importantly, it lacks ICE.

For hobby-usage, either scanner would work fine. Just don't plan on
selling any printed scans

 

[Rod Smith]

I just bought the Primefilm 3650U from costco.com ($250 USD shipped.)
Let me say, it's exactly what I expected it to be ... cheap,
serviceable, but not much more. ....
The color-quality is quite poor. The box claims '48-bit color', but
really the hardware is closer to 36-bit. The driver software can send
data in 48-bit format (with the lower bits padded to 0s.)

I'm starting to look at scanners, myself, so I'm asking this out of
curiosity, not to challenge you or suggest it would definitely improve
matters: Have you tried any software other than what came with the
scanner, such as VueScan (http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html)? As far as I
can tell, that completely replaces the Windows software. (Personally, I'd
use it from Linux, but that's another matter....) There's a demo version,
so you can try it out without buying it, if you're so inclined.

 

[Paul Schmidt]

I just bought the Primefilm 3650U from costco.com ($250 USD shipped.)
Let me say, it's exactly what I expected it to be ... cheap,
serviceable, but not much more.

I was mainly interested in the 'ICE' (infrared dust/scratch removal)
feature, because the 3650U is the only 35mm film-scanner in its price
class to offer this feature. It almost completely conceals small
dust specs and scratches. For larger spots, scratches, the ICE'd
output is noticeably 'disturbed' (but better than no ICE.)

The color-quality is quite poor. The box claims '48-bit color', but
really the hardware is closer to 36-bit. The driver software can send
data in 48-bit format (with the lower bits padded to 0s.) This is
noticeable when adjusting gamma or color/exposure in photo-software.
In the digital-world, this scsanner has very little 'exposure latitude.'
If you need to darken or lighten some negative/slide, the adjusted
colors suffer from severe posterization and color-banding. Instead,
you get better results by adjusting the 'exposure-level' and re-scanning
the entire frame (a time consuming process.)

PIE's previous film-scanners (1800U, 2700U) suffered the exact same
problem, leading me to believe the 3650U uses the same basic A/D
converter module -- it stinks.

And mechanically, the 3650U is just like the 1800u/2700u. It's a
'clamshell' design with no auto-loading of any kind. The user must
position each frame (of a strip) or slide in the scan-window, by hand.
That's fine for scanning a few slides or negatives -- but if you need
to batch convert several rolls, you'll waste a lot of time doing
each frame one by one.

The low-end Minolta (Dual Scan IV) probably has better color-quality,
but it's only 3200dpi, and more importantly, it lacks ICE.

For hobby-usage, either scanner would work fine. Just don't plan on
selling any printed scans

Most of the home scanners, like the PF ones and the older Minolta are
good for basic scans, but then so are a lot of flatbeds, if your selling
a big scan print, you need to do some math.

1200DPI is 1701x1134 (2MP) good for a 4x6 print with a print resolution
of 283PPI.

2400DPI is 3401x2267 (7MP) good enough for an 8x10 print with again a
print resolution of 283PPI.

3200DPI is 4535 x 3023 (13.71MP) good enough for an 11x14 with a print
resolution of 275PPI.

4000DPI is 5669 x 3779.52 (21.43MP) good enough for a 16x20 with a print
resolution of 236PPI.

Some people will say, you can't go below 300PPI, without seeing some
pixelation, with a loupe, but nobody goes up to prints with a loupe, as
prints get larger the normal viewing distance gets further away.

If you want more, get an 8000DPI drum scan done, use a bigger camera (a
6x7 negative scans to 9MP on 1200DPI and 37MP on 2400DPI), or use a
fume room, with your manipulated scan as a guideline. Depending on the
film, at some point your scanning grain rather then image, so it really
doesn't matter.

ICE is not perfect, most of my pix are B&W and it doesn't work well with
those....

Paul