A long time ago, it seems, I bought an ACER ScanWit 2720s. It's a SCSI
interface device, and while it's supplied software is hopelessly dated,
there is third party software, (ViewScan), that will actually give
better scans, taking full advantage of the hardware, which the original
software never did. It got very good reviews for it's output, and
specifications equaled or bettered much more expensive units, (when I
bought it they were available new for approximately $300). It produced
a 9mp scans which I saved as TIFF files and corrected in Photoshop.
There are four notable drawbacks to it.
It's limited to 35mm filmstrips or slides of 24x36mm mounted in
standard mounts, you can scan smaller but not larger so superslides are
out thought I think 126 slides will work though the software didn't
support it, (110 format slides scanned well, but at a greatly reduced
resolution of course, I wish I had a few samples but all those scans
disappeared in a hard drive crash).
The slide and film carriers are made entirely out of plastic, and
since the original manufacturer sold out to BANQ the scanner, and it's
bigger brother, 2047s which included digital ICE, are long discontinued
so parts including new carriers are made of unobtainable.
Scanning speeds are sssslllloooooowwwww, so bulk scanning is
problematic, though how much of that was due to the limitations of PC
hardware at the time is a question, (I doubt that the scanner has a
particularly large or even any actual buffer built in.
Finally reading the specifications, I'm not at all sure that it
would actually outperform a current Epson Perfection V550 or V600 which
will scan up to 6x9cm slides and negatives. So the effort to getting
either ScanWit up and running on modern hardware on a modern OS may not
be worth the effort, especially as you'd actually have to find one, but
if you're interested Amazon has on in their warehouse used for only $127.00
On 4/7/2017 11:45 AM, Doug Brewer wrote:
I've been cleaning out my storage room in the basement, AKA The Camera
and Computer Museum, and have uncovered boxes and boxes of slides,
some of which are passable photos, and have become interested in maybe
scanning some of them. I've looked here and there at digital slide
scanners.
So my query, if you haven't figured it out by now, is if any of you
have gone down this path, and whether you have found a decent scanner.
I'd appreciate any guidance.
--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
[email protected]
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow
the directions.
