Excellent at pulling details out of the light parts of media: i.e. light areas of slides and the parts of negatives which translate to shadowed areas on a print. Contrast can be reduced on a scene which is part shadow, and pictures which are only fit for the bin when they come back from a lab can be "rescued".
Expert adjust mode is sufficient most of the time, so there's no need to do major adjustments in PhotoShop. The parameters used for a particular scan can be saved and reloaded later if you rescan or have further media to scan which exhibit similar characteristics.

No digital ICE technology, so scratch and dust spotting must be done manually in PhotoShop.
Not very good at scanning the dark parts of media: i.e. dark areas of slides and the parts of negatives which translate to light areas on a print.
Negative holder is flimsy and fiddly to use.

I think I got value for my money. I've scanned hundreds of 35mm colour negatives and slides in it. If you're shooting to scan, I would suggest using slide film for scenes with a lot of bright or white areas and negative film for scenes with a lot of shadowed areas so that you play to the strengths of the scanner.

Customer Service

Haven't used it.

Similar Products Used:

OpticPro 4830P flatbed scanner. No other film scanners.

Low price, easy set up, easy to use, includes APS adapter should you need it. Did very nice job with slides.

Software is weak, small preview window. No film manufacture type selection, either manual or automatic which I feel contributed to problems with colour casts, especially with negatives. Felt I got excessive blue channel noise with this scanner when compared to others. Has a DMax of only 3.2. Felt scanner is slow in full resolution mode. No multipass scanning capability. Tried Vuescan but could not make it work properly. Flimsy negative strip holder, could break.

Based on price, this scanner is a good value. I found the software to be limiting especially with a small preview for prescan adjustments. With negatives, I found colour cast problems but this can be corrected with curve adjustments in Photoshop. I did feel blue channel noise was excessive, even on well exposed images. Scanning slides produced satisfying results. By the numbers, this is a capable scanner but it does lack in comparison with the higher end scanners with a DMax of only 3.2. If you looking for an economical scanner, this is the one for you. If your looking for an economical alternative to the Nikon LS2000, buy the LS2000. I ended up selling my FS2710 and upgraded to LS2000 after only 6 months and am very happy with the upgrade.

Customer Service

Website information not too helpful. Canon Canada help desk even less helpful.

Similar Products Used:

Nikon LS2000

Great scanner for under $500 street price.
Supplied software is basic but efficient, making very good choices even for difficult slides.

Supplied software does not do multipass scanning. VueScan 5.9, a 3rd party software driver for the 2710 (and others), does.

Best scanner at this price point. Better dynamic range than the others.

Customer Service

Not required yet.

Similar Products Used:

Tested before purchase: Minolta Scan Dual, Nikon LS-30, HP S20.

I like The CanoScan
FS 2710. It produces excellent results with every film type I've tried. I was especially pleased with the scans from some dense black & white film that gave me trouble on the older Polaroid Sprintscan 35. It was easy to set up on my Mac G3 (which has built-in SCSI). I installed only the Photoshop plug-in, so I can't comment on the rest of the sofware, but the plug-in worked great. The preview window can be made double size, and adjustemts to color, exposure, and gamma can easily be seen in the preview image. No ICE digital dust & scratch removal like the Nikon, but I can live without that.

I had no problems at all with setup or software.

The FS 2710 is a great value for the money. For a street price of under $500, it has the best specs in it's price class. The image quality is superb. It comes with everything you'd need for a Mac or PC, including a SCSI card and APS film adapter. It doesn't have a fan, so it makes no noise except a soft whirr when scanning. So far, I'm a satisfied customer.

Customer Service

At the time of this review I've only had it a short time, and done about a hundred scans, so I haven't needed service or support so far. Before I bought it, I downloaded the software and manuals from their website, and that was useful in making my decision to buy.

Similar Products Used:

At work I use a Polaroid SprintScan 35 (first generation, not SprintScan Plus), and previously an early Microtek (don�

Good features at price point. Inlcluded PCI SCSI card.

There are a lot of features but none that are done well. APS scanner is inconvenient and doesn't work right consistently. Manuals were not clear or helpful.

Can't get away with a cheap product when you are looking for a lot of features. Back to my old flatbed scanner for now... does anyone know of a good way to scan APS film?!

Customer Service

Stank. It is a toll call and the techs have very little experience with this product. Couldn't tell me that the included SCSI card needed IRQ's 9,10,11 or 12 and can't be shared. Had to figure that one out on my own. Wanted to send me a new SCSI cable instead, said it would be at least three weeks. I am sending the scanner back instead and saving for the Nikon.

Similar Products Used:

Coolscan 2000, Kodak FD-300 APS scanner

excellent quality imaging, expecially for its price

new mac-unfriendly

This is a great scanner in almost every way. It's well-designed (flexibility of film holder is a plus, I think) and simple to use.

Unfortunately, if you have a new-ish mac, getting the scanner hooked up is a real pain. I have a G4, with USB ports and no scsi card. I tried hooking the scanner up with a microtech USB-scsi cable. But after an hour on the phone with the microtech service rep the cable was still crashing my computer when I tried to scan. (This does not mean that that these cables are inherently bad; they just don't work with this scanner).

So I ended up having to buy and install a scsi card in the G4. Thanks to a helpful coworker, this wasn't that difficult. But it wasn't something I'd planned on doing.

Canon should develop a scsi-usb adapter that works with this scanner!

Customer Service

staff somewhat reticent and defensive about scanner's mac incompatibility

Similar Products Used:

None

An excellent scanner for the price. The supplied software does a great job with color and contrast for both slides and negatives. Unlike another reviewer, I have seen no problems with shadows.

Scanning is very slow. Negative carrier is a real pain. No batch scanning mode.

This is an excellent scanner in this $500 group. I have had no problems scanning slides or negatives for use on web sites or 8x10 output at 300dpi. The negative carrier is a real pain to use, slides require no carrier at all.

The provided software does an excellent job. You can use the "easy" interface or the "advanced" interface. The interface is a bit crude but gets the job done. I tried using the highly praised VueScan (version 6 was my latest test), but the Canon software does a vastly superior job even in default mode. There is a upgrade on the Canon web site that made a difference.

One of the other scanners I tried before purchasing was the high-end Nikon (LS-2000). Side by side, the scans of tough slides did look a bit better on the Nikon. But the Nikon is almost 3 times the price for that very small gain. Of course, Digital Ice was cool and not available on the Canon. Instead of the Nikon, the 4000dpi Polaroid scanner at the same price is a better step up.

The scanner was very easy to set up. I already had a good Adaptec SCSI card so I did not try the one supplied with the scanner. There were no installation problems, everything worked the first time.

The scanner also has an APS format adapter. I do not use APS film so I have no idea how well it works.

This scanner is highy recommended.

Customer Service

Not needed yet.

Similar Products Used:

Various scanners tried before purchase.

Great scanner for the price. Love the small footprint. Good quality scans of 35MM negatives and positives. APS adapter works well, although time consuming to dial up desired negative.

SCSI card provided requires own IRQ, not possible with newer, loaded PC systems. Purchased Adaptec SCSI to USB converter, called USBXpress, to connect device. Documentation terrible: not suitable for beginner or advanced PC user. More detailed documentation would enhance product.

Good for the price, does good work. Speed acceptable with USBXpress attachment.

Customer Service

Not the best. I pretty much had to figure the attachment problem out all by myself - not unusual, but customer service folks should be more helpful.

Similar Products Used:

Microtek ScanMaker X6

Economically priced, small footprint, SCSI interface

Dark slides do not scan well.

Nice price, nice size, but doesn't give good shadow detail. The adjustments could be better--not too big a deal, as I do all of my adjustments in Photoshop. Could be a bit faster, however.

Customer Service

have not used.

Similar Products Used:

n/a

Higher resolution scans than you can get with most digital cameras. Backward compatiable, you can scan negatives you shot 20 years ago. Easy to use/simple setup. Small footprint.

Documentation a little skimpy.

Resonable price, great scans, easy to use. I am using a Compaq Notebook with a RATOC Ultra SCSI Cardbus CB31U ($130) and print to a EPSON 870 Color printer ($225). The prints that I get are excellent. I am shooting mainly 200 Speed Negative film. This scanner works great and I highly recommend purchasing it.

Customer Service

Called to get information about SCSI connection and hookup before I bought. Finally talked to someone after 20 minutes of "on hold" but the person I spoke to could not help me. I love Canon products but they really need to improve customer service.

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Looked at Minolta, the new ACER and Nikon. Canon does not have "Digital Ice" but that feature is not worth twice the price to me. I just make corrections in Photoshop.