SCSI and Firewire input. Great for new film. No other similar product can match its performance in this price range.

For this price, none,

Excellence color, sharpness, details for the price. Interface / photoshop plug-in is slow on Mac OS8.6-9.2, MUCH faster on OSX and even Window 98. 4800 dpi reveals so much details on 35mm slide (a 80+mb files); 3200 dpi for 120 is also amazing. For less than 10 % of the price of a drum / high-end scanner, you get almost 90% of the quality. Great for new films, for film over 10 years of age, it show all the dust, scratch and even mold... Perhap a lower end scanner may not reveal as much and save you hours of retouching; or else, take to professional scanning facility, professionally clean with solvent and scan by high-end scanner with oil applied may help (cost a lot more).

Customer Service

None.

Extremely sharp, great dynamic range and a good range of well designed film holders. If you own an RZ67 or similar camera this is the scanner you need!!

The software could be improved but it does the job and so far hasn''t crashed on me, which is more than I can say for similar products

An excellent piece of equipment that could be improved upon only by enhancing the workflow aspects of the software. Thank goodness I read the comparative reviews here first. I was going to get the Nikon 8000 almost by default (being a dyed in the wool Nikon user) but then read of the many problems that seem to plague that unit. Difficult to see how it gets 4.29 stars (at the time of writing), since around 80% of the comments I read were negative. (No pun intended!)

Customer Service

Not required

Similar Products Used:

Nikon LS1000 Microtek 4000t

Excellent sharpness and resolving power. Very low noise level, with multiscanning (4 times or more) none at all for practical purposes. The dynamic range is fantastic, even detail in dark areas of somewhat underexposed slide films, even difficult films like Velvia or Kodachrome (25 and 64), is picked up without unacceptable noise. The ROC and GEM functions in the software may do wonders with old or faded color negatives.

First version of software has a somewhat clumsy interface. This does not affect scans though, but requires discipline by operator, as previous settings are "remembered" for next scan. Perhaps somewhat to contrasty for easily scanning normally processed BW film.

An excellent scanner for producing large prints of excellent quality.

Customer Service

OK.

Similar Products Used:

Minolta Scan Multi (1), Minolta Scan Dual (1), Minolta Scan Dual II, Nikon LS2000

Sharpness, dynamic range, speed, film carriers, ICE, software.

Software crashes on attempting manual focus, although not a problem as point AF works well.

An excellent scanner, whether using for 35mm or medium format, colour transparency or black and white negative. Depth of focus is excellent, although a glass carrier is supplied for 120 film, I have found that sharp results can be obtained with the glassless carrier.

Customer Service

N/A

Similar Products Used:

Nikon LS-20

Size small enough footprint to sit on top of my PC. Sharpnes, Manual focus, Exposure control.

None that I have encountered thus far

After much agonising between the Polaroid 120 Sprintscan and the Minolta I bought the Minolta. I should qualify my experience by saying I am a digital virgin having been a die hard wet processer for many years. Having said that I know a good print when I see one and I have been astonished by the quality of the prints I have been able to produce with this scanner. My Leica V35 and medium format enlarger are unfortunately doomed. These are the sharpest prints with the most beautifull tonality that I have ever managed to produce (I do put some of this down to the Piezo inkset that I use as well) The Scanner seems to be incredibly sharp an and has almost no dicernable "noise" in the shadow detail. I have had difficulty capturing all the information in my more contrasty negs but put that down mainly to poor scanning technique. The film holders simply do the job and are easy to work with while being robust. The software works well but Silverscan may well be better I do not know. I assume I can purchase it as a plug in if I need to. I may well be shocked to see the superioty of a high end drum scan but I do not have having the means of making such a comparison. I am very happy with this scanner and the quality of my chemical free results. Scan speeds where a big fear for me in purchasing this scanner but they are under two minutes for a 6x7 B&W neg @4800dpi which I am happy with. A colour trany will generate files of over 400mb at this resolution so it is going to be slow. Minolta also claim that the scanner does not interprolate at 4800dpi in MF. Rather it scans at full resolution in a mosaic pattern at stiches it together. Anyway I find 3200dpi is adequate with large format negs for the size I print at.

Customer Service

Minolta where very informative when I rang them on the issue of interprolation

Similar Products Used:

None

This scanner has a very low noise Sensor. Based on the initial scans, I''ve been unable so far to discern noise levels within deep shadows. It is very sharp, Given the interface with Photshop, the scan times are reasonable. This scanner installed into my dual processor Win2k system via Firewire without a hitch. A key softawre feature I like is the curves which allows the the display of the curve panel and the each of the RGB histograms individually without runnning though each dialog separately. I''ve had no crashes and no system freezes. The film holders are very good. MF holders come in both glass and glassless holders. All holders are substantial and easy to handle

The SCSI and Firewire connects are very specific to Adaptec components. More flexibility in the the interface would enhance the system interface

I had been contemplating a new mlti format scanner since earlier in the year. I was originally interested in the Nikon but ultimately the problems that were described in the press and the net bothered me. I wanted ICE and the reliability so that led me to the Minolta. I''ve had experience with Minolta scanners and always found them to be excellent hardware with an intuitive software. Short of some inflexibility in the interface components, this scanner has been uniformaly excellent to dat

Similar Products Used:

Minolts Scan Multi Minolta Scan Dual Nikon LS30 Canon 2400UF