good build quality, great value compared to Nikon and Minolta.

My rebate never came!! Still is a good machine though and I would recommend it. It is not automatic quality assured. there is a lot to learn regarding scanning techniques!

Great scanner, needs the glass film holder as film doesn't lie flat. I found silverfast to be incomprehensible- and I am not so stupid. I don't feel it is as good as a a drum scan but it is a really decent scan for the price. The operators skill is very important to obtaining good scans and there is a lot to learn regardless of which software/scanner interface you choose. How and why you make certain choices will effect the quality of your scans.

Customer Service

yet to see

Similar Products Used:

Minolta, nikon

Fast scans Sharp scans Low shadow noise Powerfull software

Film holder for 6x7 could be better. I modified mine to make the opening wider as it cut into the film excessively. I bought the glass holder when it came out and no longer have this problem.

I have used the SS120 for about a year and I find that it performs exactly as advertised. I scan predominately 6x7 transparencies with quite a few 35mm slides as well. No banding, no quirks. Scan times are decent - 6x7, 4000dpi, 16 bit about 10-12 minutes - and I do not have a fast computer (475 Mhz, 256 Megs). Dark noise is very, very low (one pass scanning ALWAYS) and the Silverfast is excellent. Poloroid recently introduced a dust and scratches PS plugin that works pretty well that I use 10 - 20% of the time, otherwise clean film and manual dust spotting works fine by me. Am glad I bought the Polaroid over the Nikon 8000 (availability was an issue at the time). Would buy again today.

Customer Service

Not used.

Similar Products Used:

Epson flat bed.

Astonishing image quality. Build seems nice. Styling is a little too trendy, however. Fast enough for me. Most important: you can actually get one shipped to your house without spending months on a waiting list!

The software. I have a pretty sophisticated color management system, so I just pass the 16-bit raw scans into Photoshop and assign a custom profile I built. From there it''s just a matter of tweaking for exposure compensation in PS. If I had to actually use the Polacolor Insight software for anything but raw capture, I would almost certainly have returned the unit. I would use VueScan (www.hamrick.com) before I would pay for SilverFast. Film needs to be FLAT. I weight mine under books before I scan it.

Well, I got tired of waiting for the Nikon, and I had a project coming up. So far I''ve done about 60-70 scans with it. The scanner has more than met my expectations. Very sharp, good color quality, good shadow detail and great range add up to a very inexpensive unit that can give drum scanners and the Imacon a run for their money. I don''t know about the other reviewers, but I''m running mine on a G4 Mac with 1.5 gig RAM, Firewire and a RAID scratch disk, and a 700MB scan with preview only takes about 4 or 5 minutes, so I can''t complain about the speed. I also appreciate that I don''t have to cut up my strips of film: I have quite an archive of 120 film in strips of four 6cm x 6cm frames. The Nikon won''t accept a strip that long. A glass negative carrier is needed, and I''m told it''s in the works. I only scan color trannys and black and white, but I can''t see how anyone would be disappointed in the hardware part of this unit. The software is another matter.

Customer Service

Who knows? Haven''t needed it. But a Polaroid representative is a constant contributor to the Filmscanners Newsgroup.

Similar Products Used:

Minolta Multi-Scan, Nikon LS-2000, original Nikon Coolscan.

Scans are very nice and sharp. Very easy to set up especially with firewire. I starting right after loading software and restarting the Mac G4.

Slow when scanning medium format. 6x7 at 4000dpi takes over 10 minutes. Not much improvement on the PolaInsight software.

I just bought the scanner yesterday. So far I like the scans. Very good quality for 35mm up to 6x7. I wish it would be as simple to use as my old SprintScan 35 plus with the old software. I bought the non-pro version so I didn't try the Silverfast software. I did save $500 though. Four stars because it can only be better.

Customer Service

N/A

Similar Products Used:

Nikon, Polaroid and Hidelberg.

Beautiful scans, especially b&w.
Easy to use.

No digital ice.
Dust and scratches takes
out highlights.
Slow but worth the wait.

After waiting years for an affordable 120 scanner, and months for the Nikon 8000 scanner, I took the previous reviewer's advice and bought the Polaroid.
I couldn't be happier with my decision.

The scans are sharp and detail is unbelievable.
The scanner is slow, but worth the wait. My
biggest problem is cleaning the image after
scanning. The dust and scratches feature is worthless because it takes out highlights that
I don't want to lose to save time.

If you need to scan 50 negs in one day, don't
buy this scanner. If you have time to create
the best image possible from your neg, this is
the scanner for you. I haven't tried a slide
yet.

I wish there was a 4.5 rating because this scanner
deserves it. I can't give it a 5 because of the
time lost in clean-up.

Customer Service

The first phone call I made was prior to purchase. The woman that
I spoke with must have needed a map to get to work. My second phone call was after purchase.
After speaking with a competent customer service rep, I was referred to level 2 -
a technical wiz. The
man was very helpful and
solved my problem in minutes. Except for the
first phone call, customer service has been
great!

Similar Products Used:

Nikon LS 1000
Nikon LS 2000

I am using 768 MB RAM P3 600MHz machine with Firewire connection. Scans are clean and contrasty. Compare well with high end Scitex scans. Scanner is very easy to setup and use. I use the Silverfast Software for scanning.
High quality film holders make it easy to align film.
400 MB scans take about 7-8 minutes each -reasonably fast.

Learning curve with Silverfast.
No dust removal software - buy a brush!
Wish it came with some good color calibration software but Silverfast does have calibration slide with it.
Wish it did 4x5!

I highly recommend the Silverfast software (which can also be purchased separately). Excellent scanner. Not drum/Scitex quality, but about 98 percent there and sometimes better. My scans have improved as I have learned Silverfast. Software makes a big difference in the scan quality - I felt it was more important than inflated hardware specs by competitors and I still feel that way.

Customer Service

Called a couple of times before purchase to compare S120 with Ultra. Very nice and helpful - returned calls.

Similar Products Used:

HP Photosmart
Flatbeds
Scitex high end scanner (drum scan quality)