High resolution, now can be bought for around $800

lousy colour accuracy, very poor build quality, crap handling of film strips.

Not happy anymore with this unit so we are off to buy a Nikon. Maybe even sell the car and get an Imacon to scan up to 4x5 and bigger. Newer and better products on the market now. Polaroid software easy to use but very poor colour handling so try Silverfast. Anyway Polaroid maybe going under i think Nikon will still be around!

Customer Service

Not bad but will they still be around next year

Similar Products Used:

Nikon coolscan, imacon

Good resolution Price now down to below $900

Flimsy mechanics. Negative fil holder a real pain in the a** to use. On a unit that cost above a grand Polaroid could have done better. Suspect to dust and hence the need to work in a bubble with oxygen mask. PS Do NOT blow on/into the inside of the unit ''coz one bit of dust on the scanning lens and you can kiss goodbye to $400 (the min cost of the repair) 1 year warranty (can get a maintenace after the year at a min of $165 per year)

At first I was pleaseed with the product; good scans, however need to make sure you adjust your scanning software (Insight or SilerFast) to get correct exposure, color correction, sharpness etc. Does require some amount of Unsharp Masking for most scans. After a while the scanner does become a pain! This seems to be due to having to place your scanner in a near dust free environment (I am not found of working in a vacum bubble!) There is a sensor in the unit to gauge when the film media is loaded. One spec of dust on this and the film holders will not load and initialise the scanner. If you ask Polaroid tech support they will ship you "the Cleaning Brush" which clips onto the end of the slide carrier. Then the problen can be fixed (until the next spec on dust arrives) Polaroid say there will be a dust cover out soon, but for now just make sure you keep the unit covered when not in use. Right, now for the really bothersome part. For some negative films I get a cast which I can''t get rid of easily even using the software. Maybe something with my unit but then again maybe not. In these cases I just don''t bother scanning and go down to the pub. Transparencies scan great, some negative film types (b & W and colour) scan great (Kodak Supra, with the extra layer is good), some films yuck. Also when processing your negs make sure you cut negs strips of 6 this makes it easier to load in the what I consider crappy negative fil carrier.

Customer Service

OK, will send out cleaning brush for free

Similar Products Used:

Will be looking at the new Nikon 4000 dpi

4000 dpi Price Reported scan quality

SCSI interface SilverFast steep learning curve Bump and grind mechanics

With the price of the SS4000 dropping and the $200 rebate from Polaroid(now apparently extended to the end of 20010, I decided to take the plunge. What a mistake. I have an Apple G4/733 with 1.5Gb of RAM and an Initio Miles Bluenote SCSI card. At first things seem to go okay. The scanner will often not accept the slide carrier on the first try. It bumps and grinds, and you cross your fingers and hope it takes the film in. The PolaColor 5.0.3 software is more oriented toward negatives versus slides but in its latest rendition is quite acceptable. The SilverFast alternative now bundled with the scanner is a bit cryptic and poorly documented. The scanner is slow - it calibrates with every preview and again with final scan. The shadow detail was very disppointing, and the color in automatic mode was way too dark and shifted orange. After several days of relative success, the gremlins started to appear. The biggest issue is that PolaColor will not consistently find the scanner! I check Apple System Profiler and sure enough the scanner has disappeared. I reboot and for a scan or two all is well, then the same thing happens again. Polariod technical support means well, but...Despite the price, I wrapped it back up and shipped it back to B&H. By the way, IMHO, B&H is awesome! Now on to the Nikon 4000ED or the Canon FS4000. To heck with SCSI!

Customer Service

See above

Similar Products Used:

None

Scans quickly. Nice film holder.

Lack of color negative film profiles. No way to set up your own. Program software is often buggy and had a conflict with one extension on my power macintosh, even with version 4.5 of Polacolor Insight.

After a lot of fooling around I'm able to get quality scans and I like the way it can scan whichever neg you select from the holder that holds six negs. It works fairly quickly in getting scans which only need a little touch up in Photoshop. I'm basically happy I bought it although the initial learning curve with the software was not enjoyable.

Customer Service

Not very helpful. Didn't offer suggestions on setting up personal profiles for films used.

Similar Products Used:

Nikon coolscan Umax flatbed.

Good scanner, makes up to 70 mg. scans, color scans from tranparency are wonderful. But I purchased Silverfast Ai to drive this scanner (made my LaserFast Imaging), and have been getting amazing scans. The downside of doing this is not being able to remove dust during the intital scans. I highly recommend this scanner, but have not used the Nikon LS-2000, and can't accurately compare.

Polaroid's software is useles, even with their newest upgrade. Also I am still picking up noise when scannin negs, but after several trails and figuring out ho to fix this problem.

Great scanner, but as I found out after purchasing it, did I really need 4000 dpi? This is something to think about, many people go for the highest DPI they can find, when in fact this should npt be the deciding factor when purchasing a film scanner. I sort of wish I checked into ther LS-2000 more, but in the end I am very happy with my SS 4000.

Customer Service

Of the few times I called tech support, I got through quickly, and talked to user friendly staff. But never leave a message to sales reps, those people avoid all calls.

Similar Products Used:

Minolta Quickscan.

The color is very accurate in the scans, and the high resolution is definitely a plus.

The list of color negative films in the scanning software is pretty limited, but since I use mostly slide and black & white negatives, this isn't much of an issue with me.

I am very satisfied with the SS4000. It has successfully replaced my need for PhotoCD, which I previously used to transfer my photography to digital form. In fact over the past few months, it has literally paid for itself in what I would have spent on PhotoCDs. I definitely recommend purchasing an extra slide and/or film tray if you know you will be doing a lot of batch scanning, though.

Customer Service

Polaroid responded very quickly to a question I had about purchasing extra slide and film trays.

Similar Products Used:

Kodak PhotoCD, HP s20, Minolta Dimage Dual

Very good on scanning both B&W and color film. Compared it to the Nikon LS2000 and saw no difference with B&W negatives.

A little slow on scanning at 4000 ppi; software barely adequate.

This is a very good scanner for 35mm film that would be an excellent one if they improved the software.

Customer Service

Called several times. No long waits on hold!
They were usually able to solve my problem ar answer my questions.

Similar Products Used:

The Nikon LS 2000 scans faster but with a lower resolution that is not good enough for 11x14's .

Very good resolution, good speed,
results are very high quality even with the weaknesses

PC Software is very weak; no ablity to change dynamic range, needs a TWAIN driver and has a issue with fine detail reproduction in areas in light shadow on some slides when it seems to increase the contrast requiring work in photoshop to correct this.

As good as I have seen, when they fix the software will be much better.

Customer Service

never called them.

Similar Products Used:

Nikon and canon slide scanners.

Image resolution and great color reproduction from scanned slides. Very easy to setup and install.

Limited save modes. You can only save to Tiff or BMP formats. The documentation for the hardware is OK but nearly non existant for the software.

After owning the scanner for about 8 weeks I have not had any problems or misgivings about the purchase. There is an upgrade for the scanner software on Polaroid's web sight that enables you to create sets of thumbnails of the full slide or film carriage. It would help if the color correction for negitives was a little better but I still think it is a very good buy. I would say it is a professional quality device. It seems now that more retailers are carrying the scanner, so the price is starting to come down.

Customer Service

I have not needed to call so I can't rate the performance.

Similar Products Used:

This is the only film scanner I have had my hands on but I did a lot of research and have used many flatbed scanners and

High scan quality! Quick, too.

Temperamental film transport

I wish the film transport were smoother and less touchy. Sometimes I have to eject it and try again, but it always feeds, so I haven't called Customer Service.

Also, the supplied scanning software image window is on the small side. I have heard someone is offering his own software to replace the Polacolor Insight -- for free.

Despite these two complaints, I really like this scanner, because it does the job beautifully, and truthfully it has no direct competition anyway!

Customer Service

Haven't used it

Similar Products Used:

None