Great scanner. Quick and easy too for dust and scratch removal.

Having scanned with Nikon's Coolscan and others, the Plustek is reasonably fast, has good Dmax range and fits the needs of many with slides and negatives they wish to archive. The resolution is such that a 35mm slide or negative can be printed up to 11x14 with good results. Slow if you have batch scanning to do however. If you are used to scanning software, Silverfast is complete and stable. However, if you are installing on a Mac, there will be features unavailable to you.

this is the best thing since slide bread easy to use my 80 year old mother can use it

I've done some preliminary scans of negatives and both the OpticFilm 8200i SE and the SilverFast SE Plus software are working great. I made certain to update the drivers and software immediately. I haven't started bulk scanning yet but I did play with the two scan buttons and they integrate with the SilverFast and quick scan utilities as deesigned. It would be nice to be able to autoscan negatives like some other scanners feature but I don't think that I would ever be able to set suitable defaults that would work for all negatives in a strip. I like the automatic color adaption that comes with being able to select the film type setting in SilverFast. It makes an obvious difference to the result.

Very exciting to use this scanner as I rediscover what's on my old negatives. With just an hour or two of practice, it's pretty basic. Love the scratch and dust removal software.

I retired recently and one of my goals was to convert over 10,000 negatives and 1,000+ slides to digital images and dispose of all my old stuff. Unit has performed well so far, satisfied with the software

A professional photographer recommended the PlusTek for digitizing my hundreds of rolls of black & white after I complained about my PrimeFilm 7200 (due to clunky filing system and inexplicable striped images). He talked me through the tools, and I was up and running in no time. I like the SilverFast pre-editing software, and find that it cuts my editing time considerably. The results are crisp with good range. I would still be printing in a wet darkroom if chemicals and paper were easier to come by, so it takes a lot for a digital image to please me. These do. The only thing I didn't like at first, but have gotten used to, is that I cannot see the frame being scanned until the pre-scan is done. It is much faster and quieter than the PrimeFilm scanner (which I loaned to a friend with a PC, and it seems to be working better for him).

This has the potential to produce a really good scan, with the right software and good source material. It is capable of resolving the grain, even in fine grained film like Kodachrome 25. I didn't install Silverfast because I know from using it with an Epson scanner I have that this version won't give the control needed for top quality scans. I'm using it with Vuescan Professional and Photoshop CS5, and the results have exceeded my expectations. I've attached a scan of a slide that is not particularly sharp, but has a lot of detail. It was taken handheld in low morning light, with a consumer grade Canon SLR and wide angle zoom lens. By using the multi-exposure function in Vuescan, you can do 2 passes, one for the highlights and one for the shadows. This, along with RAW processing in Photoshop, enables you to pull a lot of detail out of your original photos. The attached photo can't show the full resolution of the scan, because of jpeg compression and upload limitations, but you can get an idea of the quality of scan that is possible with this scanner. I can only imagine how much better the photo would have been with a good L series lens and tripod support.

I have scanned over 5,000 slides with this unit and it is absolutely flawless. Before buying this item, we tried several flatbed scanners for slides. The OpticFilm 8200i blew them all out of the water. The scan quality is excellent and the scanner is very easy to use. On one hand, it is slow. On the other hand, if you really care about your scans, you will want to crop, clean and adjust each image anyway so overall, it is an efficient unit. The software that comes with it may be useful for a pro but it's terrible for the average user. I got VueScan instead and it is intuitive, simple and effective. Get the OpticFilm if you really care about scanning your sides.

I'm using this to scan all the 100's of slides that I've accumulated over the years.It does a great job of preserving memories.