plustekOpticFilm 8100-35mm Negative Film/Slide Scanner with 7200 DPI and 48-bit Output. Bundle Silverfast SE Plus 9, Support Mac and Windows

I am quite satisfied with this product. I was debating whether to get the Kodak Slide N SCAN scanner or the Plustek OpticFilm 8100. I am glad that I chose the Plustek for its scan quality (higher resolution) and flexibility (more adjustments and control) over the Kodak.This product was very well packaged. It comes with good installation structions and user guide, both quality prints and online video (via YouTube & QuickTime).The scanner itself looks and feels well built. The software (SilverFast 8.8) provided (on CDROM, or can be downloaded) is not difficult to installl. Once you have gone thru the user guide (I watched the online videos), you can master its usages after a few test runs. I found the software fairly easy to use and quite powerful to get the scan results you need. For each key program function or control adjustment, you can click a menu button to open a PDF help document or QuickTime tutorial movie to show you how to use it. I found these very helpful.I have used the scanner for about a week now, had scanned over 100+ film negatives (40 years old) into JPG files for restoration and safekeeping. I am very delighted with the results. For each film, I can adjust the scan resolution, sharpness, contrast, color etc. controls manually, or use the Auto Image Optimization feature of the software.One nice surprise for me is the Dust and Scratch Removal (SRDx) function of software. It removed these impection automatically, once I had set the Detection level and Tile size that I want . I thought I will need to buy the more expense model that has a built-in infrared dust/scratch detection for it to work. The OpticFilm 8100 works just fine without it.Overall, I am very happy with this scanner. It produces high qualiy film conversion into digital media. The only wish I have for it is a faster speed. With scan resolution set at 3600dpi, it takes 2-3 minutes to complete each scan plus the file generation.

***Hopefully my image examples aren't compressed, and people can see the optical quality of this scanner.***One person simply complained that their 30-50 year old slide film images have "weird" colors, well, duh, you probably left your images in a basement for decades, what else do you expect them to look like?The people getting streaking issues, maybe ask for a replacement?Others are whining about "software" presumably, silverfast, being hard to use...Yes, because you're not used to using a simple and straightforward program, once you learn it, it's fine.The images I show are 80% JPG's from Lightroom!!!, Goes to show you the quality of this scanner.I scanned the images as a DNG file, then used negative lab pro ($99) to convert the images. Could I use silverfast? Sure, but DNG's give you better dynamic range, and the files are giant.It does take a while to scan your photos, so it's best to preview the images, and scan the ones you want, same thing you'd do in a darkroom, make a contact print and print 2-3 of your favorite images. This is the same concept.If you're scanning ALL 36 images at full res. When 30 of them are trash, then yeah, it'll take a while.The details at MAX res (7200 dpi) gives you a real world DPI of 3100-3400, which isn't to say that's bad at all, it's quite usable, even for larger prints if you learn how to use unsharp mask in photoshop.I rescanned an image and compared it to a Noritsu labscan. While the Noritsu is slightly sharper, it has a bit more detail and better shadow/highlight recovery and dynamic range. Does it completely and utterly blow this scanner out of the water?.....No. Is it better? Well, yes, obviously, you're comparing a $10,000 scanner to a $350, and that's what makes this plustek so dang good. It's arm wrestling with a noritsu scanner in terms of quality. It'll ultimately lose, for sure, but its the little engine that could.I'd be very confident printing LARGE prints (30x40), after of course, unsharp masking and adding sharpness in post, but frankly, how many of us print 30x40? Chances are, not many. Biggest prints I do in both darkroom and digital prints are 11x14, and this is PLENTY powerful enough for that size.Bottom line, this is a very very capable scanner. The Karens that bought this to scan old family film and are upset over the quality simply don't know what they're doing.Oh, and your epson v600-800? Yeah, this would pound that into the ground. Everyday.