Film Plustek Opticfilm 120 Scanner

Cerita

Veteran
Location
Canada
I have spent two days with this scanner, here are some early thoughts. I used both Vuescan and Silverfast with it, and I think Silverfast offers better scans, just to note I am creating linear scans, no edits made by the scanner, except extraction of the "pure" data from the neg. Linear scans are the easiest type of scan. I also have not explored batch scanning which is the 120 is capable of, I actually don't like batch scanning even if it does save time.

Silverfast definitely has a learning curve but once you understand how it works, it is actually quite easy to use, contrary to what many photography forums say about it. Thanks to the many negative reviews, I was hesitant to use it for many, many years!!!!
One of the many features I do love is the resolution dialog box, I set it at a print size of 300ppi, I then choose the scan resolution, which is colour coded, green being in the optimal zone. Once the resolution is selected it calculates how big one can print at 300ppi and get a good sharp print. I do find this very useful as it certainly helps later with cropping choices in LR.

So far I have got fantastic sharp scans, and for MF, much better than the Epson V600 that I have been using. The scanner itself feels very robust but only time will tell how much, as one of the things that concerns me is, all movements are motorised, there are no manual controls whatsoever, except if the holder gets stuck, you can put it out the back. There is a lot of movement of the film holders during the scanning process.
The film holders themselves are champions, best I have ever used! They are solid, have moveable frame bars and use magnets to snap the negatives flat for scanning, you get about 7 holders for the various MF sizes, from 6x4.5 to 6x12!
 
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