Like the title says.
Ten days after Warranty the transformer burned the mainboard of my Plustek OpticFilm 120. I sent it at Plustek in Germany, they asked 265 Euro to look at it. One week later I received it back with a new mainboard and nothing more to pay !Repairs can be quite pricey out of warranty
Ten days after Warranty the transformer burned the mainboard of my Plustek OpticFilm 120. I sent it at Plustek in Germany, they asked 265 Euro to look at it. One week later I received it back with a new mainboard and nothing more to pay !
That is excellent service at a reasonable price.
Owner reports in North America have been more mixed regarding service and support: Germany/EU has much stronger post-warranty product support laws than US/Canada. On this side of the world, repairs have been more costly and certain issues like banding keep returning despite new parts, new unit production runs, new software updates. It seems the broader demand and sales volume 20 years ago allowed Nikon, PolaroidMikrotek, and Konica/Minolta to source somewhat more reliable hardware for their 120 film scanners, a good number of which are still working properly today or can be DIY serviced when they develop relatively simple issues. The new generation of 120 film scanners released since 2012 have proved more problematic and difficult to keep running.
The luckier owners of problem-free Pacific Image/Reflecta/Braun and Plustek 120 film scanners are very satisfied with their performance, and the opportunity to own a brand new scanner instead of an antique. As with any very niche high-tech product, one has to be willing to gamble: the odds are about 50/50 you'll be lucky vs running into repeated issues.
There aren't really any older 120 film scanners that could be described as "bargains" today: demand has kept pace since they were discontinued, so prices never really depreciated much.
The Minolta Multi Pro II has a rabid following, very limited availability, usually gets snapped up immediately at prices higher than the Nikon 9000 when they do appear. The original Multi Pro (no "II") sometimes turns up below $1000 but has somewhat lower resolution and overall performance than the II (its also known to be more problematic to get running on anything newer than Windows 2000 Pro).
The Nikons are still inflated, although you can find decent deals on the CS8000 if you're patient (I did a few years ago, and still see them occasionally). The 9000 vs 8000 price discrepancy is all about speed: if you can afford a 9000, it has the advantage of significantly faster operation, otherwise for all practical purposes the 8000 is barely any older and nearly identical (aside from the very slight 9000 circuit upgrades). Every now and then, Nikon makes a bonehead design error they refuse to own up to and solve: their solution is to deny the problem then throw together a warmed-over new model without it. The 8000 had a flawed scan head that can't operate at the speed it was meant to without banding, so you need to always use the "fine" (i.e. dead slow) option in the software. The 9000 has a revised scan head that can operate at the intended triple speed without banding, but often sells for twice as much as the 8000. If you've got time to kill, the 8000 is a good buy.
Your best shot at an affordable 120 film scanner would likely be the Polaroid SprintScan 120 (aka MicroTek Artixscan 120). These do not have hardware dust/scratch removal, so their original new and used price was below Nikon and Minolta. Performance is comparable to the older Minolta MultiPro. Good units, fairly easygoing about use with newer computers, but getting harder to find with complete set of film trays. Polaroid bundled an excellent software dust/scratch utility that could be used standalone or as a PhotoShop filter: configured carefully it works surprisingly well.
The older generation (pre-Hasselblad-branding) Imacon FlexTight Precision scanners sometimes turn up at very attractive prices, but connect only via SCSI (which all but requires hunting down a 20+ year old Apple Mac unless you want to mess with installing SCSI in a PC). Software and drivers can be an issue on newer OSes, and this type of scanner design has parts that wear and need to be replaced (obtaining the parts might be tricky).
Other old scanners for the adventurous would be the large hi-res pre-press flatbeds made by Creo-Fuji-Scitex-Heidelberg. These had very sophisticated software and could batch scan entire rolls of film at once: basically Epson v700 on steroids. Extraordinary results are possible with these. But large heavy units that only rarely come up for sale at a discount (usually only examples with missing software are bargains: they're useless without their proprietary software). Typically require an equally old Apple Mac to run them.
If you don't have money to burn, look into camera scanning via DSLR or mirrorless camera (Nikon D850, Sony A7, Nikon Z, etc). Pulling together a really solid setup of film holder, light source and copy stand could run over $1000, OTOH very quick operation and no proprietary drivers or connections to worry about. Stitching can offer a wide range of super high resolution.
I wish they come up with a 120 scanner on the level of the XAS. I would buy it.
The Pro is supposed to have adjustable focus.Like the title says.
+ Faster transfer speed with USB 3.0The Pro is supposed to have adjustable focus.
Never verified if the Pacific Image was the same as the Plustek, I've only heard from someone saying it was a rebadged Plustek, which is false. Mea culpa.The above listed differences by fs999 and fatso apply to Plustek 120 (Pro) scanner.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?