Film Reviews

Let me start by telling you that I first has a PIE 1800U scanner, when it stopped working after 2,5 years I contacted Primefilm *the same brand as the Smartscan 2700.

They simply answered me that the CCD stopped working and that happens....

I thought I would have a good deal by buying the Amazon 2700 because I trusted the scanner for what it did.

But here it comes, the same prblem as the 1800U it stopped working, CCD failed. Warranty??? Where??? Till now I am waiting for a response. They only answer I had is the following:

It just depends on how much you use it and if its left turned On by accident. This is the cause of a "lamp or CCD failure". Since you have voided your warranty , your looking at spending between $85 - $100 just on the repairs, parts, and s&h itself so its really up to you if you want it repaired or not.

How much I use it??? Well according to the company up to 3 hours can give problems...

And than the fact if you keep on scanning it seems that it doesn't want to adjust anymore, I mean in better words you have to adjust every picture over and over and keep on adjusting... takes hours to scan a film...

I think if you think about a low price scanner and your not a profesional by the Epson 3170, with the unsharp mask in Paintshop or Photoshop you can adjust enough sharpnes. Scan up to 5 negatives at once and much more option and you also have a good flatbed scanner for the same price.

Look at this page (NOT MY PAGE) http://www.billkee.com/Epson3170/
for an idea about the quality of the Epson

Going for a cheap scanner for nothing???
http://www.ritzcamera.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&langId=-1&productId=622063&topCategory=1004&cat1=5741781
Only 69 dollars and you get a scanner with reasonable quality for small pictures, slides, negatives and more.

If you go for 35mm scanning and want something realy good?
Go for the Minolta Dual Scan III http://www.imaging-resource.com/SCAN/DSEIII/DSEIIIA.HTM , Nikon Coolscan http://hardwarecentral.dealtime.com/xPR-Nikon_Coolscan_IV_ED~RD-78434569860 or Polaroid Sprintscan 35 http://www.cix.co.uk/~tsphoto/tech/filmscan/pol35plus/pol35plu.htm
All 3 are on the market around 300 dollars, the Nikon is just a little bit more the lowest price I saw is $389.99 Try to look for the previous model.

More ideas at http://www.imaging-resource.com/SCAN1.HTM

Questions? I like to help I scan a lot of pictures and negatives daily. redsfotografie@yahoo.co.uk

Amazon boxes the Smartdisk Smartscan2700 (SS2700) 35mm film scanner and sells it under its own label. And Smartdisk's SS2700 is a rebranded (OEM) version of Pacific Imaging's (PIE) Primefilm 2700. So for $200 USD, Amazon delivers you a Smartdisk SS2700 (versus paying $220 if you direct-order from Smartdisk...go figure!) As far as I can tell, the Amazon product includes everything shown/described from Smartdisk's webpage -- scanner, cable, Mac/PC driver CD, and Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 (PC and Mac.)

Cosmetically, the SS2700 looks similar to PIE's older Primefilm 1800u. Mechanically, the film-tray operates *exactly* like the 1800u. This means the following:

1) Mounted 35mm slides are easy to pop-in and pop-out of the scanner-tray, no risk of scratching precious slides.

2) 35mm film strips (negatives, or unmounted slides) require some careful placement to avoid scratching the picture-area (and to avoid getting your fingerprints on the film!)

3) For a budget/entry-level scanner the manual load/unload is fine. But people who need to scan lots of film, the manual tray is a *bottleneck.* Prepare to spend a lot of time manually moving *each* frame (of a strip) over the scanner-window.

...

Now about the software/driver operation:

Since I have a PC, I can only comment on the SS2700's behavior under Windows 98se (yes ancient, I know.) The SS2700 driver is an old version of the Cyberview 2.50d TWAIN driver. When preparing to perform the scans, Cyberview's preview-window is awfully small, the adjustment/optimization options are hard to use, and the driver has *NO* film presets. All in all, the driver made the SS2700 very difficult to use, and I was ready to return the unit.

But *thankfully*, the SS2700 seems to be fully compatible with PIE's Primefilm2700. Why is this good? From www.scanace.com, I downloaded PIE's Cyberview-X Windows driver (for the Primefilm/2700), ran the update, and the driver successfully upgraded me from Smartscan's ugly Cyberview to PIE's improved Cyberview-X. (The upgrade procedure is a bit tricky. I first installed the SS2700's own Cyberview driver. After Windows recognized the SS2700 USB scanner, I then installed the Primefilm Cyberview-X update. After rebooting, the Cyberview-X TWAIN driver is available to all TWAIN-compliant scanner programs, including Photoshop Elements 2, Vuescan, Paint Shop Pro, etc. If you try to remove the SS2700 Cyberdriver before installing Cyberview-X, the upgrade will fail!)

Cyberview-X is the saving grace for this scanner, because not only is it more user friendly (bigger preview pane, more adjustments with better ability to save/load your custom scan profile), it comes with a bunch of film-profiles. With the 'film-profiles', you pick the exact film-type from a list (Kodak, Fuji, Agfa, etc.), then the scan-driver will autoset the color-profile to match the film's characteristics. In terms of color/brightness levels, the preloaded-profiles will get you in the right 'ballpark.' You'll probably still need to do some fine-tweaking for unusually contrasty, dark, or bright pictures. Believe me, getting the same color-matching with the old Smartscan Cyberview was nearly IMPOSSIBLE!

As expected for a low-end scanner, the unit lacks hardware dust removal. Dust specs and lint are a major annoyance for 35mm film scans, because the dust specs appear 'magnified' over the picture area. It is possible to apply software dust-removal, but that product must be bought separately -- and it is not as effective as a hardware-based solution.

The SS2700 includes Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0. Unfortunately, I have little experience with digital photography, and I'm not qualified to comment on this software. As I said before, I successfully used the PIE's Cyberview-X TWAIN driver to acquire scans inside Photoshop Elements.

As for the scans themselves, 35mm slides have a very wide dynamic range. The SS2700 doesn't seem capable of capturing the entire range of a high-contrast negative. 35mm negatives fare a bit better, but the scanner's limited sample-depth (36-bit) causes a lot of 'posterization.' This means a continuous gradient, say a picture of the sky horizon which gradually transitions from light blue to dark blue, contains a lot of breaks and abrupt (visible) color changes. And finally, the SS2700's sensor seems to be very noisy, much noisier than my Epson Perfection 3170 (48-bit) flatbed.

Having attempted 35mm scans (negatives and slides) on both the Epson 3170 and the SS2700, and in my opinion, I think the SS2700 beats the 3170. The SS2700's 2700dpi scans are consistently *sharper* than the 3170's 3200dpi scans. (I suspect the flatbed's resolving-power is greatly limited by the sensor-arrangement: a dual staggered 1600dpi sensor.) In terms of detail-level, the 3170's 35mm film scans were on par with the 1800dpi Primefilm1800u, which isn't saying a lot. However, the SS2700's scans contain more picture noise. I'm not sure whether that's due to the SS2700's better sharpness (and consequently, greater sensitivity to film grain), or if it's electronics-related -- the Epson 3170 flatbed is rated at 48-bit color and the SS2700 is rated at 36-bit. The 3170's noise-level (for film or prints) is visibly lower than the SS2700. Overall, in comparison against the Epson 3170 flatbed, the SS2700's extra-detail outweighs its greater noise.

The next step up is the Minolta Dual Scan III (2800dpi, USB2, 48bit), which is widely regarded as the best $300 film-scanner. The DSIII gives you better color-depth, faster scans, and an (optional) APS-film holder.

In conclusion, the Amazon Imaging SS2700 (which is really a rebranded PIE Primefilm2700) is an good value at $200 USD. It won't win any awards for picture-quality, but it makes usable scans. In terms of detail/resolution, the SS2700 is sharper than any *flatbed* scanner costing up to $400 USD. In terms of noise-level, a good 48-bit flatbed scanner (like the Epson 3170) is superior.

Pros:
Apparently, SS2700 is a rebranded Primefilm2700
*REAL* 2700dpi 35mm film scans for $200
(...don't be fooled by 3200dpi flatbed scanners doing 35mm scans!)
bundled Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 OEM, a $50 retail value
Compatibility with Pacific Image's Cyberview-X driver and Vuescan

Cons:
no 'multisample' mode (for reducing picture noise)
high picture noise/grain (limitation of 36-bit sample depth?)
manual/mechanical film loading tray (single frame)
no hardware dust-removal, no autofocus
USB1.1 (slower than USB2.0)
For a litte more money ($275 USD), Minolta DSIII is better
35mm film only, no APS/110/126 film adapter

Just a heads-up to those thinging about these cameras. DON'T USE THEM FOR ANY IMPORTANT PHOTOS! These cameras are used cases with new film added. I don't not recommed them, they are cheap, but be aware. I've had problems with 2 different cameras(I probably wouldn't buy again, but maybe), and wish I'd read a review like this before taking them to Mardi Gras...oh well, who wants to remember a swamp tour in an fan boat anyway.

I purchased for a wedding and these took as good as pictures as the Kodak Wedding pack cameras that we had purchased also. I highly recommend.

I used this camera for a vacation and the frist film I put in it the camera broke, I lost some good pictures, so I am not happy one bit. So BEWARE this camera is JUNK>

I bought this inexpensive basic camera for those times when I wanted to take a camera along yet did want to have to be real careful with it-- i.e. no huge monetary loss if something happened. The pictures were so great I bought another as a "client loaner" for my clients (I am an attorney) to ensure taking of evidentiary pictures. The product yields above-average quality pictures and we have used them repeatedly as evidentiary documents. It is also very easy to load. I have no doubt I got my money's worth.

When I first started doing more serious photography, I went to this old and time-tested reserve, Kodak Max 400. The results, I'm sad to say, were a bit disappointing. The pictures were just too grainy (too many apparent dots in the photo). If you don't know what alternatives are available, it is good enough for your typical snapshot, but I think all of us can do a little better.

As you are probably aware, film comes in various "speeds," which allow you to shoot in differing light conditions. The higher the number, the less light needed. Thus, 100 film often requires bright outdoor sunlight, whereas 400 and 800 film is used for indoor or "high speed" (sports) photography. The problem with high-speed film, however, is that it is grainy. In order to get the film to react more quickly to light, the film needs to use larger silver crystals. Result? Your pictures will tend to be comprised of "dots" rather than smoother blends of color.

Despite improvements from 400 and 800 films of the past, Kodak's current low-end consumer film (i.e. Kodak Max) still suffers from excessive graininess. With everyone switching to 4x6 and 5x7 prints nowadays, pictures shot on these low-end consumer films will often still show "dots" when observed up close. If you want pictures to be treasured for years to come, do you really want dots?

The solution I found was Kodak's Royal Gold series, and... to my delight recently started carrying this line of film. Unlike Max 400, Royal Gold 400 has a remarkably small grain size, offering you the best of both worlds -- sharpness and speed. It is a real shame that more consumers don't know about Kodak's Royal Gold line of film. I would expect that most people normally buy the Gold (low speed 100 or 200) or Max (high speed 400 or 800) series of film simply because it is the only type of film sold in nonspecialty stores. Don't -- it's a mistake. "Royal Gold," even though a little more..., is much better, and you will certainly appreciate the difference in quality.

After taking pictures in Africa, Turkey, Greece, Alaska, and many other places, I've learned (sometimes the hard way) to take film seriously. A great camera will still take muddy pictures if the film quality is questionable.

I recently loaded this Kodak Gold Max 400 film into a new camera to take a test roll before another trip, and was surprised by the wonderful color quality of the returned pictures. A second test roll, taken of brightly-colored holiday decorations, came back excellent as well.

Now, if Amazon would only sell it in 10-packs, I'd be happy...

I purchased this film with a new Joycam...my first polaroid experience. The first picture I took didn't want to come out of the camera but after some fussing and attempting to take another picture (in case it hadn't actually taken the first one) it finally came out - with a second, unexposed, print. The exposed print didn't develop correctly and left large areas with mushy grey-purple color instead of picture - a waste of over two dollars total. I was ready to return the whole contraption but decided to try again. That time it worked like a charm so I guess I'm happy...as long as I don't have this problem with every roll...but I haven't gotten that far to be able to know about that yet.

The Polaroid 500 film is extremely easy to load into the camera, and develops quick clear, and surprisingly in focus pictures. Downside- can sell for up to 14.99 or so for a pack of 10. So obviously the twin pack for 13.99 is a huge bargain.

I used 2 rolls of this 4 pack and ended up throwing the other 2 rolls away. The color is dull like you wouldnt believe, looks like a B&W picture with a slight color tone to it. It is not sharp at all, and there is a considerable amount of grain EVEN WITH IT BEING ASA 100 SPEED FILM! This is the worst film I have ever used.

Great outdoor pictures, and cheaper than Kodak. That's all I have to say.

Fuji film produces beautiful colors at a very low price without compromising quality. This is a great all around film on sunny days and for dawn/dust shots on a tripod. Since this is a slow speed film with very fine grain, it's ideal for enlargements.

My review is not a good one. The camera seemed to work find until in the middle of a birthday party it went crazy and the zoom lens froze. It would cost me $20 less than what I paid seven months ago to fix it. Junk now. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Where's my warranty?????

I've had my Pentax Zoom 105-R (no date feature) camera for 8 years. It was a good camera while it lasted. The red eye reduction did not work well though. It has a lot of nifty photo options but I rarely used them.

Without warning and for no apparent reason the auto focus went out. The auto focus of a zoom over approximately 12 feet is useless now. The cost to repair it is [expensive] so I'll buy a new one rather than repair this one. ... I have a Canon with interchangeable lenses that is 18 years old and it takes great photos. (The only reason we got another camera to begin with was for the auto focus feature and the compact size of the Pentax.) With the kind of mileage Canon offers, I'm going back to Canon.

I had experiences with a couple of cameras from different brands such as Nikon, Pentax, Canon and Samsung and frankly I had no big complain about my previous ones. I chose Pentax IQ Zoom 105s, because I was perfectlyl satisfied with a Pentax APS camera that I bought long time ago(I decided to buy new one because APS system is not sometimes convenient) and the price was competitive compare to other that has similar function.
Indeed, it didn't disappoint me, the pictures have been very clear, no blur with very vivid color in both inside and outside.
So far I didn't experience a red eye in the night. Zoom and shutter move smoothly, flash works on time and autoshot works beautifully. The drawback is it is little bigger and sturdier than the comparable ones(you can't put it in your shirt pocket) and the viewer window is little dark(But the pictures were perfectly good).
Overall, I think it is a very cool camera and recommend if interested in.

This is a piece of junk.

The first time I inserted a smart media card, the card went all the way into the unit. To get it out, I had to call customer support who told me how to disassemble the unit so that I could extract it. Great start!

It does not consistently read CF cards.

Bottom line-stay away.

This was my first media reader/writer. Everything works fine with it and I was very happy with it for 6 months. Then I got another reader/writer (Compact flash only), which was free with purchase of a 64M card... both cost $$$. The new reader is made by PQI, P/N FPTS-C, which is a cheapie you can get for ~$$$ on internet). I tried it out and its speed blew away the Viking (~8-10 times faster). I tried the same CF card with the same data on it in both readers, and even tried the readers on another computer (both computers USB 1.0), but results the same. I also have a Smart Media card and its transfer is about same as CF on the Viking reader, maybe a little slower. Later I built an AMD 2100+ computer, Soyo Platinum Dragon motherboard, USB 2.0, with built-in CF/Smart Media reader. Again the built-in CF transfer rate is about the same as the cheapie reader on USB 1.0 (although USB 2.0 is faster, but the 12x card speed, =1.8M, doesn't surpass the USB 1.0 by enough to make much of a difference), but the Viking was just as slow on USB 2.0 as 1.0.
Luckily most of my media needs are CF, so I use the cheapie at work and the built-in at home. I have the Viking connected in case one of these days I run across need for on of the other formats. I only wish I hadn't bought it until now, now that they're 1/2 the price what I paid for it (50 vs 25).

This is a very cost-effective unit for reading multiple mediacard formats. I have used this unit in many computers and operating system and I found it very fast and portable.

I bought it to read my digital camera's MMC but right now I am using it to share documents, multimedia files (mp3 and videos) and to take this files from my office to my house (I have a 256Mb card).

The unit is plug and play and you don't even need the drivers with the newest operating systems. It creates 4 drive letters within your computer and you can use different memory slots at the same time. I moved files from a Compact Flash to the MMC slot once.

I've had problems with this unit with only one computer, it was a friend of mine who was using an old Windows version, but besides that, the memory reader has worked perfectly.

This camera is terrible. Problem is, I didn't know it until a year after purchasing it. Rarely used at first, then used it on a few trips and events with very disappointing results, after I couldn't return to the store. I figured the first terrible (fuzzy) pictures were my fault for some reason or other, but have come to the conclusion this camera was a waste of $. Also, sometimes the flash just shoots off, even when no flash is selected. Based upon the other reviews Canon should issue a recall for this piece of junk. DO NOT BUY IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just as everyone else stated, this is a great compact, cool looking camera. Pictures have turned out okay. Some were blurry but I suspect it may be the lighting. Outdoor pics were clear as the sky. However, I have a lot of problem with loading and unloading the film. Sometimes the camera would keep rolling sounding like it would load the film but when it stops making noise the cartridge symbol blinks asking you to put in the film. And when it finally loads correctly and finishes rewinding the film, the door gets stuck and would not open. It's quite frustrating. I'm going to get a refund and I suggest not getting this camera at all especially for this price. You should probably go with their digital elph camera instead.

On my last vacation I got so tired of carrying around a large camera that I did not take many photos... However, when the old one played out I seized the opportunity to see what I could find in a smaller version... I fell in love with this little guy right away... However, when I got home, I started reading reviews of older APS cameras and became concerned. So I immediately shot one roll of film.. inside, outside, close, far away and took it to an hour developing center (more and more places are developing it now)... Along with that roll I took two 35mm rolls.. When I received the prints I compared them side by side and saw no difference in the quality of the prints... Also, it was only approximately 2.00 more per roll to develop than the 35mm.

What I love about this camera besides the convenience of the size is that you can take 3 different sizes of pictures with a flip of a switch and the date imprint on the picture.

The only drawbacks that I found was the lack of zoom (but I knew there would be a trade off for the small size) and the fact that I took one early evening photo which did not turn out very well... However, I discovered there is a 1000 speed film for the APS which hopefully will take care of that problem.

Bottom line: a great little everyday camera that is lightweight, easy and fun to use....

This reader was easy to set up and worked GREAT with my 32MB Smart Media card. I recently bought a 128MB Smart Media card and my computer (800 MHz P3 with Windows 98SE) crashes every time I try to read this card. I called Lexar tech support, and they said it only works up to 32MB Smart Media cards. I downloaded the updated driver from the website, and now it works intermittently. Typically, it crashes my computer, I hard reboot, it may or may not crash a second time, then it reads the card. So eventually it works, and I have never lost any picture files, but I am going to buy a dedicated Smart Media reader to avoid these problems.

I bought this product one year ago and it didn`t bring any Windows xp drivers. I couldn`t find it on the lexar website so I contacted their support service wich promptly sent me the link for download. After downloading and installing the new drivers it worked fine ever since in 4 different machines with Cf of 16 and 64mb and a 16mb smartmedia.

1. For several years I struggled with digital film memory card transfers from my Kodak DC-265 digital camera to my Kodak software program, Picture Easy 3.1.
2. Primary problems:
a) Transfer times excessive, ie., 10 - 15 minutes.
b) Image transfers often excluded varying numbers of images.
3. Upon receipt of a Lexar Media USB DFR from a relative,
problems experienced above vanished, ie., transfers were
completed in a matter of seconds with no exclusions or aborts.
4. Since I have two residences in California, it seemed prudent to have a card reader at each.

Ward Bush