Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
So the scanner is poorly made junk. Crooked film positioning is absolutely unacceptable. I'd have returned it in a nanosecond. Plustek depends on people passively accepting their complete lack of even minimal quality control to allow them to keep peddling this garbage. I scan too high a volume of film, film I make my living from, to accept bullshit like that. I need equipment that "Just Works." I have owned two Nikon scanners and have used a number of Nikon, Canon, and Minolta film scanners belonging to people who paid me to teach them to use them. Not one of those scanners gave scans that were crooked or had any sharpness issues; they were quality scanners.
Coldkennels
Barnack-toting Brit.
We're talking ~2º of rotation. I'm not losing sleep over that; I like to crop all my images to a standard 6x4 anyway to clean up the edges. Adding in a tiny bit of rotation to that process is nothing - and most of the time I don't even bother, as the slight rotation is normally not enough to be noticeable once the edges are cropped off.
Honestly, there's being critical, and then there's being picky.
I guess you've never used a Canoscan, then; the 8800 and the 9000 were both the biggest pieces of hot garbage I've ever used. Nothing was sharp, and there was so little detail resolved on the Canoscan that I could get more detail out of a half-frame from a Pen F with a Plustek than a 6x7 scan from a Mamiya 7 with the Canoscan.
nightlight
trying...
I wrote to Plustek in 2022 and kept in touch with them since. The person there told me that a launch was planned in Jan 2023 - but that it had been pushed back 2 years due to a shortage of parts. So I guess I'll write to them next year again to ask.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
Those Canon scanners you mentioned are flatbeds, right? I've never used any of them. The Canon scanner one of my students had was a dedicated 35mm film scanner. It was fully equal to the Nikons. Flatbeds in general suck for film scanning because they have fixed focus lenses and poor quality optics. Good enough for print scanning since scanned prints are rarely enlarged a lot, but a 35mm neg has to be enlarged 8x to make an 8x10 print, and that brings out any flaws in the scanner optics really quick!
Coldkennels
Barnack-toting Brit.
Yeah, it's a flatbed; I think I paid £150-ish for the 9000f brand new 15 years ago after borrowing an 8800f for a year previous.
This is a direct comparison of the same 35mm frame scanned with a Canoscan vs the Plustek:
They're slightly different resolutions/dimensions, but you get the point - and I'll spare you the 120 "scans" made with the Canoscan. It's embarrassingly bad.
Attachments
SWB
Member
It seems there's a lot of prejudice against the Plustek 120, especially coming from people who've never used one (isn't that a surprise). And although I don't use mine anymore having moved to digital camera 'scanning' it was a far better scanner than my Minolta Multi Pro, or my Nikon 9000, both of which died anyway. The Plustek 120 initially had a bad start when it was shipped with negative holders that were dimensionally incorrect due shrinkage in the injection moulding process (the wrong plastic was used), but teething troubles aside I've used mine for years and it has always been sharp and reliable scanning all formats from 35mm to 6x12.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
I don't believe that at all. There is simply no way that the Plustek was better than the Nikon. No way. I've used Plustek's products and...yeah, no way. Not even close.
There's a reason they quickly withdrew that scanner from the market and never brought it back: It was an even bigger piece of
than their 35mm scanners.Even if Plustek's quality control was good; even if they used decent lenses in their scanners (they do not), even if they didn't lie about the resolution of their scanners (which they do)...a fixed focus scanner will never equal one with a focusing lens that can focus on the film gran like the Nikon and Minolta scanners do. That's just physics.
David Murphy
Mentor
I never had any serious problems using the Canonscan 8800 and I've owned and used one for about 16 years or thereabouts. My main complaint is that Canon has dropped all software support for it. However, I think Vuescan still supports it and I occasionally use some older Canon software still installed on a legacy PC.
luuca
Well-known
I am an early adopter of the first version of plustek 120 and I always got very good results.
just realized after some months that scans are really more in focus when the film is put upside down in the tray.
that's because I'd like a focus adjusting version
just realized after some months that scans are really more in focus when the film is put upside down in the tray.
that's because I'd like a focus adjusting version
yossi
Well-known
Instead of getting heated up over two scanners, why not we have a look at some detailed test reports of scanners from ScanDig.
I have used Plustek scanner (for 135 but not 120) before, and found its quality to be not so good (both build quality and IQ). I am using a Nikon Coolscan 9000ED currently and find its IQ excellent (but it is a very old machine, I just pray hard it won't die on me soon.) If ever Nikon were to launch another 120 film scanner (I know it won't happen), I would buy it in a heartbeat.
I have used Plustek scanner (for 135 but not 120) before, and found its quality to be not so good (both build quality and IQ). I am using a Nikon Coolscan 9000ED currently and find its IQ excellent (but it is a very old machine, I just pray hard it won't die on me soon.) If ever Nikon were to launch another 120 film scanner (I know it won't happen), I would buy it in a heartbeat.
SWB
Member
It is ScanDig who reviewed the very first Plustek 120 before new negative holders were issued and then never updated the review.