Pacific Image Electronics PrimeFilm PF1800U USB Film Scanner

Its always galling when a product has poor reviews exclusively and a guest reviewer shows up proclaiming the companys virtue as only an employee can. Its obvious Pacific Image sent someone over to perform a weak attempt at spin after so many disappointing customer comments. DONT BELIEVE THEM!!! This product is poor quality compounded with weak customer support. Its ironic that all of the reviews complain about the service yet the company clearly has time to counter opinions they dont like in a poorly composed anonymous review. That employee could have been helping one of these poor people! Nikon and Minolta are two reputable companies in this field - Pacific Image is not.

I purchased this item about a week ago, and because of the widely varying reviews, thought that Id chime in. Normally I just buy books through Amazon and havent been motivated to review them since I usually know what Im getting. I am NOT an employee of Pacific Image however (or any sort of camera or computer store). I am a graduate student in history who needed to be able to scan microfilm. I searched everywhere for a product that would let me do this. The strips fill an entire spool and are many feet long, and since they are borrowed, I can not cut them to fit a standard film scanner or flatbed with a 4-6 frame holder for negatives. Products designed for this purpose are thousands of dollars - not in a students budget! Id just about given up when I found this machine, and figured I didnt have much to lose since Amazon has a good return policy, so I took a chance. Is it perfect? No. The TWAIN software that came with the computer crashed every time I tried to do more than a preliminary scan. The Adobe Elements is nice, but I have an ancient copy of Paint Shop Pro 4 I like just fine. After several crashes, I emailed the company and got a fairly useless response from them. However, an online tech reviewer who liked this product had recommended a compatible scanning program called Silverfast. I downloaded the trial version of this and lo and behold, it worked. It still took some skill and some trial by error to find good settings for the film. It didnt match any of the settings, of course, so I had to try different film options until I found one that worked. I also had to play with the detail of scan and such to avoid blurring. But after a couple of hours, I determined the settings that work. I would assume it would be easier with a standard film type. I have some slides and negatives Ill probably try also just to see how they work, and if I get remarkably different results, will comment again. Is it fast? That depends on the detail you want. It does only scan one image at a time. However, I didnt find it hard to center the image in the scanner. It scans the pages faster than I can translate them, which is all that matters to me! If you arent in a hurry, I dont think youll have a big problem. In the week Ive had it, Ive run it some days for 3-4 hours at a stretch. I havent had any problems with grinding noises. The scanner isnt silent, but its in line with my old Microtek C6 - the only other scanner Ive ever had. If it does break, Ill see how the company treats the warranty. So to sum up, if you have a specific need as I did, and youre willing to take a little time to learn the Silverfast software, you can make perfectly good images with this machine. I havent printed any of them, but I am using them on CD enlarged so that just a few words of the original hand-written records fit on the screen, and the detail and sharpness are just fine.

I had the same problem with mine...I had Lamp Failure with very few hours on the unit(around 15 hours). I had lost my sales slip so could not get any help. I would have given this unit a 5 star rating because when it was working it was a great tool. Too bad the lamp life wasnt better.

very good results for an inexpensive 35mm film scanner and scans negatives as well as slides. The scanner only takes 35 seconds per scan and offers very good quality for a very low cost as compared to other film scanners costing over twice as much.

This was a fine product in its day, but that day was Windows XP and its long gone. The manufacturer is no longer supporting this model. You should purchase something that is compatible with Windows 10.

Dont entertain the thought of converting 1000s or even 100s of slides with this . Software is poor , manual is lacking . At best , quality of scans is just OK if the slide or neg is perfect .. and the weather is good .. your mood is not bad .. moon is full etc. etc. Top notch film scanners with Digital ICE run 500.00 to well over a 1000.00 bucks . Most of these require a SCSI interface . When I got mine it was 75.00 MSRP , It was worth it .

I purchased this product and after it arrived I started to us it. It broke after the 2nd set of negatives. Luckly I got what I wanted in to it before it broke. The motor for the arm to move broke. The motor is to small and does not have the power to move the arm continously. I will not purchase another one. I will purchase the high dollar one with a return policy if it brakes.

Its not even worth pulling out your wallet. Results are about as good as trying to draw your photos with a very blunt crayon. I get far better results using a flatbed Epson with the film adapter. Not that using a flatbed is the best idea but it is 100 times better than the 1800u. If someone gives it to you consider them a mean person and dont take it. Unless you need a rather ugly 2lb piece of plastic to clutter up your desk and spill coffee on. Even then, theres probably something better to accidentally caffeinate .

While cleaning up my garage I found a large box with slides from our travels dating back to 1976. The cost of buying a slideprojector and screen surpassed the cost of the scanner. I have scanned about 200 slides already and am currently preparing a show to watch on TV. You really can not get any one to watch an actual slide show anymore. An other beauty of this transfer from positive film to digital is that I have been able to share these pictures over the internet with old friends. The initial quality of the scanned immage is okay, but the included Photoshop software lets you make wonderful restorations. Although I wished that it could scan faster I am very pleased with this product. Speed it up and I will give it a 5 Star rating. Thank you for such a wonderful opportunity to share old data so easy with old friends and new ones.

I had read critical reviews before purchasing. When I first tried it, the color was badly distorted and I was not able to adjust to compensate. However, as a last effort, I tried scanning in the raw setting. This largely solved the color distortion problem. So, overall, I am pleased with the scanner. When you consider how inexpensive it is, it is a real bargin.