Epson 3200 vs. Polaroid Sprintscan 45

Hello

 

I am in the market for a scanner that will do 35, mf and 4x5. Since

my budget is limit to 500.00 that pretty much limits me to a

flatbed. I was planning on a Epson 3200, however I came across a

deal for a used Polaroid Sprintscan 45, not the ulta. The asking

price is 500.00

 

Does anyone have any advice on this? Will the older sprintscan

perform as well as the 3200?

 

Thanks

 

David

<a href="http://www.meyerinst.com/html/polaroid/ss45.htm">link</a><br> The hardware resolution of the original 45 looks about the same or pretty close to the measured optical resolution of the 3200. I'd say in this case the 3200 is probably just as good in quality, has higher bit depth on the sensor, recent drivers, is faster, has modern interfaces (instead of the SCSI-2 only of the Polaroid) and is less expensive.<br><br> You might want a second opinion on that however.

For example a quote direct from Polaroid's support site:

 

Answer

NOTE: The SprintScan 45 and SprintScan 45i cannot be used with Windows XP.

Hi Steve

 

Thanks for the info, why it not be used with XP?

Someone else told me 500.00 is way to much for this first generation of the 45 series. Unless I can find a 45 u between 500-600.00 I am going to stick with the 3200.

 

Thanks

 

David

Polaroid simply chose not to write a driver for them for XP.

Of course you can use sprintscan 45 with XP. The trick is that you need a scsi card which manufacturer provides ASPI driver.

You can also use all three of the Sprintscan 45 series of scanners with Vuescan, which works fine with XP. Best of all, it's still a currently available product, which means it will be updated as new OS are released, whereas I'll be surprised if Polaroid invests the effort in updating its software for these scanners, what with them being discontinued and all.

Aaron is correct, I was able to get a Polaroid Sprintscan 35+ to run in XP. It was also not supposed to be compatible with XP. The following are the instructions that I provided to the buyer when I sold my 35+. Substitute 45 for 35+ in the instructions.<p>

1. Back up any important data and create a System Restore Point.<p>

2. Install a SCSI card in the computer; I have an Adaptec 2906. With XP, the card is recognized, and no drivers are needed from the disk.<p>

3. Install Polacolor Insight v 5.x. This will install the Polacolor Insight scanning program (which is TWAIN accessble into Photoshop) and also a program called Driver IO Utility. Driver IO Utility has two choices of how the computer communicates with the scanner: ASPI or STI. To work properly, the scanner needs to communicate under ASPI. At this point, my ASPI was greyed out.<p>

4. Turn off the computer, connect the scanner via the SCSI card, and put the SprintScan Software Suite disk in, and install the driver for the 35 plus.<p>

5. Restart the computer with the scanner turned on and the Software Suite CD still in the computer, and XP should recognize the scanner and want to install its driver; select automatically search for driver. The driver gets installed from the CD. The scanner is then visible in the scanners and cameras control panel.<p>

6. If your ASPI checkbox is available in the Driver IO Utility, select it, and try scanning either with the Polacolor Insight 5.x software or by selecting the scanner as the TWAIN device in Photoshop (if you have it) and then using TWAIN import. If it works good; if it freezes or just doesn't work, restart the computer, and continue on.<p>

7. Updating or installing ASPI support. Copy the Adaptec folder onto your C: drive. Under the Start button click run and browse, and find the file called install.bat and select it, and hit open. This takes you back to the main run window. Do not hit OK to make it run yet. You must add a space after install.bat and type XP32 for Pentium I/II/III/IV processors, and XP64 for titanium processors. Thus the command line for a Pentium III processor would read: c:\adaptec\aspi\aspi471\install.bat XP32. Hit OK, to install the ASPI support. Restart the computer (scanner still on). Run the Driver IO Utility, and select ASPI. The scanner should work properly; at least mine did.<p>

Of course I must put in the standard disclaimer, that I'm not responsible if your XP system crashes and burns, so be safe and do a data backup and create a restore point beforehand.

HI, MAYBE IT'S TOO LATE, anyway I'd like to tell you something about my experience: I own both a epson 3200 and a Polaroid - not the 45 but the 4000 - but I think there's no great difference.

 

After some months of scans one clear answer: polaroid is so far better in term of quality that no comparaison makes sense. Only, the epson is more "friendly" because of its firewire/usb connection.

 

bye

This is also a late reply but have just successfully installed my Sprintscan 45 to work with XP Professional. Thank you very much for the info above. I actually installed ASPI from adaptec.com first, then, Polorcolor Insight Pro v5.5.1 (for the Sprintscan 45 Ultra) and then upon reboot, my computer came up with the found new hardware window where I directed windows to the drivers located in a folder created by loading polorcolour, called SprintScan Drivers. The polorcolor software won`t work through Photoshop but this does not matter as I always use Vuescan (miles better!). Just download it from hamrick.com and once you run the program vuescan will instantly find your sprintscan. (I have the original Sprint Scan 45, not i or ultra)