Polaroid Sprintscan 45 negative scanner

I ran into one of these recently and was not aware of Polaroid

scanners. Can anyone tell me of the quality and ease of use of this

equipment? They call it a "negative scanner", but from my very

limited knowledge of such equipment, I would assumme that it is

usable for scanning transparancy material as well...am I correct here?

Yes, it can scan positives as well as negatives. I think you want the SprintScan Ultra, not the regular SprintScan, if I remember the advice posted here. In any case, here are some links that may get you started. A search on this site for "SprintScan 45" should pull up more information.

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Vicky:

I purchased the Polaroid 45 Ultra a year ago from a seller on ebay, it was under

factory warenty. A good thing that it was. The Polaroid tech helpline is excellent, I've

had to send the scanner back twice for repairs. The problem was a long greenish

streak, more than likely a stuck pixel. It works very well now. There are few reviews

out there if you do a google search. But here is what I've learned. The Ultra is last

generation of 4x5 scanners from Polaroid. It has excellent 4x5 specs. Desk top

scanners are inherently good for Negative film and the Polaroid 45 Ultra handles 4x5

neg film well. I have found Vuescan software to be superior to Polaroid's software in

it's ability to capture highlight detail and create smooth color gradations. Polaroid's

4x5 original holder does not allow full capture of an uncropped 4x5 neg, so you will

need to keep this in mind when shooting. Alternativly, you may get lucky and find

the glass holder that was later designed to correct this and to hold 120 film

completely flat, from edge to edge. The Ultra seems to handle black and white neg

particularly well, and Vuescan has alot of built in profiles for various color films. If

you are scanning 4x5 negatives the Ultra is convient to use, affordable and capable

scanner. However if you are really interested in 120 film, I would recommend that

you go with the Polaroid Sprintscan 120 or the Imacon Photo. The Ultra does not

produce the same quality scans for 120 format negative film.

Thanks for the info, y'all...I'm somewhat new to this scanner stuff and am trying to learn as much as possible about the options before buying!