wolf_weber Posted March 16, 2007 Share Posted March 16, 2007 As I was scouting the internet for product to replace my aging Pol 4000plus scanner, I came across this piece of info... At the current CEBIT in Germany, Plustek introduced 2 new (apparently) higher end film scanners, the 'OpticFilm' 7300 and 7500i. No precise specs yet. I will update this thread as soon as more info becomes available. Both scanners can be seen at Plustek.de, by the way. Most likely not of interest to me because Plustek drivers, at least up until now, were only released for Windows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtk Posted March 16, 2007 Share Posted March 16, 2007 The vast majority of scanner users reportedly rely on Windows machines, most scanner software is first targeted at Windows machines, Macintosh seems to be drifting towards reliance on Vista OS. There seems to be only one first-hand report in the past several years about Plusteks. I've noticed no reviews by the "usual suspects." It'd be interesting to know what German Photo.Net participants think of Plustek, but I don't think any have commented. The US dealer for Plustek with whom I'm familiar is Tiger, in my experience a reliable discounter that has little involvement with photography beyond Plustek. It'd be great if there was an alternative to Nikon, but of course it would have to have Ice to be useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolf_weber Posted March 17, 2007 Author Share Posted March 17, 2007 Actually, as U may see, they're proposing 3 new models. Still no detailed info, but I suppose the 7500i AI comes bundled with Silverfast AI while the 7500i SE comes with SF SE. The 7300 would be the less expensive unit with only basic software. I'm speculating, absolutely no guarantee from the 'house'. Anyhow, here's a link to their website in English... http://www.plustek.com/product/main.asp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jay_bees Posted March 17, 2007 Share Posted March 17, 2007 So how do the current Plustek scanners compare to the Nikon scanners? I have not heard much about these scanners here. They advertise a 7200 ppi scan resolution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolf_weber Posted March 17, 2007 Author Share Posted March 17, 2007 Well Jay, that seems to be the million $ question... Companies sometimes act in wonderous ways. Who knows, maybe they're still trying to figure out what the deal with their new gen. scanners might be. Being that the 'old' 7200 would already scan in 48 bit mode, but with only a fairly poor Dmax of 3.3, one could assume that there may be a jump to 4.3 or even 4.8. So far none of the usually informed news letters, covering events like the CEBIT, have revealed anymore details. And as U can see from the Plustek websites - oh well... I'll stay with the item though, trust me. An old (former) Photojournalist doesn't give up easily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtk Posted March 17, 2007 Share Posted March 17, 2007 Again, I've seen ONE report in several years here on Photo.net by a user. He liked it. If it was credible I think we'd have seen more reports. I suspect there are a lot of unhappy users, otherwise we'd see praise. Germans would mention of Ice if the machine was designed to serve a real 35mm purpose. Silverfast doesn't replace Ice without Ice hardware...Vuescan's "infared", which IMO is better than Ice, doesn't work without Ice hardware either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtk Posted March 17, 2007 Share Posted March 17, 2007 I just visited Wolf's link: Plustek says it has its own infared system. Why have there been virtually no reports? "Plustek's OpticFilm 7200i to easily outperform other professional film scanners." That's the current (old) model, not even the (new) 7500. If it "easily outperforms" Nikon has anyone heard reports to that effect? Doesn't Germany have Internet access? :-) It'd be great if there was an alternative to Nikon, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielleetaylor Posted March 17, 2007 Share Posted March 17, 2007 I don't have one and couldn't tell you how it compares, but there are some reviews. http://www.ephotozine.com/equipment/tests/testdetail.cfm?test_id=403 http://www.justechn.com/reviews/articles/2005/02/26/opticfilm_7200.php My guess is it hasn't been covered by more photography publications and web sites due to name and price. And the fact that 35mm film scanners are sort of yesterday's news. Judging from the two reviews above and comments on the web, I would guess it's decent for the price. Better than a flatbed, not as good as a Nikon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielleetaylor Posted March 17, 2007 Share Posted March 17, 2007 I should have said: reviews for the old model. No info on the new ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolf_weber Posted March 18, 2007 Author Share Posted March 18, 2007 As of this (Sunday) morning, only one additional piece of info... At least one of the two 7500 models will provide the Multi-Exposure feature from Siverfast. As to specs, I may have to make some phone calls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolf_weber Posted March 19, 2007 Author Share Posted March 19, 2007 Oh well, sorry... It's Monday morning and I just got of the phone with an apparent ignorant (who claimed to be "in charge") at Plustek in Germany... He didn't even know that the new scanner models were being touted at their own website, with a release date of March 2, 2007... A typical case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing. http://www.plustek.de/Home/Presse/PR_CeBIT_2007/opticfilm_7300_7500i.jpg All, he said, he knew was that the prototypes were being shown at CEBIT. Without any tech specs..? Wow. Talk about hype. I'm buying a Nikon. Down the road we shall see... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolf_weber Posted April 10, 2007 Author Share Posted April 10, 2007 As a footnote... http://www.plustek.de/Home/index.htm is a link to the German website of Plustek. Sorry, I (they, in fact) stirred the pot too early. Now they give "Available from the 3d quarter of 2007"... Well, we know what that means. Lots of advance fanfare, and then wait, wait, wait... Just like with the M1 scanner from Microtek. As to the Plustek 7500i, still no tech specs. Only a link to Silverfast and the info that the new scanner will be MULTI-EXPOSURE capable. Whether the hardware is any better than the rather poor one of the 7200 models remains to be seen. One reliable and thourough tester in Germany found the 7200 to scan at no more than 2900 dpi... http://www.filmscanner.info/PlustekOpticFilm7200.html Aah, the hype. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prabal_bhattacharya Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 The plustek site now does provide spec for 7500i SE. Still at 3.5 dynamic range :( - Prabal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ira_flaum Posted October 23, 2007 Share Posted October 23, 2007 The Sept. 07 issue of Shutterbug contains a rather favorable David Brooks review of the 7200i. The Plustek website now contains specs for 3 "new" scanners (7500i, 7500SE, and 7300) with various configurations of the latest Silverfast software. The website indicates that the new products are not yet marketed in the US but are available in other countries. I'm not rejecting these Plustek products out of hand. Irafman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_klein8 Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 I have seen these previous discussions on this scanner and thought my experiences may be interesting. I ordered one 2 months ago, on back order and finally got it today (April 17, 2008). I am down to an archive of 4,800 color negs that are all over 15 years old, the newer and better condition ones I used an Acer ScanWit 2720S. Using VueScan, it did a pretty good job, but without an IR channel, the older negatives were taking alot of post processing work. I saw the Plustek OpticFilm 7500i SE, price seemed good so figured I'd give it a shot. I am using a new iMac (4 months old) with Leopard. The main reason I went with this scanner. Nothing really bad had been said about this family of scanners, but also nothing really good, but I figured why not see for myself. I used the included software, was going to probably switch to VueScan later. My initial scans on a test negative showed little to no IR scratch reduction. I manually adjusted it, and produced a nice scan. Up to this point I was using 1440 dpi to speed things along, so now I changed the dpi, and only the dpi up to 2400. This next scan was now back to no scratch removal. I checked the settings, they were the same, tried scanning again, and this time, back to a really nice reduction in scratches. But I didn't change any settings.... I got a bad feeling. I decided to check the consistency of the scanner. I did around 10 more scans, all the same settings at 1-2 minute intervals. The results were that each varied very visibly in the quality of the scans, with the quality getting worse and worse. After 5 of this series of scans, I started to get a pixalation/green cast over exposure in the right quadrant of the scan. This got progressively worse with each subsequent scan. Then came the death scream from the scanner. Midway through a scan the scan head must have jammed (this unit moves the scan head and not the film holder) and the scanning stopped. The scan program froze and to free the computer and to stop the scanners loud and painful screams I had to turn off the scanner and then unplug the scanner. I removed the film holder, all seemed okay, film was not hot or damaged. (Side note here, the scanner does not have an automatic feed for the film holders. You push the holder into the scanner, and indexes on the holder click into indexes in the scanner. So there would be no start a 6 strip session, walk away for 30 minutes and come back. You have to manually feed the next frame after a scan has been completed). Now back to the show... Replugged in the scanner, turned it on, no screaming yet, so far so good. I reloaded the film holder, initiated a preview scan, and Mac whirly colored ball began to spin, the scanner started to scream, so I turned the scanner off and unplugged it again. It is now in its box, I am lucky, the return center is only 7 miles from my house, so will be calling in for a return authorization tomorrow. I will post again how the Customer Service and return goes. Things happen, maybe I was unlucky. So for now I am not screaming any complaints. Just giving a heads up on my experiences with the new Plustek OpticFilm 7500i SE, I hope to have a happy ending soon. David Klein Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_klein8 Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 Quick update. I called the Plustek repair number, explained what happened. They apologized and asked me to email them so they could send me an authorization to return the unit. I told them I was local, so they said just bring it in to their facility. Brought the scanner in, and in 10 minutes walked out with a new one. They said if I had any other problems, give them a call or stop by. Got it home tonight, fired it up and it worked like a charm. I will post some of my experiences in a couple of days once I get a feel for it. But at first glance, it seems to be a nice scanner. david klein Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick_v3 Posted June 5, 2008 Share Posted June 5, 2008 David, I am very keen to find out how the plustek 7500i had performed after the mishap. Has it performed admirably? I am keen to scan 9.4mm (8x11mm frame) miNox color negatives. Clarity and sharpness is the goal with this tiny format. The Nikon is an expensive unit but the plustek has a very reasonable price tag. Should I Nikon or Plustek? Comparison? .. anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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