> On Wed, 28 Mar 2001 16:08:50 -0600 Maris V. Lidaka, Sr.
> (mlidaka@ameritech.net) wrote:
>
> > Not that many reviews but those that are out there say it works well.
But
> > apparently VueScan no longer supports it, though it supports the 2720S.
>
> >From discussion here, the 2740 is the exact same scanner as the 2720, but
with
> IR dust elimination tacked on as an extra channel, which requires an extra
> pass, and is not as effective as Nikon/Minolta's implementation. And
slower.
I recently purchased a Scanwit 2740S to save hundreds of old slides which
had been stored carelessly (mea culpa!). I'm not very experienced with
filmscanners, so I won't attempt to present a critical review, but here are
some highlights:
* The included TWAIN driver (Acer MiraPhoto) seems to be very sensitive to
ASPI conflicts on Windows 2000. Acer provides no support for using their
scanners on Win2K, per a conversation I had yesterday with tech support.
* The box advertises help is always available via 24x7 phone support. This
is indeed true, but the phone number is not on the box, not in the manual,
and not on Acer's web site! I had to wait until regular office hours to call
their sales lien and ask for the support number.
* Acer tech support varies from below average to less than worthless,
depending on who you get when you call. One rep I spoke with didn't
understand what a SCSI terminator was.
* Digital ICE does indeed slow down the scanning, but to me the end results
look much better than running a non-ICE scan through a despeckle filter. I
do not have another ICE scanner to compare it with, so I cannot evaluate
Tony's comment that the Acer does an inferior job. ICE at a reasonable price
was the main reason I bought this model.
* There is a bug in VueScan prior to 7.0.9. Digital ICE does not work. This
was just fixed and released yesterday. VueScan does a nice job with the 2740
both in Windows and RedHat 7.0. I'm thinknig of moving all my imaging work
to Linux, thanks to VueScan and the GIMP.
If you want to see some sample scans, try my site at
under Browse photo archive > Trips > 1989 Israel
> Slides 51-75 and 76-100. (The earlier sets were scanned with a cheap
PrimeFilm 1800U, 51-100 are with the ScanWit.) Keep in mind that I have not
used any sharpening filters, color space conversions, etc. on these images.
I just
adjusted the histograms in MiraPhoto before the final scan and cropped out
the slide mounts. The scans are of Ektachrome 100 Professional, circa 1989.
(And yes, I know they could be much better if I spent some time in
Photoshop. My main purpose is to get a good hi-res scan of each slide in as
close to "raw" form as possible before the slides are damaged further.)
Glad to finally de-lurk! This list is full of great information, thanks
everyone!
-- Todd
