RE: filmscanners: Request for "unbiased review" of Polaroid 120

[Victor Landweber <victor@landweber.com>]

Polaroid 120 Users --

Thanks, David, for referring me to the archive. I found and read Ian Lyons' 
Polaroid-120 review which isn't nearly so detailed at Rafe B's review of 
the Nikon 8000.

Would anyone like to post a review of the Polaroid 120 as complete as 
Rafe's? His excellent Nikon review appears below.

Thanks.

-- Victor Landweber

>RAFE WROTE:
> >Lest I come off as a shill for Nikon, here's my
> >summary on the Nikon 8000 ED, after three weeks
> >of fairly intense usage.  There's a little bit
> >of ammo for Mr. Hemingway here, but also some
> >stuff that ought to concern him.
> >
> >The Good:
> >
> >* overall, excellent scans, especially on 645
> >   negatives.  Quality on par with the Leaf 45,
> >   maybe even marginally better.  (Sorry, Austin.)
> >
> >* ICE really works.  I'm very impressed.
> >
> >* Fast.  645 scans w/o ICE in about 5 minutes.
> >   (on Athlon 700 MHz machine with 512 MB RAM)
> >   Add about 50% more time for ICE.  [But one other
> >   user has emailed me about very slow scans...]
> >
> >* surprisingly good auto-exposure, at least on
> >   most negatives.  I use it often -- and I'm
> >   usually very fussy about scanner settings.
> >
> >* no film-type "profiles" to choose from --
> >   scanner is uncannily accurate at properly
> >   "inverting" different types of C41 film
> >
> >* good software (NikonScan 3.1) despite some
> >   conflicts and issues with installation.  It
> >   has all the essential controls I want,
> >   including histograms and a good curves tool.
> >   All in all, one of the best vendor-supplied
> >   scanner drivers that I've worked with.
> >
> >* clever, sturdy film holders (but not without
> >   some problems -- see below)
> >
> >* good 24/7 tech support by phone, very little
> >   waiting.  Rapid escalation to "2nd Level"
> >   support if need be, but 2nd-Level is only
> >   available during "normal working hours."
> >
> >The Bad:
> >
> >* large, noisy machine.  Scanning mechanism
> >   has a suprisingly coarse sound.  Offhand, I
> >   don't see why the machine needs to be this large.
> >
> >* Film holders sometimes seem to wiggle as
> >   they're being moved about by the scanner
> >   (during thumbnail and preview acquisition, when
> >   the carrier reverses direction.) This does not
> >   inspire confidence in the mechanics.
> >
> >* 35 mm film holder:  very flat negatives can
> >   slide around.  I find I need a tiny piece of
> >   tape at the edge of the filmstrip to prevent
> >   this.
> >
> >* 35 mm slide holder: possible auto-focus
> >   issue (but I need to investigate this further.)
> >
> >* 645 film holder (glassless): occasionally a
> >   negative at the end of a strip can't be made
> >   to lie flat.  When this happens, focus goes
> >   to hell.  (Apparently not much depth-of-field.)
> >
> >* 645 holder:  4 images (max) per film strip.
> >
> >* 645 holder:  the method used by NikonScan to
> >   locate the images is ridiculous and error-
> >   prone.  It can be worked around but that adds
> >   some time, as one needs to iterate between
> >   an "offset" setting and another thumbnail/
> >   preview.
> >
> >* I long for a "non-batch" film-loading mechanism
> >   like with my earlier film scanners.  The movable
> >   film-holder slows everything down.  Each time you
> >   enter the TWAIN driver you need to re-acquire
> >   thumbnails and the preview of the image you want
> >   to scan.  Slows things down a lot.
> >
> >   This could be avoided by using NikonScan "stand-
> >   alone" but the problem there is that its TIFF
> >   file "save" operation is so dreadfully slow, it
> >   would negate any time savings.  (Takes as long
> >   to save a 170 MB TIFF file as it took to make
> >   the scan in the first place.)
> >
> >* Banding issues on dense slides/negatives.  The
> >   workaround is to use "SuperFine" scan mode but
> >   that slows down scanning by a factor of three.
> >
> >In summary:  it does the essential functions very
> >well, but with a number of quirks and bothersome
> >user-interface headaches.  The banding issue is the
> >most worrisome; I've only seen this in the last
> >24 hours or so.  The "Super Fine Scan" fix seems to
> >work so far, but I'll feel better about this after
> >I've tested it some more.