If you are going to buy one do it soon. The $200US rebate ends at the end of this month. If you can find one, they are selling for under $450 right now (including the rebate) as it's being replaced by a new model. The new model will have 14-bit color depth and USB and Firewire interfaces. But the SS4000 was a good scanner when I bought mine less than a year ago for $1400, so you'd be out of your mind not to buy one now.
You can probably get a list of what's currently included with the scanner from either the Polaroid web site or from the web site of someone like B&H Photo. Mine came with a SCSI cable and a SCSI card. The end of the cable that attaches to the card was a DB25. I received a slide carrier (4 slides) and a film strip carrier (6 frames). The plastic spring that holds the slide in the first slot of my slide carrier cracked. It was a manufacturing problem and not a design problem. I've been putting the slide in position number 2 for over 6 months and it's working just fine, so I don't think you'll have a problem if you take reasonable care of them. (Polaroid sent me a replacement under warranty. They also sent me a spare film strip carrier even though I hadn't asked for and didn't need it.) So you don't need to buy any spares, in my opinion. (They should always be available if you need one during the life of your s!
canner, anyway, so save your money.) You'll get Polaroid Insight (recently upgraded and pretty good) software and SilverFast (very sophisticated). The SilverFast software will probably be the old version and it will cost you $45 to upgrade SilverFast Ai and another $45 to upgrade SilverFast HDR. Or you can get by with just upgrading HDR and not Ai. But you don't need the upgrade at all if you only do slides as the upgrade adds a very good negative profile system called NegaFix. Don't worry abut dust. Some people have exaggerated any problems to justify their choice of some other scanner. I've never had a problem. By now, your scanner will probably come with a brush that can be attached to the end of a film carrier and pushed through the scanner that will remove any dust that gets on the sensor that detects the presence of the carrier. If not, Polaroid will send you one for free. The bottom like is that it's a great !
scanner and the price is terrific.
By the way, I see you must live in Seattle. I'm across Puget Sound from you, so if you have any problems learning to use your new SS4000, I be happy to offer what ever assistance I can.
In a message dated 9/9/2001 7:41:18 PM Pacific Daylight Time, williams@u.washington.edu writes:
Hi,
I am thinking about getting this soon and have a few questions.
What exactly is included? SCSI cable? (what connectors?) Slide/Film
Adapters? One of each?
What SCSI connectors are on the unit?
I have mostly Kodachrome 64 slides to scan. This unit work well with them?
Any problems or concerns with dust getting inside?
Finally, how strudy are the adapters? Are extra one's worth getting?
