[filmscanners] SS4000+ and focus

["David Sirola" <dsirola@saylorsirola.com>]

Recently, I've been having focus problems with my SS4000+, which I use on a
Mac, firewire and OS9.2.

When I purchased the unit, the scans were razor (grain) sharp using both
silverfast and polacolor software. Since it's last firmware update, or so it
seems, the unit's focus seems to have gone soft on many scans, not all, but
most.

My first try was to contact polaroid, and they suggested scanning a high
contrast slide 10x, then disabling the auto focus as a "trick" to get the
scanner to re-focus properly. This did work for about 6 to 10 scans then
back to soft grain.

As a test, I downloaded vuescan, and disabled the polaroid extensions. Low
and behold, every scan is razor sharp. It would seem to indicate that
perhaps the problem is in the software?

You might say, why not use vuescan, which is a fine program, but I've grown
very used to and like silverfast and would like to continue.

I guess the question is, has anyone else had this problem, and might suggest
a fix, or does the scanner need to go into the black hole of repair and wait
6 weeks.

Thanks

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