Pacific Image Electronics PrimeFilm PF1800U USB Film Scanner

This was a fine product in its day, but that day was Windows XP and it's long gone. The manufacturer is no longer supporting this model. You should purchase something that is compatible with Windows 10.

This economical 35mm film scanner is exactly what I wanted and needed. I have a large collection of 35mm slides taken in Korea and Vietnam; this scanner allows me to convert them to digital images on my computer and either print, send or share with others. It has a great preview function and an adjustable quality feature. A great buy for the money.

I ordered an A/C Power Supply Adapter and received a scanner without an A/C Power Supply Adapter.

The scanner was delivered quickly and in good condition. I was excited to get it hooked up. I loaded the software CD included and I hooked up the scanner to the computer ..... and tried to scan a slide.......a message stated it couldn't find the scanner. I finally called the tech department at Pacific Image and was helped by a very nice young man. I discovered from him that the company stropped making this scanner in 2008 .....it is not compatible and will not work with Windows 8 or Windows 10. The software was impossible to uninstall. I called Pacific Image back and the same young man talked me through recovering my computer at a point before I had installed the software. While I'm disappointed it didn't work, it was not the fault of the seller or Pacific Image Electronics and I would highly recommend Pacific Image Electronics as a company to buy another scanner from. I will take time to do more research in the future when I purchase something for my computer.

I purchased this item about a week ago, and because of the widely varying reviews, thought that I'd chime in. Normally I just buy books through Amazon and haven't been motivated to review them since I usually know what I'm getting. I am NOT an employee of Pacific Image however (or any sort of camera or computer store). I am a graduate student in history who needed to be able to scan microfilm. I searched everywhere for a product that would let me do this. The strips fill an entire spool and are many feet long, and since they are borrowed, I can not cut them to fit a standard film scanner or flatbed with a 4-6 frame holder for negatives. Products designed for this purpose are thousands of dollars - not in a student's budget! I'd just about given up when I found this machine, and figured I didn't have much to lose since Amazon has a good return policy, so I took a chance. Is it perfect? No. The TWAIN software that came with the computer crashed every time I tried to do more than a preliminary scan. The Adobe Elements is nice, but I have an ancient copy of Paint Shop Pro 4 I like just fine. After several crashes, I emailed the company and got a fairly useless response from them. However, an online tech reviewer who liked this product had recommended a compatible scanning program called Silverfast. I downloaded the trial version of this and lo and behold, it worked. It still took some skill and some trial by error to find good settings for the film. It didn't match any of the settings, of course, so I had to try different film options until I found one that worked. I also had to play with the detail of scan and such to avoid blurring. But after a couple of hours, I determined the settings that work. I would assume it would be easier with a standard film type. I have some slides and negatives I'll probably try also just to see how they work, and if I get remarkably different results, will comment again. Is it fast? That depends on the detail you want. It does only scan one image at a time. However, I didn't find it hard to center the image in the scanner. It scans the pages faster than I can translate them, which is all that matters to me! If you aren't in a hurry, I don't think you'll have a big problem. In the week I've had it, I've run it some days for 3-4 hours at a stretch. I haven't had any problems with grinding noises. The scanner isn't silent, but it's in line with my old Microtek C6 - the only other scanner I've ever had. If it does break, I'll see how the company treats the warranty. So to sum up, if you have a specific need as I did, and you're willing to take a little time to learn the Silverfast software, you can make perfectly good images with this machine. I haven't printed any of them, but I am using them on CD enlarged so that just a few words of the original hand-written records fit on the screen, and the detail and sharpness are just fine.

Works food, bit lacks quality and misses the ICE chip that is very importante if you are an amateur without large knowegde (or time) in to photoshop.

Before buying this scanner, I'd had some of my 35mm transparencies professionally scanned, which produced great results but was an expensive approach. I bought this scanner in the hope that it would allow me to produce reasonable-quality scans at a lower price. Unfortunately, although the software worked fine for me, the quality of the scans is so hideously bad that I gave up in disgust after a few scans. Here are some of the problems: 1) strong pink tint to every scan. Although this can be corrected to some extent in software, there is a significant loss of color spectrum that cannot be restored. 2) Poor dynamic range: rendering of shadow detail is nonexistent. The most astonishing thing is that I bought my unit several years ago, and they're still selling this piece of junk now!

It's always galling when a product has poor reviews exclusively and a guest reviewer shows up proclaiming the company's virtue as only an employee can. It's obvious Pacific Image sent someone over to perform a weak attempt at spin after so many disappointing customer comments. DON'T BELIEVE THEM!!! This product is poor quality compounded with weak customer support. It's ironic that all of the reviews complain about the service yet the company clearly has time to counter opinions they don't like in a poorly composed anonymous review. That employee could have been helping one of these poor people! Nikon and Minolta are two reputable companies in this field - Pacific Image is not.