Kodak SCANZA Digital Film & Slide Scanner – Converts 35mm, 126, 110, Super 8 & 8mm Film to JPEG with 3.5" LCD, Easy-Load Inserts & Adapters

When I purchased the scanner, I needed a way to convert slides left from my father-in-law to a digital format so that they could be shared between all of his kids. Also, I was looking for a way to convert my own slides to a digital format. The Kodak scanner is great and easy to use. The setup is quick and the conversion is quick. The scanner can either be powered from a USB port on a computer or with the included power supply. The USB port also allows for scanned items to be moved from the SD card(not included) to a computer. The scanner is lite and can be handled easily. So far I've only used the adapter for 35mm slides. The adapter works smoothly and allows for slides to be inserted one after another without having to take it out and load the next set of slides. There are other adapters, which I may use at some point in time. This scanner is not the cheapest unit, but I say I get what I pay for. I would definitely recommend this Kodak scanner for those who need to convert slides and negatives to a digital format.

This little guy works so well. I converted 3,146 slides in my first outing and the client was thrilled.

I purchased this about two months ago. I own two other high end film scanners that I use to get quality scans of some of my slides for various projects. I have always wanted to scan all of my slides and negatives, but the scanners I own take two (2) to four (4) minutes to scan each slide, in addition to the time it takes to clean the slides prior to scanning. This scanner takes about four (4) seconds per scan. I read a lot of the reviews about this scanner with interest. I was concerned with reviews expressing concerns about:1) Image quality.2) Ease of use.I decided I would try this scanner and in the worst case scenario it would let me quickly see the approximately 4000 slides in my collection that I have not seen in 40 plus years and allow me to determine which of my slides I would need to re-scan with one of my high end scanners if any.This review only address how this scanner handles slides. The one thing I liked most about it is that the lens in the camera offers a good depth of field and the images are sharp corner to corner even if the film is warped. If your slides are well exposed it produces good scans and the scanner allows coarse exposure and color corrections for poorly exposed slides. Many reviewers complained that these adjustments were too coarse, I found that they allowed rough corrections for old faded and discolored film which makes further adjustments in software editing packages easier. I found that I was able to scan most rolls of film without tinkering with these adjustments once I had corrected my first slide on that roll of film. You will need a can of compressed air or a little blower to keep the flat light source free of dust which if not cleaned will make spots on your scans. An anti-static brush is also helpful.Below I will address the three areas of concerns I was worried about:1) Image quality.The one area that I wish Kodak would change is the file compression setting that the scanner uses on it’s files. This unit uses a 14 mega-pixel camera with the option to up sample to 22 MB Using the 14 MB setting the image files are only about 1.5 MB, using the 22 MB setting produces files about 4.3 MB. This indicates a very high degree of compression! I wish they offered options to adjust it. This is too much compression! I was fairly certain that my images would need some post-scan color correction. After a short period of testing I felt I saw a slight improvement in image quality from the 22 MB images vs the 14 MB images after post-scan color correction. I set the unit to the 22MB setting and I have ran all of my files through a batch file color correction in Photoshop Elements. To get files from this scanner to approach the output from my high end scanners I have to spend time in Photoshop manually correcting the output from this scanner. But 4 minutes vs 4 seconds and in the end I will most likely only need to re-scan maybe 1% to 2% of my slides, so yes this scanner offers a lot of bang for the buck!2) Ease of use.It comes with two slide adapters. One for thick plastic mounts and one for the thin cardboard mounts. Both of these adapters are designed so you can quickly push the slides through the scanner. I used the adapter for the thick on just a few of my slides, it work good for plastic mounted slides. The adapter for the thin cardboard mounts has a problem in that if the slide mounts are bent they will catch on the plastic frame on the discharge side of the slide exposure opening where the light passes through the slides so they can be scanned. To fix this I took a small jewelers file and tapered the top and bottom edges of the plastic frame on that side of adapter enabling me to push many of my bent slides through the adapter without catching. I had to bevel a little less than 1/16" of the plastic to get it to work and I still had a just few slides that hung up on this edge. However it is fairly easy to slide the adapter out of the scanner and then push the offending slide mount up or down while pushing the next side into the adapter which will push the offending slide past the catch point. Once the offending slide is no longer caught on the frame you can re-insert the adapter into the scanner and finish pushing your slides through the scanner. Thankfully the adapter is plastic and filing it down was easy.

Pretty easy to use and it worked well transferring 200 slides to digital.

I did a fair bit of experimenting with this over a couple of days. First, let's note a few things.1) This is not a Kodak product. Whoever is making this is merely licensing the Kodak name.2) This is NOT a scanner. It projects an image of your slide or negative and takes a digital photo of it.3) This has both 14MB and 22MB resolution. But the 22MB resolution is merely a software rescaling of the 14MB version, and doesn't do anything for the quality.4) Once you get used to the menus and controls, the unit is fairly easy to set up.5) The user manual is all but worthless. It is thick, so you think at first sight that is fairly extensive, but it is not. What you have is 27 pages in English (of which 2 are introductory material and 4 are warranty information, and the remainder of the manual is the French, German, Italian, and Spanish versions of that. There is NO description of any of the cables included. You'll learn more by simply playing around with it than you ever will by reading the manual.6) Others have said that you have to removed the 35MM slide holder every time you want to scan a new slide. My experience is that you can simply push in a new slide from the right, and it will push out the current slide. The 35MM slide holder will hold two slides at the end, so you will need to remove it to get the last two slides out.7) The 35MM negative holder is not well designed. You can insert a negative strip from the right, but it hangs up on the left side where the film strip is supposed to exit. So you have to pull the negative carrier out, insert the negative manually into the exit on the left, close the carrier, reinsert it, scan pictures 2-5, and then pull the negative strip all the way to the right to get a shot of the first picture on the negative strip. This also requires you to remove the negative carrier each time, which is another opportunity for dust to enter the scanner.8) To get a clean "scan" you have to remove all dust from the bottom of the device. A tool is included for doing that, but it does not work well. It tends to just move the dust around, rather than remove it. If there is a way to clean the duster tool, I couldn't figure it out, and the manual is silent about it. The manual does warn against using any sort of compressed air, which only makes sense, since you are likely to just blow dust further into the device. To top it off, the soft, feltlike portion of the cleaning want came loose after about 5 uses.9) The power cord is short—less than 1 meter. If you don't use an extension cord, you will be doing all of your scans sitting on the floor up against the wall.10) As others have pointed out, there are no instructions for how to hook this up to your television. I did not try this, but if you are technically proficient, you can probably figure this out. On the other hand, if your VCR just blinks 12:00 all day, you'll probably need some assistance.11) All of the slide and film carriers feel cheaply made. I can't open or close one without feeling like I'm going to break it. If you buy this to scan some 35MM slides and you break the slide holder, it's now a paperweight, since there is no mention of where to buy replacement holders.12) Despite trying for 3 hours, I cannot get this to scan 8MM film. (This does not convert 8MM film to a movie file; rather, it will allow you to capture individual frames as still images.) No matter how I inserted the film or adjusted the settings, I could not get an even remotely clear image of an 8MM film frame. This was a major disappointment.Because of all the issues I've mentioned above, I returned this device. I have thousands of slides and negative to scan. This unit is simply not for me. The quality is not great enough to print 8x10 or larger enlargements.If you are more concerned with preserving memories, rather than quality, this unit will probably work for you. If you want to make some 3x5 or 4x6 prints, you can probably achieve that. If you have plenty of time, this unit will work for you.But if you need quality scans that are actual scans, this will not work for you. If you want to print quality enlargements, this is not the unit for you. If you want to scan a large number of slides and negatives, this unit is too slow for that.