Railfan Technology > Plustek OpticFilm 7500i AI, a 7200 dpi film scanner

I am considering buying a scanner to convert my slide collection to digital..

Any comments on the Plustek OpticFilm 7500i AI.

thanks....

bob

I don't think you'll find too many people with first-hand experience with the Plustek line. They've been available in Europe quite a bit longer than here in the States and they don't seem to have very aggressive distribution channels here so they are still pretty much an enigma among scanner brands.

I've always found the specs on the 7500i intriguing though, with optical 7200 x 7200 ppi resolution and built-in infrared. I use a Minolta DiMage Scan Elite 5400 II, which is hard to beat for image quality and infrared (ICE4) capability and offers more than enough resolution for nearly any use at 5400 ppi. In fact, I find myself rarely scanning above 4000 ppi as anything above that tends to outstrip the actual resolution of most consumer films. Sometimes though, the extra resolution is helpful for certain images, and 7200 ppi would come in really handy in certain, specific circumstances. But at over 300MB per scan, you're going to be buying hard drives like crazy to keep up. Unfortunately the DiMage 5400 II is no longer made and it commands ridiculous prices in the resale market, often over twice what they cost new.

The three biggest deal-breakers for me on the 7500i are, first, the manual feed system (you have to manually feed and advance the film holder for each frame you are scanning). That means you have to baby sit the scanner the entire time it is scanning. At least with the Minolta, and most auto-feed scanners, I can scan at least 4 images at a time allowing me to do other things between image groups. The second deal breaker for me is SilverFast, which, to me, is the most useless scanning software I've ever used. I know some people like it, but personally, I can't stand it. I noticed that Vuescan now supports the 7500i but on the Mac, it still requires the installation of Silverfast. No thanks. Finally, the claimed dynamic range on the 7500i is only 3.5, which is good but I'm spoiled with the 4.8 Dmax on the Minolta so without actually being able to make an apples-to-apples scan comparison between the Plustek and the Minolta, I'd be wary about spending the $$$. Admittedly Dmax specs are often marketing hype but I do know that the Minolta has very, very good dynamic range.

There are a couple reviews of the 7500i AI online in case you hadn't seen them. I'd like to see a head-to-head comparison between this scanner, the DiMage 5400 II and the Nikon 5000 and 9000 but I've yet to see such a review.

http://www.futurelooks.com/plustek-opticfilm-7500i-ai-35mm-film-scanner-review/

http://www.filmscanner.info/en/PlustekOpticFilm7500i.html

If you get it, let us know how you like it.

Cheers!

Mike

Thanks for the info Mike..

I value your input and will look for something else.. I dont want to baby sit it, I would like to have an autofeed to scan at least 4 slides.. I have a 1 TB drive so space is not a issue at THIS time, but I have a lot of SOO slides to scan so it could be an issue. I might have to buy a plug-in external drive (my HP m8525f have a slot for it)..

thanks again..

bob