Reflecta RPS 10M - film scanner

For the Price the scan is amazing

Been using around a month now, very good product. I purchased SilverFast Archive Suite separately which greatly improves quality of scan and workflow (need to spend a lot of time with SilverFast to get a good appreciation of the benefits). There is a bit of tweaking required for frame alignment which does appear to be related to the film type and camera (whether the film was advanced manually or by motor). The advantage this has over similar products is that there is builtin autofocus, IR detection (algorithm(s) builtin to firmware) and you can batch scan film but it does need you to be around to make it work effectively, to perform any tweaks on the fly but still quicker than manual feed once you know what to do. I've had no issue in inserting film strip into unit (all mine are in strips of four frames) but I would strongly recommend you obtain cotton gloves (prevent transfer of grease/oil to emulsion side and internals of scan unit) and a Giottos blower for removal of dust prior to scan.

Note: this was purchased on eBay not Amazon, but the same seller is also selling the same product on Amazon. This is a good film scanner for the money. The dynamic range is very good (although I haven't measured it scientifically), it scans very fast on max resolution; much faster than advertised. The image quality is superb and it has autofocus to ensure optimal sharpness. The scanner is let down in a few areas though; 1) The film strip feeding mechanism is very fiddly and annoying and is hard to align, I'd much prefer a film strip holder. It has trouble with film strips less than 2 1/2 frames long. 2) Pre-scanning is very slow 3) The scan lighting is not perfectly even, but this is only noticeable in certain situations depending on film exposure. 4) The included software, Cyberview X5 is pretty bad. I find it very unintuitive and lacking in functionality. The "magic touch" dust removal works great with Fuji slide film but is useless with any other kind of film in my experience. I ended up buying Vuescan (approx £70 to download) which is FAR better software and the IR dust removal seems to work with everything I've tried so far. Better UI, more intuitive and much more functionality. I give this product 3 stars with the included software but would give it 4 stars with Vuescan. Unfortunately, since Nikon and Konica Minolta discontinued their high end film scanners, there aren't many options short of an £8000 Hasselblad drum scanner. Update: I had trouble scanning uncut film using the negative feeder due to the curling of the film. My advice is to leave the film uncut and do the whole strip in one go. You will need to bend the end of the film so that the feeder will accept it. I have also found a few cases where the film is too badly curved and the AF is slightly off as a consequence. This scanner really needs a film strip holder. I'd still recommend this scanner though despite the negatives.

Well at last it's working. It's a good bit of kit - let down by shocking software. Prepare to pay extra for Vuescan or SilverFast if you want to use it seriously. Lots of options, quite tricky to get your head round, but I've discovered high quality scanning takes quite a bit of learning. If you can, I would find another supplier, I'm not sure if that's possible. My first model had a fault so I posted it back. It took A MONTH, and a lot of chasing up, for them to decide it needed replacing.