OpticFilm 8200i AI - 35mm Film & Slides Scanner. IT 8 Calibration Target + SilverFast Ai Studio 9, 7200 dpi Resolution 64Bit HDRi , Mac/PC

Plustek OpticFilm 8200i Ai S/N 5A2FAA000693 I purchased this unit from Amazon in April 2021. The unit was delivered in seven days, a fantastic delivery time considering that I live in Johannesburg, South Africa. The unit was well-packed and undamaged upon arrival. It was easy to set up and install the unit, and I could start scanning immediately. I bought this unit to archive my extensive 35mm slides and negative film collection. For this purpose, I intended only to scan slides and negatives at a relatively low resolution and archive these on a hard drive. The scanner is easy to use and reasonably fast, and I could quickly scan approximately 60 slides an hour. Scanning at 1200 or 2400 DPI and 24-bit colour was adequate. I experimented with higher DPI ratings but did not find any benefit. I experimented with the included SilverFast software but found it more manageable, in my case, to further process images using Photoshop when this was required. Over several months, I could scan and archive approximately 8500 images, both slides and negatives. Having completed this campaign, I moved on to other work. I restarted the unit to scan the remaining thousand or so slides in mid-December this year. I immediately discovered that the unit had developed a fault: every other slide failed to scan, the unit jamming and emitting a shrill buzzing sound. This could be stopped by pressing the exit button, but the problem would return when scanning the next slide. To assess this problem, the unit's cover was removed (it was already out of warranty), and operated itwithout the cover. The unit's working parts, that is, the part that carries out the scan, move over the transparency controlled by a worm drive actuated by a small electric motor and a pair of gear wheels. The working parts are an elegant piece of engineering and are very well made. But the Achilles heel lies where the gear wheel attached to the motor meets the gear wheel that rotates the worm drive. Observing the action of the scanning unit, I noticed that the pre-scan forward and back movement ran smoothly, but the scanning movement attempted to overrun its limit and was stopped by the buffer at the end of its travel. This caused the motor gear wheel to skip resulting in a high-pitched buzzing noise. This could be ended by clicking exit on the screen. A close examination of the mechanism did not identify any means of adjusting the length of travel of the scanning unit. I concluded that returning the unit to the manufacturers would be necessary to correct this problem. Unfortunately, I live in South Africa, and the shipping and other costs to do this would exceed the unit's value, so I don't believe this is an option. So, this unit will have to join my ever-growing collection of dysfunctional or dead and obsolete electronics that line the shelves of my office. My assessment of the 8200i Ai is that it is a fine piece of engineering and will produce satisfactory results for the home user. Still, buyers should know that its useful working life may not extend beyond seven or 8000 scans; anything beyond that is a bonus. It presents good value for money bearing in mind the above limitations. Updateed on January 2 2023 Following interaction with the very prompt and helpful people at Plustek, I uninstalled the original version of the app and replace it with an updated version. This eliminated the problem with the movement of the scanning unit. However, a new problem emerged: the app froze after one scan. Plustek advised that this was due to issues with USB drivers and advised some s/ware adjustments. Acting on this advice did not resolve the problem, which may lie with a possible incompatibility with SilverFast or the new image-handling app that came with the upgrade. A workaround was found: a desktop or laptop with no prior Plustek/Silverfast apps installed was utilized. Only the Plustek Quick Scan app was installed - nothing more. The scanner now works perfectly. This is a possible solution for other scanner users who may encounter similar problems with the Plustek 8200i Ai. Best wishes for 2023 to you all.

I typically keep my reviews short and technical, but this time I feel compelled to share my experience. In April 2022, I purchased the Plustek 8200AI scanner and AI plays a crucial role - without SilverFast, the image quality could vary significantly. I initially installed it on an older PC, thinking it could handle large images. Following the instructions, I held off on upgrading to SilverFast 9 for later. As I started scanning 35mm black and white negatives, I quickly realized that when I reached 3600ppi, my PC needed an upgrade NOW. After building a new PC from scratch and installing OpticFilm with SilverFast 8, the performance improved dramatically, and I fell in love with the scanner. Now, it was time to upgrade SilverFast, and that's when I encountered an issue. I wasn't sure where to turn, but Plustek Support came to the rescue. They stayed with me throughout the upgrade process, even though it was coming from SilverFast directly. Their dedication was unexpected and highly appreciated. I intended to write a review at that point but got sidetracked with my scanning workload plus my actual work, since photography is my hobby. Recently, I came back to my scanner and decided to upgrade SilverFast and encountered another hurdle. went to Plustek for new driver and after - SF couldn't detect my scanner, and that's when I reached out to Plustek Support once more. David spent a good 10-15 minutes with me, reinstalled the driver, and although SF could see the scanner, it didn't cooperate. David identified it as a direct SF issue and provided me with a support link. By the way, SilverFast support is also commendable, but since the company is in Germany, email support worked perfectly for me, and it was quick. Now, to sum it up: As of today: I've scanned around 2000-3000 old negatives, some of which are over 50 years old and have never been touched. With this scanner, you can breathe new life into old pictures. I was able to recover images that my dad never printed because he thought they were ruined. It was a picture of my first day on earth. Just a tip: When you set it to 3600ppi or 7200ppi, it takes some practice and experimentation to get the desired results, but it's absolutely worth the effort. So, when you are thinking about investing into this compact device, you'll get: an outstanding film scanner excellent software for scanning and preprocessing your films, slides, and images and in the background (in case you will ever need any help ) - the best support team I've encountered in the consumer IT world these days. Thank you, Plustek, for the exceptional device and the incredible support team.

The scanner itself works great. The software however is a huge pain. It takes quite a while to learn how it all works and I imagine could be quite difficult to figure out for someone that is less knowledgeable about photo editing software. This however is not the problem. The problem is that with the 9.0.2 update to SilverFast, scanning will often break. You can tell when this happens by photos coming out dark, out of focus, and with one or more bright white horizontal lines that weren’t in the prescan preview. At first I thought it was the scanner so I exchanged it but the replacement did the same thing. Because of this I narrowed it down to the update as it did not do this before the update. The problem can be temporarily fixed, sometimes by changing the bounding box, sometimes by changing the scan resolution, sometimes by doing a full reset of the software settings (which by the way requires you to redo your whole workflow setup). The fix is never permanent and usually the problem crops up again after a few scans. When it takes 5+ minutes to scan at 3600dpi and up this can become VERY time consuming on top of an already time consuming process. I’ve tried contacting SilverFast support and they haven’t been remotely helpful. I’ve also tried contacting Plustek support but just get an error every time I try to submit a support request. TL;DR this is a powerful and high quality scanning tool with difficult to use software that broke during the most recent update. I will try to update this review if they fix this in a future update.

Kleiner solider Scanner der brav seine Arbeit tut, aber wie der Titel schon verrät, man muss Silverfast nehmen. VueScan läuft auf diesem Scanner nicht. Ich habe wirklich alles ausprobiert, an zwei iMacs und Vuescan arbeitet auf beiden nicht wirklich. Der Support von VueScan ist eigentlich ganz gut, kann aber nicht helfen und schrieb: "I suspect they (Plustek) have a deal with Silverfast that requires them to only distribute their drive with Silverfast and to modify the plugin library to make VueScan not work. There isn’t much I can do about this, other than discouraging people from doing business with such a scummy company like Plustek." (Übersetzt "Ich vermute, dass sie einen Vertrag mit Silverfast haben, der sie verpflichtet, ihr Laufwerk nur mit Silverfast zu vertreiben und die Plugin-Bibliothek so zu verändern, dass VueScan nicht funktioniert. Es gibt nicht viel, was ich dagegen tun kann, außer den Leuten davon abzuraten, mit einer so schäbigen Firma wie Plustek Geschäfte zu machen.") Ob das wirklich so ist, lässt sich von mir nicht überprüfen, dafür reichen meine Kenntnisse leider nicht aus. Silverfast 9 ist ziemlich unübersichtlich, viele Funktionen (teilweise auch überfrachtete Anzeigen) die ich in einer Scannersoftware nicht brauche. Sie funktioniert aber. Noch ein Tipp: Unbedingt das mitgelieferte USB-Kabel benutzen, mein altes Druckerkabel funktioniert überhaupt nicht und die Software stürzt ständig ab. Außerdem wurde der Scanner laut und gab pfeifende Geräusche von sich. Fazit: Guter sehr preiswerter Scanner für zu Hause oder selbständige Fotografen. Ein nicht zu verstehender Zwang die Silverfast Software zu benutzen. Wer VueScan benutzen will, für den ist der Scanner nicht geeignet. Ich werde den Scanner weiter nutzen, weil ich mit Silverfast leidlich zurechtkomme, aber ich würde ihn mit dem Wissen von heute nicht noch einmal kaufen. Wahrscheinlich bleibt der nicht mehr hergestellte Nikon coolscan 9000 noch über Jahre die beste Wahl.

First impressions after using this Plustek scanner for a couple of weeks are very positive, with a few caveats. I've used it to scan dozens of negatives and slides, and processed a few of those scans into large-format prints. Let's start with the negatives. The unit is light and unpacks simply enough, the weight of the unit initially leading me to assume it was flimsy in construction. It's not, by the way, but it does seem a lot lighter than my previous slide scanners. The actual scanning unit installs easily enough: plug it in, attach the power, attach the USB, and install the drives from the included CD. Of course, the drivers needed an update as soon as they were installed, so I suggest checking for the latest drivers at intervals. The second task is installing the SilverFast scanning software, which goes smoothly enough (with a long-winded serial number to be typed in). easy enough, thinks I, until I reboot the machine later that day and get dialogs telling me SilverFast is not installed. Yet I can launch it... And, by the way, there's an update on the SilverFast site! Two updates later, a couple of reboots, and everything seems to be OK. I get that the scanning software comes from another vendor, and the process isn't awkward for anyone computer literate, but I'd hate to be a neophyte struggling with the process! SilverFast. In some ways, it's way simpler than something like Photoshop (which I use on the scanned images anyway), but it did take a little while to get familiar with all the options and features. There's a wizard capability that isn't on by default that makes it easier to use, and slowly working through the options for a couple of hours will help most people get comfortable. The positive is that I am impressed with SilverFast. It integrates well with the scanner and once you get used to its layout and usage process, you can produce stunning images. The scanner is solid, too. Preview scans are very fast, and even the highest resolution scans take only a couple of minutes. One of my previous scanners would have taken a lot longer than that, so this was a nice surprise. Of course, you can only scan one image at a time, so there's no bulk scanning capabilities like with some of the more-expensive Epson scanners. However, the unit is easy to use, worked reliably so far, and has produced some outstanding scans of valued slides and negatives. Overall, then, a really solid performer and a good investment for my use. Couple the scanner with SilverFast and maybe Photoshop and you have a worthy digital image processing system. Nicely done; no complaints except the installation process.

Arrivato un giorno prima , un pò complicato scaricare i programmi ma abbastanza chiari Risultati buoni .Stò imparando ad usarlo al meglio GianPaolo Prando

El producto se ha entregado en muy buenas condiciones y el vendedor ha cumplido las expectativas. El servicio de atención al cliente por parte del vendedor es excepcional.

This scanner has all the features that I could want. At first the interface looked a bit daunting, but that is because it can do so much to perfect the end results. The only thing I find is that that the preset negative film types do not include some which I have used. Other adjustments make up for this. With high scan resolutions, very good quality picture files can be produced.