I sold my Epson V750-M Pro to get the CanoScan 9000F instead. I'll divide my review into three categories: speed, quality, and user interface. ____ SPEED: I just couldn't get around to scanning anything with the V750 because the wait with every scan is just agonizing. It sounds like it has to rev up its engine every time. On the other hand, The speed and agility of the 9000F are impressive. I place several pictures at a time on the glass to scan, and the software lets you independently select the settings for each picture, mixing resolutions and corrections. Then it goes and scans each one separately. And because the LED light requires no warm-up time, it works immediately you can just get so much done! I scanned over 150 pictures in the first few days of having this scanner -- more than I did in the two years I had the Epson. However, do keep in mind that when scanning film and slides, scanning speed will be reduced drastically -- that's just the way it is, regardless of the scanner. _____ QUALITY: The V750 is a professional grade scanner (hence the almost $800 price tag) does a slightly better job with dust and scratch removal using Digital ICE. The 9000F uses FARE, which works well, but seems to not be quite as effective. Scans on the 9000F tend to be slightly more blue, but you can tweak that correction easily. ______ INTERFACE: The user interface is a bit clugey (is that how you spell it?), but it does everything it needs to, and while you're scanning a large number of pics it stores them in its own catalog until you're finished, then saves the files in one single sweep. The software seems to not retain some settings (I keep having to uncheck a box to create subfolders by scan date), but overall works very well. _____ CONCLUSION: If I had to choose on one hand between having the best scanner (V750) and never using it, and on the other hand having a great scanner (9000F) and using it like crazy, I would definitely take Option B. I highly recommend the 9000F for its beautiful design, easy setup, very good scanning quality, easy photo correction settings, ability to scan several pics at once, and impressive speed! Canon CanoScan 9000F Color Image Scanner
I bought this scanner primarily to digitally archive my 35mm film and slide collection. The scanner I was using, a 9 year old Microtek 4900 flatbed, was barely up to the task, with a maximum optical resolution of 2400 dpi, and it had no built-in color correction to remove the orange mask from color negatives, let alone automated dust/scratch removal. And at 2400 dpi, it was far too slow, taking almost an hour to scan a 6-frame film strip. How does the Canon 9000F compare?
1. "Street price", at Amazom.com, was $235 total, almost $500 less than the semi-pro Epson 700 flatbed film scanner. The 9000F can only scan 2 strips of 35mm film in one pass, whereas the Epson can scan 4. The 9000F can scan 4 mounted 35mm slides at a time, the Epson can scan 8. But for most amateur photographers, the $700 price tag of the Epson is pretty steep, and unless you have many thousands of slides or filmstrips to scan, the higher capacity of the Epson may not be worth the extra cost. The scanning rate of the 9000F is at least four times faster than my old Microtek at all resolutions between 300 & 2400 dpi. At higher resolutions, the 9000F slows down appreciably - a single 35mm film frame at 9600 dpi took about 20 minutes, with FARE enabled. During the scan, the drive motor in the 9000F is quite smooth, relatively quiet, and gives me the impression of pretty good quality. Other cheap scanners I have used sound like a concrete mixer.
2. Image quality. I have tried the 9000F on 35mm color negative film at 2400dpi, 3200dpi, and 9600dpi. The quality of the three scans are all excellent and appear to be about equal in consistency. I also tried scanning a regular 8x10 color photo enlargement at 600 dpi; the 9000F was very fast and the scan quality was incredible, resolving tiny details of the photo, plus dust specks and cat hairs that were invisible to the unaided eye. I have no reservations about the image quality of the 9000F, and can't imagine any other scanner at this price point could better it. A word here about the maximum scan resolution of the 9000F and what it means in the "real world". For reflective media like photo prints, the scanner can crank out 4800 dpi, and for transparencies (film or slides), 9600 dpi. But do you really need that much resolution? My one test frame of a 35mm color negative scanned at 9600 dpi had an interesting and unexpected result: The scanner's resolution exceeds the film's resolution by a substantial amount. Turns out that scanning that film strip at anything above about 3600 dpi did not yield any extra detail, just a huge increase in file size. It's possible that the extremely fine grain size of Kodachrome 25 or Panatomic "X" film might allow the 9000F to pull out extra detail at 9600dpi, but none of my film or slides are extreme-fine grain types, so I can't test that hypothesis myself. As for speed, scanning film at 9600dpi on the 9000F is very slow, about 20 minutes per frame with FARE enabled, so you probably won't want to go above 3600 or 4800 unless you really need to. A 3200 dpi scan of the 35mm film frame took a bit less than five minutes with FARE enabled. This resolution produced the maximum detail from my film; a slightly smoother result than a 2400 dpi scan, but you have to look very close at 200% zoom in Photoshop to see the difference. With the 9000F set to 3200 dpi, a film scan results in a 14 megapixel RGB image, but don't let this number mislead you into thinking that you can see tiny details out of 35 mm film scans. A typical digital SLR, with a 12~15 megapixel CMOS sensor (for example a Canon 50D), produces much sharper images than my film scans with the 9000F scanner, and that's not even with a high-priced "L" series lens on the camera. I DON'T mean to imply in that last statement that the 9000F is a poor performer, just that you shouldn't expect miracles out of scanning color negative film. I'd love to see how the 9000F performs scanning test charts shot on Panatomic "X" or Kodachrome 25. As for scanning color photo prints, you will probably not need to go above 600dpi most of the time. Although the 9000F is capable of scanning reflective media at 4800 DPI, most color photo print paper doesn't have anywhere near this fine of a grain size. However, for forensic scanning of "real objects", for example coins, flower petals, leaves, or documents, the 4800 dpi resolution could be useful, giving you the ability to see surface details that would be invisible other than under a microscope.
3. Speed of film scanning. The 9000F is way faster than my old Microtek, but probably not as fast as a $2500 Nikon film scanner. On the other hand, the 9000F can scan anything that will fit on the platen, at 1/10th the price of a dedicated film scanner. Loading of film and slides takes longer on a flatbed like this, and you can only scan 4 slides at a time, compared to unattended batch scanning of a hundred or more slides with some dedicated film scanners.
Following are my actual scan speeds for film scanning:
a. Scanning 8 frames of 35mm color negatives at 3200 dpi with all of the options enabled, including FARE (the infrared dust/scratch removal feature, set to "medium"), Unsharp Mask, High Quality, and Grain Correction, took 38 minutes, or 4.75 minutes per frame. The results were really nice, and all I had to do in Photoshop was rotate the horizontal frames to Landscape orientation (all 35mm Film scan frames are output from ScanGear in Portrait orientation). A few of the really big artifacts were not removed by the FARE engine; these appeared to be cat hairs that escaped my pre-scan cleaning and were still on the film.
b. Re-running the same 8 frame, 3200 dpi scan with the options turned off was 3 times faster, or 1.56 minutes per frame. I think that the slower speed of the first scan was mostly due to the FARE processing. However, the output of the second scan, although much faster, required a lot more manual repair in Photoshop, especially "healing" of dust specks and other artifacts. At 3200 dpi, some of the dust particles on my film were invisible to my eye, yet they still made huge white spots on the output image, as much as 8 pixels across. My opinion here is that it's well worth the extra time to use the FARE system.
What resolution to use depends on your film. For standard grain color negative or slide films, I suggest you start each session with a scan of the smallest possible crop area of your negative, setting the crop frame on something with fine detail like text (a road sign for example) or a human face. Scan this crop at 2400, 3600, 4800, and 6000 dpi, then tile the 4 scans in your graphics editor at the same apparent size, so that you can see them side-by-side, then decide for yourself which resolution yields the most detail. If you decide that your film has a maximum resolution of 4000 lines per inch (157 line pairs per millimeter), use 4800 dpi; you won't get any more detail by going higher. NOTE: The highest resolution color film currently available on the consumer market is probably Fuji Velvia, which has a resolving power of about 160 line pairs per millimeter (and even then, only with high quality lenses). Scanning this film at 4800 dpi will probably bring out all of the available detail. The only film I know of that's finer grain and still available is Kodak Panatomic X Aerographic film, a 9" wide roll film used in aerial mapping cameras. This film is capable of 500 lines pairs per millimeter, which is an astounding 12,700 lines per inch. If you actually had a frame of this film, you might be able to get the most detail out of it with the 9000F set at 9600 dpi, but it wouldn't even fit on the platen glass without trimming, so it's a moot point. BTW, Photogrammetry shops that digitize this film use scanners that cost about $50,000, and the output files are several gigabytes for each frame.
4. Long-term durability. I have only had this scanner for a few hours, so only time will tell if it has the quality built in to keep it running for many years, but it runs, sounds, and feels like a well built device, and the output image quality is everything I hoped for. The case is mostly plastic, like most all electronics nowadays, so it doesn't have quite the "battleship" feel of the $8000 Canon EOS 1Ds camera, but it's not bad for $235.
5. Bundled software and drivers. The 9000F TWAIN Driver and scanning engine, called "ScanGear", has a well thought out user interface with "basic" and "advanced" modes. It automatically senses the size of your source image and adjusts the scan boundaries accordingly, or you can select a scan boundary manually. When scanning film or slides, ScanGear automatically sets crop boundaries around the visible edges of each film frame, so you don't have to scan the entire film strip then manually crop each frame in post-processing (unless you want to for some reason). ScanGear presents you with several options for processing and retouching, including dust/scratch removal (called FARE), fade correction, High Quality, Backlight correction, Grain correction, and Unsharp Mask. These corrections can be applied to all of the film frames, or set individually for some of the frames but not others. The effect of the color, Unsharp Mask, and backlight corrections appear immediately in the preview so you can decide if you want to enable them or not before doing the actual scan. The scanner is bundled with Adobe Photoshop Elements v8, an $89 dollar value by itself (I haven't installed this since I already have Photoshop). It includes three film guides, one for 35 mm strip film, one for Medium format (120) film, and one for 35 mm slides. These film holders are thin plastic and don't feel like they would withstand much abuse, so treat them gently. You might want to consider buying a couple of extra film guides from Canon Parts Department (if possible) for the size of your film, before the 9000F goes out of production and extra film guides become unobtanium. Note that the film guides have to be set on the platen in a particular orientation or the scan will not be calibrated properly (the colors and brightness will be wrong).
The software CD also contains an application, MP Navigator, for file management of your scanning projects, and SilverFast SE, for adjustment of film scans, plus ArcSoft Photo Studio. I have not tried the bundled software yet.
Conclusion: The Canon 9000F scanner will scan any reflective media up to "A4" size (8.5" x 11") at up to 4800 dpi, or transparent media (film, slides) at up to 9600 dpi. It's very fast at average resolutions (1200 dpi or less), and has automatic dust/scratch removal and color adjustment built-in. Scans of color negative film are automatically compensated to remove the orange color mask and inversed to a positive image before being sent to your graphics software. The dust and scratch removal feature, called FARE, can be set to "low", "medium", or "high". I tried it on Medium and it seems to work, but on zooming in really close there are still plenty of dust speckles in the image (these are tiny and probably won't be visible on a re-print up to 4" x 6"). For what you get in terms of image quality, optical resolution, and speed, plus the ability to scan reflective media, film, or slides, I'd say the 9000F is probably the best under-$700 scanner available currently (October 2010). Highly recommended.
Also, delivery of this item from Amazon was incredibly fast - 3 days, and that was with the Free Super-Saver shipping! - Canon - Photo Scanner - Film Scanner - Negative Scanner'
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