I don't know if anyone is interested but I bought a Minolta Speed Scan film scanner on ebay. I just couldn't pass it up because of the price. I know it's discontinued from production but it had a suggested retail of 1299.00 and it has had some good reviews. I think the last street price of this scanner was in the low 800.00 range. The buy it now price was 159.00 and I jumped on it. It comes with the SCSI card and cable. This is a new in the box unit.

If anyone is interested the link to one of the several he has left is http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4202&item=2946360740 . I cannot give any recomendations as to any personal knowledge about the scanner as it hasn't arrived yet. The guy selling these scanners has a feedback rating of 2015 with 100% positive feedback.

The scanner has a 12 bit A/d converter and a dmax of 3.6. The review I read stated that in testing the scanner would scan a 35mm negative at 2820 DPI in 40 seconds. My Epson 2450, which I love, scans a 35mm negative at 2400 DPI in 2 min. and 45 seconds. So for 160 plus 19.95 shipping I am going to give it a try.

Thanks Kevin. I have been trying to make up my mind on a film scanner. That pushed me over the edge. Guess we will both find out why it was such a deal. :)

Catia

I guess so. I have also been looking at the film scanners but have been held back by the price. I have to do something about the time it takes to scan the slides and negatives. Just this week I got 3 rolls of 36 exposure slides developed. I did the math on scanning 108 slides and realized that this would take a sizeable amount of my time!

Minolta still has this scanner on their web site but it has been discontiuned.

Well, I received the scanner today. I am tickled pink at what I received for 160.00. The scanner was just as advertised, new in the box and it performs great. I haven't had time to do an A/B comparison between it and my Epson 2450 but I am very pleased with what I have seen so far. It is fast and that is what I wanted and it looks like it will beat my 2450 in scan quality but I will have to do some testing and get used to the interface.

I thought I was going to have problems with 2 scanners connected to the same PC since both use twain drivers, but it seems to work good and I can still use the Epson.

Glad to hear that Kevin. I will let you know how things go with mine. Might receive it by Wednesday.

Catia

I am running Win XP Pro on my PC. I didn't use any of the software that came with the scanner. XP picked up the Adaptec controller all by itself. I downloaded the XP version of the Minolta twain software and then installed it. XP complained a little bit about the scanner but then picked it right up a few seconds later.

If you are running 98 the instructions and included software should work just fine.

Actually, I am running 2000 Pro.

Catia

2000 Pro will req the same proceedure as XP. Hopefully 2000 will find the SCSI card like XP did for me. I would go to the Minolta site and download the same software I did. There is a are instructions on how to install it. If 2000 doesn't automatically pick up the SCSI card you may have to go to the Adaptec site and download the "EZ-SCSI" software. The "plug&Play" feature on 2000 isn't as smart as the XP version.