Review on Pacific Image PrimeFilm Slide Scanner by Sheppard Priest

A little background first. I have been scanning negatives for many years. Over the years I have used several Minolta tablets and a couple of film scanners which I use for archiving. My 35mm scanner is a Minolta Dimage 5400 Mk 1 which uses a CFL lamp instead of an LED which decades later now takes about 15 minutes to warm up before I can start scanning. The scanner also has a very shallow depth of field (DOF), making it difficult to focus the entire image, especially on negatives that have curled or curled under the heat of a CFL lamp. Unfortunately, there aren't many good options for film scanners these days, so I was happy to try the PIE XE at 10,000 dpi and 3.9 DMAX. I figured it was finally time to ditch my Minolta scanner in favor of something faster. Unfortunately, these hopes were dashed with the first scans. Let's take a look at my experience. For comparison, I've attached 3 files with roughly the same area of the negative. The first scan is with PIE XE. The third is from Minolta Dimage 5400 Mk 1. The second is from Epson V600. Focus/DOF - Unlike my Minolta, PIE XE has NO autofocus. This scanner has a fixed focus and therefore cannot be adjusted. However, the depth of field seems more than adequate, as every negative I tested appeared equally sharp from edge to edge, even on curved negatives. The macro lens used inside the device simply cannot resolve 10,000 dpi, not even close. It can't even resolve 5000 dpi. I don't have USAF test targets, but if I had to guess, the resolution is probably close to 4000dpi. If you compare the first scan to the third, you can see that Minolta resolves film grain much better than PIE, even though Minolta has a resolution of 5400 dpi. I double checked this by scanning PIE at 10000 dpi and no additional grain detail was observed. Either the macro lens used simply can't resolve this level of detail, or the fixed focus point is slightly offset in the scanner's design. On the plus side, PIE resolves MUCH more detail than the Epson V600 (second image), even at Espon's 6400 dpi. Software. The Cyberview software is pretty bad. I didn't register Silverfast because I already knew I was returning a scanner. However, I have Vuescan, which is a very good product, and I used Vuescan for my testing. I usually recommend Vuescan to other scanning products and it works great with PIE.Color/Shadows - I've had no problem getting very accurate colors with Vuescan and PIE. I found the color and shadow detail matched my Minolta Dimage 5400 Mk 1 very well, with the PIE being a bit "cooler" compared to the CFL due to the LED lamp. Hold the negatives very tightly and evenly. You pull the latch and the holder opens fully, allowing you to position the negative, close and lock the holder. The film holder has small notches for each frame so it "snaps" into place for each frame when inserted into the XE. Unfortunately, this is the main reason I sent the scanner back. Mine was assembled slightly incorrectly so that when I "clicked" a significant portion of the left side of the negative was cut off and all of the black holder padding was visible as well as part of the next frame on the right side. There is no way to adjust this without taking the scanner apart and you can't put it back in as it keeps "clicking" in the wrong place due to the notch. This calls into question the quality of the PIE XE because if the scanner had been tested before shipping, everyone would have noticed that the scanner was misaligned and needed adjustment. Speed/Heat - The scanner scans relatively quickly. I would say as fast as my Epson and a lot faster than my Minolta. The LED lamp used is very cool and does not cause the negative to curl. scattering of the lamp. One of the things I didn't like was the spread of the LED light. On some of my test scans, I found lines running through them. I thought maybe dust got into the scanner, but when I looked closely at the negative in the light, I saw that the film processor slightly scratched the negatives during film development. I've never noticed this before because my Minolta 5400 diffuses the light better so it doesn't scratch. Unfortunately this is not the case with PIE XE, so no matter how I scanned the negative (upside down, away from the emulsion or towards the imager etc.) the LED light kept hitting the scratch leaving a line on the scan . The sad thing is that the infrared cleaning couldn't detect and fix the scratch either. This would be the case if I had to put some nose lube or something similar on the negative to try to diffuse the light more. The PIE should spread the light better so the light doesn't hit the scratches. Summary: 1-2-3 hits with not entirely accurate grain resolution, misaligned scanning and poor light scatter caused me to return the product and I didn't feel that trying again would solve all three issues. Hopes were not fulfilled, I returned to slow scanning with Minolta, hoping that someone will develop a better scanner for me (if you have such a scanner, write to me and we'll arrange a test!). However, if you're looking for a new scanner and don't have access to a Minolta Dimage 5400 or Flextight, this scanner will likely impress if you can get a good build. It hides everything a tablet can do and produces scans that match those of various popular Nikon 4000dpi film scanners on the used market.