Customer Reviews

Acer AcerScan ScanWit 2720S Film Scanner

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Contrary to the first reviewer, a passive terminator is not needed if this is the only SCSI device in the computer and you are using the bundled SCSI card. All I needed to do was plug in the SCSI card, hook up and scanner, install the driver, and boom, it's working! You do, however, need a terminator if you're hooking up the scanner to a third party SCSI card (ex. Adaptec). The scanner produces excellent scans for negatives, and very good results with slide films. Bundled software, Mirafoto, has ver nice features and is easy to use. However, for certain negative films it does not produce the most accurate colors, but that can easily be corrected in any imaging software (Photoshop 5 LE is included). For this price, this scanner is an excellent buy!

For slides this ScanWit an another one I tried both produced severe banding and noise. That was whether attached to the supplied SCSI card or my own Diamond FirePort 40 Dual - using different leads and the ScanWit being actively terminated. My reason for buying it was to convert to using slides for overall better quality. I can hide the banding by making the slides darker but that makes for inferior scans.

If you have one, you might try this yourself: crank up the brightness or the midtones on the Curves tool or Levels in either Mira or Photoshop. These bands occur even on a Raw scan. Now look for any banding effects...

Negatives are a different story. They are clear of noise and banding. I suppose it is the greater range of slides which pushes the scanner to its limits - at which mine fails.

Oddly, others claim slides are excellent and negatives are rubbish. Plainly, there are serious inconsistencies in these scanners. If you buy one, check it out carefully and make sure you can return it if it fails to be what you expect.

Thankfully, I can return mine. I will try another one and hope I get one that is good for slides and negs.

If it were not for the poor instructions and missing SCSI terminator, the Acer ScanWit would be outstanding in all respects. One discovers after hours of frustration and a close read of the poorly written (translated) manual that a passive terminator is required, but not included, if this is your first (and only) SCSI device. Also look out for the second "Press" on the slide mount. The mount should be drawn all the way into the scanner, with only an inch protruding. Once the terminator is connected and the slides or film mounted, it is a an extremely valuable,easy-to-use piece of equipment.

This is a wonderful scanne, loads of detail, with little shadow noise. The negative carriers and software are a bit fiddly, but the results are good with a little playing with the defaults. With a little looking, you can find this for a great ... price.