Customer Reviews

Microtek ScanMaker 5900

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

 

 

One of the ways my wife and I kept down the costs of photography at our wedding was to use a photographer who gave us the proof prints and negatives and let us make the albums ourselves.

I'm a photo editor for a major web site, so I felt comfortable with this arrangement. I've scanned thousands of slides, photos, and negatives in my time... of course with my employer's fairly expensive equipment.

I was at [store], just browsing, and the advertising on the box said this could scan negatives and slides at 2400 DPI. Ummm... yeah.

When I started trying to scan negatives they came out horribly. The color was terrible, even with manual adjustment, and the images came out extraordinarily grainy.

I went to Microtek's support web site to see if maybe I was doing something wrong without realizing it. The support form made me state the problem in 250 characters (approx 42 words) or less. I described the poor quality issues as best I could.

Microtek advised me to use certain settings... the exact settings I'd been using, but couldn't include in my 42 words or less. I told them that's what I was doing, but they still came out poorly. Microtek's response was that I should buy a dedicated film scanner, like their ArtixScan, if I wanted better results.

Let me say that the flatbed scans of regular photos came out just fine. But you're paying extra for a transparency adapter that will let you scan slides and film, and then does a poor job of it. If you just want to scan prints and documents, buy a less expensive scanner without this half-baked feature.

I did a LOT of research on flatbeds that could do good film scans, accomodate multiple film sizes, and do it at a decent price. I finally settled on the Epson Perfection 3200, though the price at [store] was a bit more than double the price of the Microtek.

I have since returned the Microtek and am very happy with the test results I've had from the Epson so far.

Well, recently I purchased the Microtek 5900 scanner because I need a transparency scanner to handle my 35mm, 120, and 4x5 films. I went back to scan some film I took as far back as 1966 (b&w) and also tried out some 6x7 negative and positive film (6x7 slides), and 4x5 negs. I opened the scanning program and found the "simple" settings not to my liking and switched to the advanced settings where I could scan for various outputs: desktop printer, web, print (such as brochures, postcards, etc.).

I was very satisifed until I ran across problematic review on the scanner. I went back to check out some of the things the reviewer mentioned, "The scans were littered with red pixels (in a moire noise pattern)! They were also INCREDIBLY blurry." I found that by having the proper settings there was no problem such as the reviewer mentioned. I did notice some differences in the quality of the scans but, I also noticed the worse scans came from the film that was not developed very well. I made the original mistake of not taking the film to a professional lab for processing.

In addition to the normal type of scanning you do I eventually got around to scanning text. This scanner allows to scan text and then manipulate it in several forms: html, pdf, and plain text. I did find the text scanning did have some problems diacritical markings of French, Creole, and Yoruba (three languages I work with in my work). However, even with those limitations I felt it was worth having most of my scanned text editable.

To sum up, I think this scanner is just fine. I'm sure there are better scanners out there but, for the price, this one is among the best I've seen and used. I've used several different flatbed/transparency scanners in this price range over the past several years but decided to purchase my own instead of using ones in an educational graphic labs at the three colleges I have access to.

I started with a visioneer scanner... it was very fast, but had poor image quality and couldn't handle my 120 film. I took it back and got the 5900. The driver came up as untested in Vindows XP but I installed anyway. True as stated elsewhere, microtek's OCR would not install but it comes with ABBYY which installed fine.
Compared to the Visioneer, this thing is super slow but the image quality is MUCH better. A 600 dpi scan from the Microtek compares to a >1200dpi from the visioneer.
The scans from my 120 film negs are outstanding even only at 600dpi.
My only complaint with it is (at least on USB 1) scans are very very slow (my 6x4.5cm negative @ 600dpi took almost 20 minutes!)

All in all, even with the slow speed, I am very happy with the quality of the scans.

-UPDATE- I downloaded the latest driver from microtek's website. it fixed all of the issues I was having with this scanner. After turning off the instant preview, I have not had a single problem with this scanner and would definitly recommend it. Only issue for others might be a 15 meg download on a modem

I just bought the 5900 model and wanted it because I have tons of old larger format negitives and did not want to spend a fortune on a scanner. It has a very high DPI and yet I have not had to go above 500 DPI for great results. I was worried about slides and 35mm negitives but the 5900 brought them right out with great results. The software is very basic but just what you might need or it can be switched for the advanced but I have kept mine in the basic for ease of use.

Replacing my old 1.0 USB card with a new 2.0 makes this baby fly I am more than satisfied with the 5900.

This would have been a great scanner for the money. I could not get it to scan one picture after the other. The scanmaker program would freeze up on the second scan. Loading the software also created problems on my machine. Connections to the USB port would not stay connected, the computer lost knowledge of the scanner being connected. I worked through all their solutions to the problems, but could not cure them. The scanner has excellent features and seems to be built very well. I have had two other Microtek scanners in the past that worked great, but had to return this one after a month of trying to remedy the problems. It is very possible it will work great in other systems than WIN 2000. Good Luck

I am a computer Technician and it took me a full day sorting out the errors that kept the software from working, I had to get into the registry and clean out All references to the software, and after many tries, finally got the software loaded in Safe mode, and finally working. The scanner works great, better than I really expected, so far. Does great for my slides and negatives. Quite surprised at the quality afetr working on them in my Digital Image Pro 9 Photo software. I did not load any other software sent with scanner only the ScanWizard 5.

I'm going to have to disagree with the last review that states that he was not happy with the film quality. (...). As someone in the industry he should that only a dedicated slide scanner will provide professional level results.

I use the scanner to scan old 35mm slides that my father had taken and it works great. Color negatives are not properly suited for this scanner but my slides come out good enough to email to family and to print out.

The scanner is also USB 2.0 which I find great. When you do want to do a high resolution scan the high speed USB really comes in handy compared to the older USB. Overall the scanner is great for the money. Sure, I'd like to see it produce spectacular color negatives but you can't get a miracle product (...)

I bought this scanner used from a closeout warehouse distributer for just a few dollars. For what I paid, it gives excellent results. Optical Character recognition works flawlessly, the max resolution (2400dpi) is so high, I haven't even come close to using it yet (honestly, what can you do with an 50MB JPEG?), and the built in film/negative/slide adapter is helpful. However, I would not recommend this scanner to a serious (or even serious amatuer) photographer. Normal scanning requires quite a bit of play to get good color results, and I'm finding it's better to make a semi-flawed scan at high resolution and fix it in Photoshop, than to manipulate the settings on the scanner. The biggest disappointment (like some other reviewers have said) is the negative scanning. While it works, I can't seem to get either tones or colors right--scans appear washed out and "soft" no matter what the settings. However, this is a nice function to play with and the results can again be improved with PS. Other complaints are noisy operation (I use Epson scanners at my school's lab that are whisper silent compared to the Microtek) and the bundled Scanwizard software, which is clunky and quite slow. While it hasn't crashed my OS yet, it definitely hesitates for a few seconds after nearly every operation.

Overall, a great scanner for photos, text, and everyday use, especially if you can get one at a decent price. If you want part of a digital darkroom, go with Canon, Epson, or HP. I would even recommend buying an older version from one of these manufacturers with a lower max resolution (say 1200 dpi) as the only time I can imagine using 2400 is to make wall-size blow-ups from a 4x6 photo.

It's not very often that I buy something that works as is advertised. So I was pleasantly surpised when I was able to open up the box, put in the cd, reboot my computer and plug in the USB plug in the front of the computer. After that I was able to scan my grandkid's photos to email to my friends which is simple to do. You just open up the software and it automatically puts up a sample image of what is on the scanner. You just click the scan button or email button and you're done. Simple and effective is all I ask for and this proved to do both.

Full featured scanner with excellent software bundle.
High speed USB 2 connection with other built-in GOODIES make
this an all around scanner for home or office. Best value
on the market!!!