Customer Reviews

Tamarack Technologies 2400 FS Film Scanner

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I bought mine from Amazon for about three weeks ago for justunder $200. Considering that ProLab here in Seattle charges $3 perpicture scanned, it seemed like a good deal in the long run.

Myexperience with it so far: the scanner does a great job with photostaken in bright, even sunlight but has a tougher time withhigh-contrast pics -- especially those with big patches of black. Trueblack on a color slide often comes out filled with rainbow splotcheson the scan. (I haven't scanned any color negatives yet.)

On theupside, the scanner comes with Adobe PhotoDeluxe, which is a choppedversion of Photoshop. It's pretty good for fixing defects like theabove. A guy I talked to at Prolab said even the high-end scanner theyuse doesn't render slides/negs perfectly, and that you still need somesort of photo software. So the Tamarack's shortcomings may be commonto all analog-to-digital transfers. PROS:

* Scanner pays for itselfonce you get beyond 60 photos

* Small footprint; about the size of abrick

* Good choice for pics that will end up on the Web

* UsefulAdobe software

CONS:

* Doesn't handle true blacks well

*Documentation is atrocious, very badly translated from Chinese END

If you buy this product (or any other Tamarack scanner), beware! It will not work under Windows 2000, because the company is not supporting it with new drivers. Not only is there no support for the most current operating system, their customer service is nonexistent.

I called to ask for my money back, because I bought this scanner only 2 months ago, and it is essentially useless to me now that I've upgraded my system to Windows 2000 from Windows 98. The President of Tamarack Technologies, Robert Yang, hung up on me after insisting that his product does work under Windows 2000 without any drivers. Even his own technical support people can't fathom how a scanner should work without drivers.

I have a two year old Microtek V310 Scanner, which is no longer on the shelves, but I had absolutely no trouble finding new drivers on their web site. This is the difference between responsible companies and bad companies. As a consumer this review is the only warning you will get!

I like this scanner. The 2400 FS was easy to setup as it simply connects to the USB port. The driver software is easy to use I scanned a preview of a filmstrip with six negatives in 120 seconds, giving a separate image for each picture. Scanning time was 150 seconds for 1200 DPI and 190 seconds for 2400 DPI giving a 21MB file which is more than enough to print to A3 size. If you like well written manuals, you won't like this one, the manual contains information regarding the range of flatbed scanners and software that is not used for scanning slides

I bought the scanner several months ago and have used it to scan my family's negatives and slides for 'posterity'. Generally, it does a very good job. It scans quickly and automatically, four slides or six negs in a batch. Color renditions seem fine, although I haven't tested them formally. Compared to the desktop scanners that have a slide or negative option, this is far superior. Installation is simple if you have USB. It will also work off a parallel port, but I haven't tried it yet.

What would a review be without a few criticisms. First, Tamarack provides no jpg manipulation software. It will convert into and out of jpg, but you cant even rotate the image if its not bmp. You definately need other image manipulation software to get the most out of this scanner. If quality imaging software is necessary, buy something else. Second, it will only scan 35mm. We have some other format negatives and can't get them scanned. Third, despite that it is USB, I have had some trouble getting it to work properly if I turn it on after booting. No problems if the unit is turned on while booting. It seems a little loud and clackety. Don't try to do much else while scanning unless you have a very fast machine (maybe).

In one sentence, in case you care just little bit for quality and you want something more than only satisfactory pictures for your web-site keep out of Tamarack 2400FS.

Plusses:
Price.
If you see this you already know it.

USB port.
Setup is breeze.

Minuses:
Terrible image quality.
IMHO it is due to 3 reasons. First reason is Tamarack 2400 FS poor dynamic range that is not capable to keep even with color negative! So the image is crisp however lacks details in dark and highlights. Second reason is very old drivers. Believe it or not now in the end of 2000 drivers are dated 1998! Well, it does not matter how old are they. What matter is that you do not have chance to tweak the levels to somehow compensate for poor dynamic range. BTW available drivers are only for Win95 and Win98 despite advertised NT drivers. Third reason of poor image quality is insufficient signal to noise ratio that results in white spots in the sky (color negatives) or speckles in dark (slides). Also do not get attracted by 4800 and 9600 dpi interpolated resolutions. These are absolutely useless.

Bundled software.
You'll receive Documan, Textbridge, DocuPal 1.0 and Adobe PhotoDeluxe 2.0 with Tamarack 2400 FS. Documan is nothing more than interface to your driver. Strangely enough splash screen say it is Documan 2.07 but info screen says it is version 2.06. So what is it? Ability of Documan to adjust settings for scanning is very limited. Textbridge is optical character recognition (OCR) software a little bit strange companion for slide / film scanner. Yes, you read it right, Tamarack bundles Adobe PhotoDeluxe version 2.0 when other companies bundle version 4.0.

Technical support.
Technical support? What technical support? Well, it is not for this forum. I would definitively exceed 1,000-word limit.

So when I was returning the scanner to Amazon.com I had to remind myself: "For pee-nuts you can buy only apes."

One of the first problems I noticed was the negative holder was damaged, one of the plastic frame dividers was snapped off. The missing piece was not in the package, so I have to assume that this unit was a return that was not thoroughly checked before reshiping. During installation, I received a message that several of the files on the CD were corrupt. This may be related to their incompatability with Win 2000, which is not clearly stated anywhere, but I found out from another review that was posted after my purchase. The selection of drivers on their web site was very limited. I tried to download the NT 4.0 driver, but the installer crashed when I tried to run it. A message on the drivers web page stated that several of their older drivers were no longer available because they had become corrupted during a server transfer. I find it alarming that they did not maintain backups of their own drivers. I thought I had researched this purchase fairly well, but apparently some of the company's shortcommings were not obvious prior to examining the product, I plan to attempt to return it.

I was a bit afraid of buying it after reading the reviews here but bought one anyway. I found the negatives were far less than the positives. At under 200.00 this does a fine job on both slides and negatives from what I have found. No way was I going to pay 500.00 to 900.00 for a slide scanner for my own use so I about gave up before a tip from a photo store salesperson game me the hint. Not the fastest in the world but I have found no problems with the USB adapter, software or set up. I did have to get an update from the website for the USB but if functioned perfectly after initial setup.

When using the scanner and documan software make sure you go into the scanning options and set the ISO for negatives that you are scanning. The film I use is ISO 400 speed film. I scanned without the ISO setting and with the ISO 400 setting and there is a significant difference! Anything other problems not caught can be fixed in the adobe photosuite software that comes with the scanner.

Also, contact the manufacturer to have them send out there latest documan software and drivers. The most current ones are not shipped with the scanner.

The power button is a little wobbly and I had to return the first one I bought becuase the power button got stuck inside the scanner. Be very careful when turning it on and off.

The quality difference between this scanner to the high end ones is similar to the difference between Toyota Camry to Lexus: similar good hardware but different level of luxury. The Tamarack scanner worked very well without problems but the software needs to be improved: scanned images most of time were washed out and pale, they also weren't focused accurately. My protocol is: read the enclosed mannual and the FAQ on the Tamarack website carefully before installation, then hook up all the plugs except the USB. Turn on computer then connect the USB to the computer.A pop up menu will then ask you to insert the driver, load the Documen 3.0 to the CD-ROM and then the install process goes smoothly. I threw the Docupal into the trash can - My Microsoft Office does a better job than it. Then I turned on my scanner, started my Photoshop 6.0 (you can install and start the bundled Adobe Photodeluxe or any other twain supported image editing software in similar way), went to file, import, then click Filmscan Twain32; the documen menu lanched automatically within the photoshop. I clicked SETTINGS first to get 2400 resolution for a letter size photo quality image, 1200 for 5x7..., then went to image select, then chose FILTERS and set iso from 100 to 400 (the single most important measure to affect image looking), adjusted bright and contrast, and clicked preview. After seeing the preview images you may need to readjust the filter and scan image individully - the filter is batch adjusting only. At this time you click on the scan button and the selected images will be scanned into my photoshop work space, and then I retouch the image by adjusting level, contrast, color balance, saturation and hue - an excellent picture is done. Criticize: The Documen 3.0 need to be improved in color intensity - the scanned images are too pale a lot of time, if they can add another step of iso setting to 800 in the FILTER then the problem should be solved; the focus is not too good,adjusting contrast with photoshop helps a lot; and the FILTERS adjustments can not be set to each individual pictures and so was the resolution SETTINGS - this led to difficulty scanning all the 6 pictures at one time, instead you may need to scan 6 times for each picture due to different exposure on the negatives. The Docupal makes the whole product look cheap; it should be disregarded. In general this is a very good product at it's price. If the Documan 3.0 can be improved as I mentioned above, this scanner should be a supervalue!

This film scanner is a good deal for the money, IMHO. Contrary to earlier reviews, this scanner now works in Windows 2000. The reviewer that talked about a broken frame divider was wrong -- the frame is made that way (a partial divider between frames 1 & 2). I had some setup problems due to a conflict with another USB scanner. Solution is to have only one of them plugged into the USB at a time.