20 Best Slide And Film Scanner (2023 Updated)

I had over 800 slides, in slide trays, that were taking lots of storage space. I have a limited amount of space so with this device I scanned ALL of my slides into my computer. Once they were inputted to the computer I picked out my favorites and used Photoshop to correct the color then performed a crop if it was necessary.

Then I loaded all the slides onto a 2GB, SD card and sent it to my kids. It is all theirs now. Pros and Cons: Pros. It works, there is no change in the sharpness of the photo. Many slide were over 40 years old and had started to change color.

Con. the device will not make a color correction. It will make an aperture correction, lighten the slide, but no color correction. The screen is not very large but once you get use to the size it becomes easier and faster as you progress with your scanning.

For what this cost and for what you get and how it performs I am very satisfied.

This works very well! We had many 50-60 year old family 35mm Kodachrome slides that we wanted converted to digital and then print. I really have no technical ability but easily figured out how it works.

Easily scanned the slides to the disc included, then uploaded the images to my laptop. All connectors and the battery were included – I didn’t have to purchase any additional items. No problems at all and the digital images came out great.

The scanner does do a bit of correcting over or under exposed slides and that helped. I actually was going to pay a service to convert the slides to digital but it would have been well over $200 and take 4-6 weeks! So I found this online and figured I would try it to save time and money.

I completed the scans and loaded them onto the laptop in one evening.

I was in the Navy 6 years a long time ago (1967-1973). I am a Vietnam Veteran. Traveled all over the world and shot a lot of slides. I have over 1,200 slides that have moved from closet to closet many times I moved without looking at the slides.

I want to give copies to my kids and grand kids. Solution. convert the slides to digitize pictures so it makes it easer to view. The Sharper Image slide converter is easy to use and quality is great.

PROS: the Magnasonic FS81 Super 8/8MM Film Scanner did what it was purchased for. I recorded 73 films assorted sizes and it took 6 nights. I had to watch each reel close so the film wouldn’t hang up or break slice (50-60 years old films).

Film clarity was what you see on the viewing screen is what you get recorded on the SD card, depends on the reel film. CONS: I had to watch each new reel closely for frame adjustment, mostly up/down adjustment.

It could use HDMI video outputs along with the RCA video outputs already included. When you are viewing segments on the viewing screen and you stop it always goes back to the first segment (annoying) when you are trying to edit certain segments, you should be able to go back without any problems.

The plastic reel adapters could be made better, they sometimes slip if you don’t have it installed correctly. The older 8MM films jump more than the Super 8 films. I recorded all 73 films on 3 different SD cards in case something happened to one of them I wouldn’t have to record all of them over.

Also if you have them all on one card it takes a long time at a Photo Center to download them to make them to DVD’s. That was my worse problem because it took me 4 months to get them transferred to DVD disc.

I have a Sony DVD recorder, but my first try at recording the final copy showed the onscreen imbedded display of the segment number, MP4 logo, and the running time and play/pause display. I tried taking all 3 SD cards to 3 different Walgreens, 3 different Walmart photo centers and their machines took a long time to download and some of them couldn’t handle it.

The DVD’s that they make for me would not play on any of my 6 DVD players(disc error). So I took the cards to a computer business(EXPENSIVE$$$) and it took them 2 weeks to put all of the films on 5 total DVD’s and some of them wouldn’t play on my DVD players either.

I bought a LG26 BLU-RAY player because I can play cd’s on it and record the music to a flash drive to listen while I drive my Jeep. It also plays SD cards from cameras(pictures or videos) to view on TV’s.

So I thought I would try the SD cards from the MAGNASONIC scanner that I recorded and play them on the LG player and it was great, no onscreen display showed up. So I hooked up the LG player to my Sony DVD recorder and was able to make my own DVD’s.

I wished I had bought the LG DVD player back in August because it would have saved me a lot of time wasted in Walmart’s and Walgreens. The Super 8 films had NO sound, but I recorded audio from a cd player to have music recorded with the video at same time.

I have several older sisters and brothers to make copies for. I couldn’t burn copies on my computer because I didn’t have enough space for all 73 reels on the SD cards.

This is kind of a difficult item to review because some of the quirks come from the old reels of film and not the converter itself. So, I will try to break my review down with pluses and minuses for this product.

Pluses: -Super easy to use -When the film reel is in decent shape, it feeds through the converter easily -Transfer from converter to laptop is simple -Manufacturer customer service is decent. I had a few questions right away.

I was able to chat with a rep via their website and even though my issue wasn’t solved, I appreciated their response time. -Shipper of this product was prompt. Item as described Minuses: -Time consuming!! Don’t expect to convert a lot of reels in a short amount of time.

Specs say a 3 minute reel takes 30 minutes to convert. Caveat:If the reel is in poor condition, plan on it taking longer. I have found I have to be close by in case reel jams or stops. This will happen if the splices are poor or the holes on the reel are damaged and don’t feed properly.

If you have larger reels, plan on alloting some time for conversion. These old films are fragile and can break. Can be a bit frustrating. Don’t plan on being able to leave and come back. -Be prepared to realize that the converter doesn’t improve color of an old film.

Some of ours have faded terribly and the end result is a blueish tint. My work around was converting these particular videos to black and white in post processing. Removes the blue tint and the picture is more clear.

-Frame adjustment to line up each frame correctly can be frustrating. Not sure what the work around us for this. In conclusion, even though this is not a cheap item, it is cheaper than sending old films out to a third party.

Plus, I don’t think they will take the same care as you will with your memories. I also like having control of how I want to catalog the videos. It’s time consuming, but the converter does perform as promised.

Any improvements to the original film would have to take place in post processing. It’s not perfect, but it is a solution for saving all of those old memories before they are lost forever.

I’m very disappointed in this Magnasonic film to video converter. I’ve set up a projector and screen in the past and recorded 8mm films in the past that turned out very nice when I recorded them with my digital camera.

I thought this converter would make the job easier and faster. Yes it’s easy and relatively fast but the video quality is poor. I will not recommend this converter to anyone who asks. Go though the effort of using a camcorder to record your old films on scree and projector.

The machine itself is well made but doesn’t make up for the low quality videos.

I could not believe the quality of the results that I got from my first attempt at scanning a 35mm color film from 1980. The software is very easy to use, the scans are quite fast, and I used the automated features for dust / scratch removal and balance / enhancement of colors.

The results were stunning. Pre-scanning, scanning, automatic adjustments took something like 3 minutes par picture. It was almost a push one button operation. One feature that I very much liked was the pre-scanning feature, which is almost instantaneous and allows you to really see if a picture is worth scanning in the first place.

I am frankly ecstatic and I can now share memories with my elderly parents. All their pictures from 50 and 40 years ago have faded dramatically and my scans bring these pictures back to life in such a dramatic way.

My dad (who has some issues with dementia) even thought that my sister on one of these pictures (when she was 4) was actually alive on the computer screen. It was a bitter-sweet moment, but I am immensely grateful to Plustek for making this possible.

Creates beautiful scans at 4800 dpi. Teams seamlessly with VueScan and my Mac running High Sierra to correct color and exposure values from some old slides in bad condition. I have scanned 35mm slides and strips of color negatives.

It has also driven my SF200 stack loader, with some intervention every few slides. Overall, I am very happy with the scanner. I produces better output than anything else i have seen at twice the price.

This is an amazing scanner. I am running it on Mac OS 10. 12 Sierra using 64-bit VueScan. All of the features work including the Digital ICE. It has taken old faded slides and slides with scratches and delivered incredible colour accurate scans completely fixed with almost no adjustments necessary or post-processing.

If you’ve got a computer with a Firewire 400 port and need to scan film or slides, this is a great investment.

This is the second machine I have purchased through e-bay. The reason for the purchase is, I do professional slide, photo, negative and positive restoration and repair. At the present I am doing preservation for 1st Air Cav Pilots tours of the Nam, from 1966 through 1972, from Pleiku, to Northern I Corp Camp Eagle just south of Hue, Gunner’s Gulch, Danang and on.

The first Nikon was purchased about 10 years ago, and I had to get it repaired after about a year, but still far less expensive than the 5000 or a new one. The first machine was for the restoration of my Mother’s professional work, Hydroplane race reporting and slides of her National work in the late 50’s through the early 70’s.

The average scan capability with ICE at fair and ROC and GEM on moderate, is about 17 slides per hour. That is the highest repair I let the machine do. Any higher and you loose personal touch. I then repair and restore via a very simple photo program.

All the above work requires the most professional equipment you can get for a resonable price. To me that is the Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 ed. After learning to operate this machine, it is fairly automatic for a person to do this.

One needs to understand that the cost for a one time use for most is probably not worth it. Far better to have professionals do the work for you. One that does each slide one at a time, not with a batch scanner and machine fixing.

As far as the Nikon goes, I would not have purchased another if the machine was not Top of the Line, in my opinion. Thank You for Your Time, and I hope this helps. Popcorn590.

Bought this to allow Apple Car play to work in my new MBZ. Works perfectly as well as MBZ’s $70 adapter cable.

The scanner works very well, and scans my slides properly. I is a bit slow when scanning in high resolution, but the scans are worth waiting for. It comes with two controlling apps: CyberviewX5, and Silverfast8.

Cyberview is sparse and has limited capability to edit the resulting scans. Silverfast8 has more capability, but is awkward in its use. Since I have Photoshop I do all my editing in that, and use Cyberview to only generate a scan and do all my retouching in Photoshop.

If you do not have Photoshop, then you are likely to want to use Silverfast as your controlling software.

After doing some online research, I finally decided to take a jump on this model to cater for our plan to digitalise some of the negatives which deteriorated over 30-35 years. First we bought the unit from Malaysia.

At the local Custom dept we were charged additional 10% duty fee, which added on to our cost. The unit came with the default cyberview, with free silverfast SE 8, updated to the latest version online.

Just like everyone else, the software is the most crucial element in this project. The hardware does the job as prescribed. Its swift, rather silent ( I read about noisy earlier model but without comparison I can’t tell the difference), and pretty straight forward in its functionality.

Setting up was quick and easy. I use a Window 10 laptop for the job which is free from other connected accessories except perhaps a usb mouse. So there was no conflict issue for me. In term of softwares, Cyberview works slower than silverfast 8 SE, which I suspect it could be due to Cyberview additional step to calibrate the scan before the proper scan itself.

After a few test, I decided that Silverfast SE 8. 8 (after being updated) served me best for both speed and colour correction. Silverfast 8 does not equiped with multiple scan function which can take advantage of the hardware ability.

One will need to upgrade the software to Studio AI version which for us would be over priced. Nonetheless old negatives have lots of scratches and dust plus grains which silverfast’s auto grain and dust removal works really well.

So we ended up prefer the silverfast software ability than Cyberview’s multiple scans feature. The end results are very satisfactory. With proper manual colour tune, the scanned images are of very high quality.

For those home user like us who does not need to print the images, 10000 dpi is a little over kill. One can save some cash to get lower spec model but its good to divert fund to upgrade the software for better functionality, AI features, or even multiple pass features.

In short we are satisfy with the purchase.

After testing different scanners from different brands, this is one of my top 2 scanners for scanning slides and negatives. The king is the XAs because of its ability to focus up and down and auto-feed negatives, but the tray system on the XEs opens the door for many different negative sizes.

You can get 3D-printed trays on eBay for 126 and other negative sizes. The scans are very sharp, and the price is excellent! One tip: use VueScan software for the best results and control.

The most important feature of this scanner is the Digital ICE implementation. The combination of the infrared LED scanning and dust removal really works. This saves much post-processing time. However, the scanner is NOT a speed demon! If you are looking for faster scans and more efficiency, a different model with the batch adaptor would be better.

The 4000dpi scans are very impressive (I have not tried lower resolutions yet) but of course large (up to 60mb)(TIF). The scanner is solidly built. I am using it with VueScan. Color accuracy is reasonable, but of course depends on film type and condition.

Many of my slides are old and faded. I had high expectations due to the reputation of these scanners, and they have been exceeded! Loses one star for slow speed. Highly recommended.

I was really grateful to purchase this product as a replacement for my Nikon LS40. Together with Vue Scan software these scanners are so easy to use. I am halfway through a project of scanning slides for friends in order to raise funds for my church re-building fund.

I have only retested one slide for colour so far and it is great. If anyone reads this can they advise as to where I can get my LS40 refurbished/colour corrected, via eBay sources, my this model has developed a nasty blue bias and scans are not acceptable!.

I would love to have a back up machine in good working order.

Nikon CoolScan V becomes a new scanner with SilverFast 8. Dynamic range reaches up to try 4. 0 with Multi-Exposure. The focus dialog in SIlverFast uniquely allows precise focussing. It is even possible to defous so precisely that you can get rid of film grain and keep all the image details.

SilverFast iSRD gives you full control over dust and scratches and you can even save the infrared channel along with HDR (48bit) data and do the dust and scratch removal later on in SilverFast HDR application.

Based on reviews, there is currently NO consumer level 120 scanner that works reliably. Hence the sky-high prices on Coolscan 9000s, which has USB interface, 16 bit color, and a more diffuse lighting system that doesn’t emphasise film grain.

Coolscan 8000 prices are creeping up because 9000 prices are insane. In return you get 14 bit color, a light source that’s like that in every other consumer-grade film scanner, and Firewire interface.

But you get close to an honest 4000dpi resolution, and nothing will get you that for cheaper, unless you find an old unloved Creo/Scitex or Heidelberg or Screen someone wants to get rid of. And then you’ll be dealing computers and OS’s from the 90s.

Have a plan for Firewire. I was never able to get it running on a stable configuration on my Windows 10 PC, but others claim they have, using the “legacy” Firewire driver. I wound up buying an older Mac Mini with OSX Snow Leopard just to run the scanner for a hundred bucks and.

it works fine. Note that Firewire to USB adapters WILL NOT WORK. You can match the cable pin-outs, the interface logic is completely different. It may not be the absolute best 120 scanner, but it’s very very good and by far the most (semi-practical) affordable one.

EXXXELENT scanner. Much bigger than I’ve expected. I run it on Windows 7 (THANKS TO SOMEONE ON THE WEB) with Nikon original scan software altough it is not supported by Nikon anymore. From my 6x9cm scan I get a 300mb file HAHAHAHAHA.

Film holders could be built better, specially for the medium format. And yes, there’s no holder for 35mm square format (24x24mm). I did i myself and put it into medium format film holder. I regulary shot with film (voigtlander 6x9cm, lomo lubitel 6x6cm, and Lomo LC-a 35mm).

You loose some time to adjust the scan accordingly. Especially for x-pro is difficult to obtain the colors of the lab. It cost money, I’d like to buy Nikon 4000 ED, but it’s only 35mm. Any flatbed scanner is out of this quality class.

I was disapointed with delivery. The priority mail just sucks. 120 euros for delivery and it came damaged. Front panel was detached from the body and there is a huge bump on the rear. Thanks god it works.

It took me awhile to actually use this scanner. It keeps wanting to scan medium format film instead of 35mm film. it has taken me a whole day to figure out how to get it to scan my 35mm film. I am using a Gigabyte X399 Designaire EX computer with 32gb of ram running Windows 10 Pro.

My previous scanner is a Minolta Scan Dual III.

ok.