First Day with the Canon 8800F
April 13th, 2008 | Published in Creative, Reviews | 1 Comment
My first few rolls of 120 film were dropped off at Wolf Camera. They had to send them off and it took a week to get them back. Three rolls with negatives and 1 set of prints ran about $35+. I scanned the prints but the quality was poor compared to what I could get by scanning the negatives directly. So, I bought a new scanner.
I looked at the Epson 4490 and the Canon 8800F and ended up purchasing the Canon 8800F. I found it on Newegg.com for relatively cheap (About $185 shipped). It scans 35mm, slides, and 120 film, which was a plus for me and my new Holga. Since the lab decided to take a giant dump on my last 2 Holga rolls, I only had the first 3 rolls to experiment with. Thankfully I had a ton of 35mm to experiment with as well.
The scanner is surprisingly quick on basic scans, much more so than my all-in-one Epson CX5800F, but in a way, I was expecting that. The Canon came with three trays to hold the various film. After installing the 4,000,867 versions of software that came on the install CD, I was off and running. I tried scanning using the tray and without. There is a small setting that needs to be changed in Advanced Mode that allows the scan without the tray. I prefer that because it leaves the border in, something I actually like. For example:

My machine is not sluggish by any means, though it is not brand new either. Regardless, the software (when scanning at very high resolutions) seemed to run into issues when scanning multiple large images at once and/or using other programs at the same time. When I am running just the scanning software I run into zero problems and the speed is still acceptable.
I look forward to getting more film and exploring more into the realm of photography than I have before. This little Holga and 35mm sure have sparked a new interest.
All in all, I am happy with the purchase.









April 25th, 2008 at 5:40 pm (#)
i am still looking at scanners for my film. everyone keeps telling me to get an epson.