DIGITNOW M126 - USB

Easily convert 35mm, 110, 126, and Super 8 films, slides, and negatives to 22MP digital photos. No computer required, with 2.4" LCD and SD card storage. Review: A nice little box of tricks. - After reading through 'many' reviews I ordered this model due to the fact I had neagtives and slides of different formats. The little box arrived prompty and I was very surprised at the weight, size and fragitlity of the attachments. After one hour of attempting to read and comprehend the intructions I gave up for the night, had a glass of wine and slept on it. I woke the next morning with my challenge to get my head around this little box. After several cups of tea and a lot of patience and trial by mostly error I scanned over 300 negatives. Basically you get what you get! Do not expect 40 year old negatives to come out like your modern digital. In the 1970s there were a range of new postal firms like Trifca and Trippleprint coming out with a range of quality films and devlopment. Some of my old photos are very clear and some have that faded orange and awful green shade. Also remember that with the 126 you had those dreadful little flash cubes to take indoor photos. My indoor photos are not good. (They came back from the developers like that) Firstly the slide attachment is the easiest to use as long as you keep feeding in new slides. Remember that although you have a slide there were different film formats so make sure you press that button. Slides are fine. Next come the 35m negatives. These are fairly easy to feed through the attachment but this does involve touching the negatives a lot. Quality of scanning just depends. I have put my more modern ones through (only 10 years) old and the quality is OK. Better for outside photos though. If the negatives are scratched then use Picasa on your laptop. The auto adjust or ' I'm feeling lucky' buttons are usually enough to enhance the photo. If the photo appears very scratch make a decision is it worth it or not? The retouch button does work but it takes time. If you have any photos and the negatives are scratched then just flatbed scan them. You'll get a more natural colour. The 110 negative attachment holder is very small and I am still working on it. If you want to see a scanner then Maplins have some. Then you can decide whether to order one. If you just have 35m negatives then maybe go for the cheaper model. Just plan some time when you have time to use this machine. Yes it's pricy in some ways but them I have not found anything else out there that covers all these formats. Don't be put off straight away. Take time and have patience. You will be amazed that you come up with a past memory you didn't know you had so that must be worth it. As I said just save to the SD card to have bought and after you have done a number then transfer to laptop and photoshop. I have attached some 'genuine' photos from the past. The sandsculpture is 35m and from about 15 years ago. The old mill photo and the Jaws shark and Disney land is from the 1970s. The little girl is from the 1970s and show how orange and green looks. There is one from holiday of Tunisia from about 10 years ago. I am happy to answer questions. Two tips: If you have some photos that you can not photoshop those old greens and oranges then just turn the photo to black and white on Picasa and sharpen it. The results are so much better and colour doesn't always matter.These were 1970s again. See photos Also check the screen before you start scanning. As one reviewer mention there is dust etc inside at times. Take the adapter out and blow clear or use a hairdryer on slow and cool. It does help. I scanned a whole lot and couldn't work out why there were marks all in the same places. Easy to solve. I am now rescanning the photos I took earlier and they are so much clearer. Review: Ideal for capturing images for display on the web or in a digital picture frame. - I bought this to scan old 35mm B&W negatives for display on a website - and for this purpose it is very good. The native resolution of the sensor is 14 MegaPixels (MP) which for 35mm film gives a digital image of 3072 x 4608 pixels. The digital scan is saved as a JPG and from B&W 35mm negatives the file size is around 2MBytes (possibly bigger for colour images). This is more than adequate for any use on a website, digital picture frame or tablet - even with moderate cropping (post capture on a computer) to select part of the image. This resolution would also be fine for normal size (6x4 inch) prints. If you are comparing the scan resolution to other types of more expensive scanners then the native 14MP scan equates to a 3200dpi (dots per inch) scan resolution. There is a higher scan resolution mode (22MP) but this is created by interpolation and contains no additional image detail - the captured detail is just spread over more pixels. The only benefit of this mode is that it creates a finer pixel granulation at higher magnifications or larger print sizes. Using the 22MP scan resolution a 35mm B&W frame produces an digital image of 3760 x 5640 pixels - with a file size of around 2.8MBytes and equates to a scan resolution of 4000dpi. For my purposes I did not find the interpolated (22MP) mode added anything to the image - but for larger size hardcopy prints it may be useful to reduce visible pixelation. The built in controls allow for exposure correction (lighter or darker) and the LCD display shows a positive image - which makes reviewing the images from negatives much easier. For colour negatives and slides you also get the option to adjust the RGB colour balance - but I have not as yet tied any colour film. The unit does have a small internal memory (98 MBytes available) - enough for 30-40 B&W images. It is possible to use the unit just using the internal memory - but you would have to keep moving batches of images to a computer (via USB cable) to clear the internal memory store ready for the next batch. Alternatively you can plug in a standard SD memory card (32GB maximum) and images will be automatically stored on that. Apart from the benefit of being able to scan as many images as you want without stopping - you also get the option to remove the SD card and plug it directly into a computer to transfer the scans at a much faster speed than USB_2 allows. The biggest plus for this unit is the speed of the capture process - just a couple of seconds per frame. This compares to one to two minutes per frame for most of the more expensive high resolution scanners. The film adapter for 35mm works well - just insert it into the scanner and then feed strips of negatives through from right to left - adjusting the position using the LCD display. Each image capture requires only two key presses (assuming no changes to exposure correction) - press the Scan button and then the OK button - very simple and very quick. For bulk processing of 35mm images for use on screens this product is ideal and for standard size hardcopy prints it produces results that are as good as a 10MP camera.