Konica Minolta Dimage Scan Elite II Reviews

Rating
Reviewed by: Patrice
(Intermediate)

Review Date
October 7, 2003

Overall Rating
5 of 5

Value Rating
5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5,
1 votes

Review 1 of 8

Price Paid: $800.00 from LL diffusion, Marsei

Summary:

I've already written a review after I bought this unit about one year ago. One year after, after hundreds of scans (mostly slides), here I'm back, for a simple reason: Minolta upgraded their scan utility from version 1.0.1 to version 1.1.0 to support the Dimage 5400, then added back the support for the "old" scanners (incl. the Elite II) in their recent 1.1.1 (download at their site). This is a very good sign of customer care from Minolta, as some of these units are discontinued. With this new utility, all strengths remain, and a few weaknesses that I pointed out dissappeared. The exposure control was greatly improved: in full manual mode, you get all exposure histograms in a few seconds, then adjust them with simple controls, and get a perfectly exposed scan right at the first scan, with all the 4.2 dynamics used at full!!! With the new 5400 around, the prices for this unit are dropping, and it's really a great value, unless you REALLY need the 100Mb/200Mb images provided by the 5400 (honestly, who does???). Also, I hooked it Firewire: much faster, no more banding AT ALL...

Strengths:

Sharp! Scans the film grain with Elite/Sensia ISO 100 High dynamics: fine even for difficult slides Cheaper Batch processing (film 6 at a time, slides 4 at a time) Easy to use ("easy mode" utility) and expert utility available. Fast. ICE, GEM are perfect for productivity. ROC is absolutely amazing... I used it with fairly faded slides (completely turned to magenta) and the colors popped up magically! It can also be used to fix color casts from light sources (daylight film in tungsten light => fixed automagically!!!)

Weaknesses:

With v1.1.1, some weaknesses I highlighted 1 yr ago have disappeared: you are not forced to enter the file format at each scan, and you can now increase image numbers in sequence over multiple scan batches. A bit noisy. Autofocus a bit slow (but configurable)

Similar Products Used:

Epson Perfection 2450 (very good, but for 35mm, NOTHING COMPARABLE, by far)

Customer Service:

Not used. On their support web site, you can find new versions of the drivers (1.1.1), that supports older products... Look around, this is NOT the case for all brands!

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Rating
Reviewed by: George Agasandian
(Expert)

Review Date
April 8, 2003

Overall Rating
4 of 5

Value Rating
5 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Review 2 of 8

Price Paid: $685.00 from Jugend Bros' / Tel-A

Summary:

It is mu upgrade from Minolta Scan Dual II. Both are good machines. But DigitalICE makes the difference. It saves a lot of time for post-scan process. In my opnion, it's a great unit for nice price.

Strengths:

DigitalICE

Weaknesses:

- noise - AutoCrop does not work correctly in many cases - Original Minolta Software does not set correct exposure in some cases (VueScan does it much better)

Similar Products Used:

Minolta Sna Dual II

Customer Service:

not required yet

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Rating
Reviewed by: PeterMorris
(Beginner)

Review Date
February 16, 2003

Overall Rating
5 of 5

Value Rating
5 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Review 3 of 8

Price Paid: $699.00 from \Worldwide Direct, I

Summary:

My only experience with scanning slides has been with my UMAX 6450 flatbed scanner. Initially, I had the dreaded horizontal banding in my images. My systems was a 733mHz PC running Win98SE, and my connection was both IEEE-1394 and USB. Coincidental with the acquisition of this scanner, I upgraded my systems to a 2.43gHz PC running WinXP. Once I managed to get the 1394 board to work (and it took a bit of work!), the scanner has been fabulous! No banding, great brightness and color. The software substantially reduces the amount of time touching up images in Photoshop. Most images don't get touched up at all.

Strengths:

The software is pretty good (to this admitted novice) at grabbing accurate images or correcting dark or washed out ones, I have a few commercial slides acquired in the early '60s that almost completely shifted to reds. When I tried to correct them in Photoshop, I was unable to figure out how to get a good image; the Dimage Scan software corrected the images with blues and whites looking as I imagine they originally looked. Works for me!

Weaknesses:

Automated scans work if each image in the set of 4 is of approximately the same imgae qualities; if one is significantly darker or more saturated, the results have required me to go back and redo the scan in manual mode.

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Rating
Reviewed by: ed
(Casual)

Review Date
November 14, 2002

Overall Rating
4 of 5

Value Rating
5 of 5

Used product for
Less than 1 month

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5,
2 votes

Review 4 of 8

Price Paid: $625.00 from London Drugs

Summary:

Absolutely AWESOME! Purchasing this scanner has brought my 35mm film back to life. I've been scanning nonstop since I bought it. I'll be postponing purchasing a digicam for awhile. Images come out sharp! Colors are accurate and vivid.

Strengths:

Amazing clarity! Vibrant color! ICE, GEM and ROC work wonderuflly. I set eveything on Auto - put my film and and when i come back it's all done and PERFECT

Weaknesses:

Even with GEM on some skies look very grainy. a tad slow - but that might be my computer. Long film strip batch scanning would be nice as it can only scan 6 frames at a time.

Similar Products Used:

PrimeFilm 1800u

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Rating
Reviewed by: maduca
(Expert)

Review Date
November 4, 2002

Overall Rating
1 of 5

Value Rating
1 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Visitors rate this review
3.00 of 5,
2 votes

Review 5 of 8

Price Paid: $720.00 from PC Mall

Summary:

Reading the reviews here I can only think I got a lemon product. The scanner is only 3 months old and it will produce some good scans, however, some scans will be horribily noisy. All settings were tried. Negative is new and the print that came from the lab is outstanding. When I scan the same negative on my flatbed Epson 2450, the outcome is completely different (for much better!). If you think the Epson is only $300.00 and this scanner is a FILM scanner for over $700, it's hard to understand. I finally sent it back to Minolta last week with files of the scan, the original negative and the print. It took them only 3 days to send it back. Very fast indeed. Now I just plugged it back, and the results are MUCH WORSE! I don't know what they did. I'm frustated because now it's too late to send it back to PC MAll, but the product in my opinion is a piece of garbage. That or this one is deffective and service just turned it around and sent it back to me. If I make a scan of the PRINT, the result will be much better. The minolta worked fine with slides but for some odd reason it won't perform with negatives in a acceptable manner. NOISE LEVELS ARE HORRIFYING!

Strengths:

I can't think of any. I'm the kind of customer that doesn't price shop too much. If the result is good and I can afford I'll pay. But this scanner, as it is, not even FREE. I'll gladly pay $1,600 for the Nikon 4000 and see if someone will settle for this kind of quality, or if Minolta will try again and fix the problem.

Similar Products Used:

Epson 2450

Customer Service:

Good on the phone. Service, read above.

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