Description With the KODAK PROFESSIONAL RFS 3600 Film Scanner, your newly created digital images are as crisp and detailed as they were on film. A maximum output resolution of 3600 dpi assures that virtually noth...
Reviewed by HAKKI UZEL
, Expert
, from ISTANBUL, TURKEY
Price Paid $1100.00
at Allentown USA
Photography Experience 21+ years
, Outdoor
Summary The idea was to replace the darkroom with technology and with equal (if not better)final quality pictures. It costed me one full year of effort trying to understand and solve the problems. You can now call me a real RFS 3600 expert! I claim I know this machine and the SW more than the people at the help desk at their ceter in the USA and Istanbul. Its own software is FULL OF BUGS. I try to get highest quality pictures and no gimmics of the photoshop. Kodak's help desk caused me to invest further in my PC ugrading to XP + 2.5 GHz of processor + 1.5 GHz of RAM. NO, it is NOT possible! If you have any problems please do not hesitate to ask me. I solved many of my problems after making an extra $ 300 investment for Silverfast Ai 6.0. These people are extremely helpful and Silverfast is an extremely good software. The reason of looking at this page was to understand and look for a better scanner. I will scrap this Kodak and buy a better scanner.
Strengths It trained me alot to understand scanning problems.
Weaknesses SW doesn't work (especially on high quality mode, ie after 4 passes of scan), expensive.
Reviewed by Keith Broad
, Intermediate
, from Melbourne Australia
Price Paid $2000.00
at Ted's Camera Store
Photography Experience 21+ years
, Other
Summary I remember when I first bought this machine. It was new on the market, and because it was made by Kodak, people were saying that it would be a first class product. I wanted a scanner, because I was trying to reduce my use of the darkroom, and this seemed like a good alternative . . . . It is. It was also a good lesson: do not buy prototypes of digital equipment. Now, because it was a Kodak, I thought it would be ready to go, but it seems not. This machine behaves like it is a test version. The software updates are even worse: I now cannot operate the machine at all. Worse, the drivers only work with the Photoshop LE software it was shipped with. Any subsequent changes made to the operating system or upgrades on Photoshop are not recognised or supported by Kodak. The Kodak scanner is presently acting as an interesting paperweight.
Strengths Ability to scan rolls of film.
Reasonably good quality results.
Weaknesses Poor software.
Amateurish support.
Slow final scans.
Software updates appear to be designed to assassinate the machine!
Similar Products Used None
Customer Service From the one or two times I called Kodak, I found their techs did not know a great deal about the machine. I haven't tried since.
Summary This is a great scanner if you don't mind the bugs and the absolute worst customer service on earth!
Strengths Super high quality scans. 100 rolls of film free.
Weaknesses buggie driver, scanner doesn't show up under win2000 pro (have to do a hardware scan after boot) AWFUL twain interface. If you bought one before Nov. (which I did) you are out of luck with getting the Silverfast AI software without shelling out another hundred bucks for it! (This doesn't compute considering I paid $1000 for without the silverfast software and you can get it now for $800 with the software. If that isn't the biggest F You I have ever gotten from a company. Kodak even had the nerve to do a press release stating that current owners can also have all the benefits of Silverfast AI (If they pay $100 dollars for it). As if this is a gift from them. They DO NOT CARE ABOUT THEIR CUSTOMERS ONCE THEY HAVE BOUGHT THE PRODUCT) I have been in touch with Kodak 4 times and still have had no reply to all my problems with this scanner. AT KODAK CUSTOMER SERVICE DOES NOT EXIST!
Similar Products Used Flextight II, Various drum scanners. Nikon Coolscan 4000 (This is the way to go)
Reviewed by NYQUON3
, Intermediate
, from Saginaw, MI
Price Paid $1100.00
at Adorama
Photography Experience 21+ years
, Outdoor
Summary LaserSoft's SilverFast Ai5 software is now available for this scanner and what a difference it makes. It hasn't turned Cinderella into a Princess but it's about as close as you can come given the inherent shortcomings of the hardware. You'll find much faster final scan times, much larger and less pixelated prescans and greatlt enhanced control of image parameters, especially color and tone. I was ready to junk my 3600, which Iv'e owned since Decemeber 2000, before SilverFast Ai became available. It isn't perfect and doesn't turn the 3600 into a true professional scanner but it's a major upgrade that should please most present 3600 owners who use the scanner for non-professional purposes.
Strengths Good dynamic range of 3.6, high scanning resolution and great control of image (scan) parameters using the new SiverFast Ai5 software. SilverFast also allows greatly improved prescans and much faster final scans as compared to Kodak's software for this scanner. On my system (a Dell Pentium II 400 computer with 256 MB of SDRAM running Windows 98SE with the scanner connected via a USB port) a full frame final scan of a 35mm slide took 4 minutes, 15.3 seconds using Kodak's software and only 1 minute, 53.3 seconds using SilverFast Ai. The final scan in each case was 31.4 MB in size. Scan times were measured from initiation of the scanning process to display of the finished image on the monitor. Prescans of the same slide were 34.7 seconds for the Kodak software and 56.3 seconds for SilverFast Ai. The longer prescan time for the latter probaly accounts for the much higher image quality (larger and less pixelated) of the SilverFast prescans.
Weaknesses Neither SilverFast Ai nor Kodaks native software for the 3600 are stand alone programs nor do they have provision for automatically eliminating scratches, dust particles, etc. as does Applied Science's Digital Ice and Canon's FARE. Optical resolution (as reflected by the scanner lens) could be higher as well but should be adequate for most hobbiest uses.
Similar Products Used HP S20 CSe
Customer Service Good but slow. I started bugging Kodak about the inadequacies of their software almost 10 months ago which finally paid off when they sent me the SilverFast Ai5 software reviewed here. If present owne
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