Pacific Image Electronics PrimeFilm 3600Pro

Review Date
January 17, 2004

Overall Rating
 1 of 5

Value Rating
 1 of 5

Used product for
0-1 years

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 1 votes

Reviewed by
AndrewSE20 , Professional

Price Paid
$300.00 at Jessops Croydon

Summary
What an appalling and disappointing experience!

Although it installed fairly easily, and I was pleased to see that they had inadvertantly given me two copies of Photoshop elements by mistake (another example of quality control?) the hoped for joy at seeing my negatives easily and quickly transferred to my PC stopped there.

Initially scanning was just clunky and slow, and I thought that was how it should be, so I put up with it for a few days. Also I put up with having to do loads of adjustment to the scanned images to get them to look anything like the original print - I though that was the age of the negatives.

Then things got worse.

It started to scan only in blue. Then only in Red, then only in Green. Then the PC said it could not find the scanner. Then I reinstalled it. then It could not find the gaps between the frames (it uses a daft process of trying to find the gaps optically, rather than letting you put in a frame size, or just using standard frames). Then every frame contained half of each image with the gutter between the halves. Then it took me three hours to load one 24 exposure film.

Then I read the reviews on here and gave up on the thing.

As I'd had it for less than two weeks, I took it back to Jessops in Croydon, as related the sad saga to the deputy manager. He (and all the other staff) agreed that if was a terrible product, and they would not sell it to anyone unless they specifically asked for it. (which I had done based on the specs before I found this site) - despite the fact that they market it as their "own brand scanner".

He took the scanner back, and recommended a Minolta Dimage Sacn Dual III AF2840, which has a slightly lower spec but is much much much better, and was £50 less, so I got a refund as well.

Strengths
Came with two copies of Photoshop Elements

Weaknesses
Not as good as cheaper products.
Clunky
Slow
Bad image quality
Noisy
Unreliable

In summary one of the worst products I've ever had the misfortune to own.

Similar Products Used
Minolta Dimage Scan Dual III AF 2840

Customer Service
Never bothered

Review Date
January 7, 2004

Overall Rating
 1 of 5

Value Rating
 1 of 5

Used product for
0-1 years

Reviewed by
Jorge Camacho , Expert

Price Paid
$710.00 at Cámara #1 (Mexico Ci

Summary
An overall dreadful product. In spite of its higher resolution it cannot compare favorably to a supposedly inferior scanner such as the CanoScan FS2720U which I intended to replace. Thank God I refrained from doing so!

The 3600 PRO only looked well on the spec sheet but the nightmare began with the very installation. On the other side, if speed is a concern I think you should opt for Firewire (provided that you want to keep your scanner.)

In sum, a very unreliable piece of equipment. An irregular quality control might bless you with a good sample (ever bought a Russian camera?)

Strengths
- Intuitive, albeit simple, software
- Small size
- USB connectivity
- "Supports" various Microsoft operating system flavors

Weaknesses
- "Plug & Pray" hard setup
- No dust/scratch removal technology (film strip must be spotless before scanning)
- No local support in Mexico
- Extremely slow scan speed using USB (up to 3 minutes per slide)
- Noise in shadow areas
- Works better with B&W
- Scans need extensive retouching
- Noisy
- Expensive
- No APS adapter
- Inconsistent scan quality

Similar Products Used
CanoScan FS2720U

Customer Service
Unavailable. The local distributor's tech guys are unqualified; one is better off by himself.

Review Date
December 28, 2003

Overall Rating
 3 of 5

Value Rating
 4 of 5

Used product for
0-1 years

Reviewed by
Maurits , Beginner

Price Paid
$150.00 at second hand

Summary
I just bought this scanner second hand (2 years old) for 150 Euros and the results so far are promising although I havent used Photoshop to the full extend. The finetuning of colours, sharpness etc is satisfactory for my needs.
It's good enough for amateur photographers.

Strengths
Good quality scans although you have to clean the negs thoroughly first.

Weaknesses
Scanning 1 neg takes about 3 mins with USB.
Firewire doesn't work...(any ideas please?)
No scratch/dust removal built in the scanner.
The communication with Photoshop is troublesome. After scanning 4 negs and letting it stand still for 1 hour you sometimes have to reboot. Also just to get the computer to communicate with the scanner, you sometimes have to reboot. It's best to scan directly to file and finetune the pics later in Photoshop

Similar Products Used
none

Customer Service
downloaded patches etc. dont always work

Review Date
October 13, 2003

Overall Rating
 3 of 5

Value Rating
 3 of 5

Used product for
0-1 years

Reviewed by
Jaime , Casual

Price Paid
$169.00 at Target

Summary
I had to return the first one I bought as a defect. I purchased it due to needing a scanner that would autofeed itself. I have 1000 film strips that I want to digitize. So far it is working out okay for the black and white. Color strips and slides are another matter all together. I'm having a bit of difficulty getting quality scans. I've been playing around with the setting, but can not seem to get a good scan from a good slide--noise when I go to the full scan size, but looks good at 33%. I will probably sell this one and buy another when I get to the scanning my 2000 color slides.
Came with Photoshop Elements, which is great for my use.

Strengths
Good for black and whites
Good for the casual user, even in color
Easy to use
Easy setup

Weaknesses
No customer service
Noisey
1 slide at a time

Customer Service
What customer service?

Review Date
January 21, 2003

Overall Rating
 1 of 5

Value Rating
 1 of 5

Used product for
Less than 1 month

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 3 votes

Reviewed by
Joseph Miles , Intermediate , from Flowery Branch, Ga USA

Price Paid
$450.00

Photography Experience
21+ years , Other

Summary
I have owned this product about a year and never got it to work properly. I had
2 well trained computer experts to get it operating, to no avail. product has been unreliable. not recommended!!!

Strengths
haven't been able to find any. I need better software.