Reflecta x8 - how bad?

[hoftwi]

Hi all,

Haven't been in this section for a while as I spent most of my free time in macro but I would like to shoot more films like I used to. Long story cuts short, I had a Epson V500 and sold it due to not being used enough and as I said I took less films now, so it was easier to send them to the lab to get processed.

Now I want to go back to the game but don't want to spend too much and I found this Reflecta X8 from AG that they sell it as part of a complete film processing kit. Read some comments here and googling around, I expect it won't be a very good quality one (you get what you pay for anyway), but I would like to know how bad is it? Will it match with the supermarket like Asda/Tesco?

Your comments will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

 

[ChrisR]

Hi all,

Haven't been in this section for a while as I spent most of my free time in macro but I would like to shoot more films like I used to. Long story cuts short, I had a Epson V500 and sold it due to not being used enough and as I said I took less films now, so it was easier to send them to the lab to get processed.

Now I want to go back to the game but don't want to spend too much and I found this Reflecta X8 from AG that they sell it as part of a complete film processing kit. Read some comments here and googling around, I expect it won't be a very good quality one (you get what you pay for anyway), but I would like to know how bad is it? Will it match with the supermarket like Asda/Tesco?

Your comments will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

I think the general answer for scanners like these, particularly if you are interested in colour negative film is: don't. Just don't.

This one looks as if it might be a little bit better; most record the images to a SD card that you then use to transfer to your computer later, so there is absolutely no possibility of control over the scan. This one has a USB connection and some software. But the manual provides no hint that the software takes colour negative film stock into account at all. the scanner is basically just a 5mp camera that transfers its images to the computer. If you treated negatives as positives, captured TIFFs, and then used the ColorPerfect Photoshop (or Elements) plugin to do the inversion, it might just be OK. But I'd suggest spending a few more £ on a used V500!

 

[hoftwi]

Thanks Chris for the reply I don't expect it would produce any decent quality scans and hope I can get away with its ok scans, but as you advised: don't.Just don't. I think I should keep my hands off it then.

 

[pingu666]

if you have a flat field macro lens then use that with like a tablet as a backlight to photo the negatives. its much quicker than a flatbed