ImageBox-MF Film Photo Scanner

The manual is woefully lacking in detail — much telling you what to do and virtually nothing on what to push to make it happen. There are many items in the setup menu which name a function, but nowhere do they tell you what it means and what it does. Soooo, you are on your own to fuss around until you discover what does what. A quick glance at the manual told me to relax, play with it for a couple of days, and have confidence it will all come together as a discovery. Well, it did after about 4 to 5 hours of fiddling, and now that I know what to push to get the result I need, I must say it’s a dandy little device. What I’m reviewing here is only the 120 negative feature, which is the only reason I purchased it. I have an excellent Wolverine for slides and 35 negatives, which is much easier to set up & operate to make jpg’s from 35mm. I find my canon printer scanner quick & intuitive for converting pictures on up to A4 size, and can gang multiple pics on the platen — quick & easy. However scanning larger 120 size negatives has always been a time consuming chore on my flat bed scanner. With this unit, I can now go as quickly with larger negatives as I do slides with the Wolverine. The max negative area on this machine is 2 3/8" x 2 3/8" , (6 x 6 cm). Well, my 2000+ negatives are all 2 1/4 x 3 1/4, so lengthwise don’t mechanically fit. These pics were all taken in the late 1940's before zoom lenses were a common feature, so they nearly all need cropping to focus in on the action, which has a lot of useless background. Often I could not get as close to my subject as I would have liked, such as at a basketball or football game, so the action is taking place on only a portion of the negative and would be cropped as such anyway. I found the film holder is designed for 120 film and really didn’t easily accommodate 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 — took much jiggling to position it right and then everything would slide. I could either cut them down to fit, or as I ended up doing, taping a couple of “U” shaped paper masks, one a bit lower than the other, to the bottom of the light aperture, which will support a small portion of the film as I lower the cover. Using this, I can sustain positioning and scanning one negative every 1 to 1-1/2 minutes — 45 to 60 and hour — not too shabby. These are all black & white, so I’m finding the quality as good or better than my Canon flat bed and at a tremendous saving in time. I always edit my resulting scanned jpg files, so these require simple cropping and little else. As far as the box itself, they could improve it by having a way to tilt the front end up, so the screen is at a proper angle when working at a table — I’m building a U shaped block which will attach and raise the front end a few inches. Of course when scanning 120 film, the preview picture is nearly useless other than to let you know there is film in the machine — a thumbnail much, much too small for any detail. And yes, despite other opinions, you can remove the glass to clean under it. This involves pulling up the plastic frame glued to the glass holder, grabbing the flat bracket attached to the glass and pulling it up. Re-attachment takes a bit of gentle finesse, but you’ll figure it out. Whether or not it kills the warrantee, it’s nice to get rid of dust from time to time. Even with some of it’s quirks, I am getting lots of good scans on my negatives from the late 1940's. Rate 5 on quality and speed, rate 2 on the menu, — overall I feel ok with a 4. Hey, for the money you won’t find anything else on the market which does 120 size negatives. Someday, I may play with the other features, & will review those if I ever do.

This product is perfect for those folks (like me) that have 30 years worth of prints and slides sitting in a box, never looked at, and taking up space. If you are like me, you also didn't want to pay 60 cents or more per slide for professional conversion - in my case the photos in question are important but absolute perfection was not critical. In my opinion this product produces photo conversion results that a typical family member would think are fantastic - especially given the age of the original prints and slides. I also wanted a solution that was fast, reasonably priced, with great results - and this box does all that. This product takes a photo of the slide or print, digitally processes (45 seconds), and stores the photo files on an SDHC card (which you must purchase separately - I'd recommend 8GB or more). You can then move the SDHC card to your computer (Mac or PC) and offload/move the files from your SDHC to your computer photo software for later cleanup, adjustment, and organization. If you don't want to move the SDHC card to the computer, you can instead hookup the USB cable (but I found this just adding complexity to the workflow). After all, the cool part of this box is that it does all the conversion without having to be connected to the computer. You can covert photos while watching TV sitting on the couch, etc. The best part is you can do your final date organization and photo detail adjustments later on your computer using your photo software. You must keep in mind that this device is not expensive and the output is excellent for that cost. I have only tested the 35mm slide and prints conversion process and I am pleased with the cost point vs results/speed. Pros: Quick, easy, good quality, and consistent/predictable results. FYI: The color accuracy on slides and prints of this 9MP device is superior to the similar/higher spec ClearClick (and Wolverine) 20MP device. I don't know why, but it just was. I returned the ClearClick. I believe true slide scanners can give you additional resolution/clarity, but they cost much more, will require much more time, computer storage space, and must be connected to your computer during the workflow. Cons: -Poor manual, but you can figure it out after playing with it for a while. I wish the manufacturer would provide info on the the whats and whys of the Quality setting (S Fine, Fine, Normal), the Resolution setting (has 9MP sensor but has a 12 MP setting - interpolation?), the Auto Crop function, and lack of Power Button/impacts (leave it in sleep mode? pull the plug every everyday? etc). - 35mm Negative film clips (not the slides) were slightly off in the TINT - but I only had a small test source of negatives. I decided to just use the Slide Positives and the Prints instead - which produced very good results. -Dust can collect under glass (unaccessible) which can impact both the slides and prints conversion (but remember you can remove these artifacts with most computer photo software - not provided by this box). I have found that the included hardware cleanup - called magic touch - does some cleanup but not all. Wish manufacturer would provide a means to easily remove the glass to clean it (and blow off the camera lens) if necessary. Tips: If you have 110 film slides (Kodak Instamatic, etc), just convert them as 35mm slides using the box and then crop the resultant files later in your computer software. Turn off the auto-crop function during 110 slide conversion otherwise you might end up with different size files due to the auto crop selecting different portions of the photo.

I purchased the imagebox primarily for 120 negative scans.The results have been horrible. while 35mm scans LOOK OK to the naked eye, they are in fact almost just as bad. Contacted tech support via email and was told that this is not a scanner in the true sense. Rather, it is essentially a digital camera mounted under the scan plate to photograph whatever is being scanned. Since I am primarily interested in 13x19" prints, This isn't the scanner to use. The mechanics of loading, "scanning?", and transferring data to a PC for processing are essentially flawless. Nice idea, but the results are really bad. Nowhere in the Amazon listing does it say that 120 scanning is of limited quality, yet the manufacturer will provide this info if queried. The manual is essentially useless for problem solving and barely covers setup - though this is really easy to figure out. The manual also does NOT talk about the expected quality of results. Finally, I tried to return this to Adorama for credit. Turns out that return shipment is on the purchaser and is anywhere from $40 (USPS) to $70 (UPS)... If shipping is close to half the unit cost, it looks like I am going to eat this thing. Caveat for purchasers; if it isn't Amazon Prime, don't go there. If the Vendor offers free shipping, find out if this is BOTH WAYS before you purchase. And, if it is something big, maybe buying in person at the local retailer might be a preferred option. Right now, I am going to pursue that remote possibility that my "scanner" is somehow defective and can be made better. I don't expect this to come to a successful conclusion. Can always put it on the shelf with other famous mistakes I have made. I called tech-support and left my number. They called me back this afternoon. The lady was very polite and assured me that this scanner is indeed a digital-camera-in-a-box as opposed to a conventional scanner. It is classed as a CMOS scanner. She further assured me that high quality scans for negatives would be extremely difficult with this type of device. I know other reviewers have rated this higher than the 2 stars I gave it; have to figure out why. Anyway, the manufacturer does not see any way to make this thing deliver a high quality scan of any negative format. My bad. Think from now on, gotta see this in the store before I purchase it will be a good rule to follow. On a subsequent call, tech support advised me that the camera part was out or line based on their evaluation of scans I emailed to them. They agreed to send me a brand new unit at not charge. Fair enough I think. October 22,2015 I was going to raise my rating from 2 stars to higher, because they replaced the defective unit They were prompt with diagnosis and replacement. The replacement scanner sat under my desk unopened for three months. Today I decided to give it a shot. Opened it; set it up; scanned a roll of 120 black and white negatives. To say the results were bad would be understating the results. The scans were noisy, not at all sharp. and no way of setting or adjusting to correct the problems. This is automatic pilot all the way to the scene of the crash. It's indeed a camera in a box, taking unsharp images with no user intervention that I could find. Flat negatives work somewhat better than contrasty negatives, but normal contrast is still pretty bad. I rescanned the entire roll on a Canon 9000f Flat Bed Scanner to make sure the negatives were not the problem. The flat bed scans came out very good. Gotta give the old image box one star. Wish half star was available.

Well, not the best scanner around, but it does do a reasonable job of scanning 35mm negatives. I had to return the first one I received, as it had a HUGE glob of something on the scanner lens. The replacement seems to be a bit better. I wouldn't try to print from these scans, but they are passable for Facebook.

I just received this product (fast delivery) and I would give it a 5 star rating except for the directions. The directions are very confusing and certainly not detailed. However, after messing around with it for a while, I figured it out and I am very pleased with the negative to positive results from my 35mm color and black and white film. If you have a lot of 35mm negatives, this is a great little machine. If you have a printer with a scanner, use that instead of this machine because it 's easier I think. The primary reason for purchasing this machine is for the 120mm feature and the quality is as good as the 35mm. Again, the directions need some work and a lot more detail. The machine is made fairly well and I'd recommend it. Also, the quality of the slide conversion is excellent!

Great scanner Good price very easy to use. I had to make a picture slide presentation with the old family slides it worked like a charm.

Instructions in user's manual were succinct and clearly stated, but the machine does not respond. There is something wrong with the machine. I have had many scanners, but this one was the most confusing and I never got any photo copied correctly. If you are thinking this will make your photo digitizing simple, think again. It's sold with that notion. There is no website given for assistance or to clarify. Total disconnect between instructions and machine; I suspect the machine's design is flawed; I know it is dysfunctional. I regret that I delayed opening this until a planned visit with my sister so we could do family photos; return expiration date is past. An expensive gadget for the trash heap.

The product arrived on time and intact. I have been using it for 2 days off and on, mostly on slides that needed to be transferred to digital format. It works very well. The only reason I am not giving it 5 stars, is that the included instruction booklet is missing some details that would make "out of the box" use a bit easier. (make sure the slides are centered perfectly before attempting to lock the holder frame or it will not go into the slide holder slot) This seems trivial, but I almost damaged my slide holder frame trying to lock it shut. The copies are great - they transfer to the SD card easily and quickly - I suggest getting a 8 GB SD card to eliminate having to download so often. The bulb replacement could be an issue if one burns out, and a on/off switch would be handy, but have been pulling the plug to save on the bulbs. It's a good product for the $$ and I would buy it again.