Sat Aug 30, 2008 7:28 am
Hi Mobydoc
I think I can help with your questions. Firstly, yes, I believe that the Braun, Reflecta and Pacific scanners are rebadged versions of the same machine. Only the Braun and Reflecta are available here in the UK.
I have the Reflecta machine as, like you, I have a lot of slides I want to convert. I also have a Nikon Coolscan V that I bought a little while ago. It is excellent, but has no bulk feeder.
Quality comparisons between the two are perhaps irrelevant. I set the Reflecta to a mid-quality setting (OK for display on computer screen, projection [where you would be likited to, say, 1400 x 1050 pixels at best] or printing to 5 x 7 [125 x 175 mm]). I could happily crank up the Reflecta to higher resolution settings if I needed them for any particular slide, but would probably use the Nikon instead for that purpose.
VueScan was recommended to me as better than the bundled software that comes with the Reflecta, and buying it was money well spent. It also sorted out the compatibility problems I had with the Nikon. Nikon's Mac software did not work, but VueScan will run the Coolscan too.
Don't get hung up on image quality, unless you have a genuine professional need to get the very best. Scanning at the highest possible resolution is slow, takes up masses of disc space, and may be beyond the ability of your computer to handle at a reasonable speed. You are likely to find yourself reducing the scanned quality whenever you want to do anything with the images, so why not start at a sensible quality as the default setting, and crank it up only when you need it.
Now the bad news!
Unfortunately, there is nothing else like the Reflecta on the market, so you have to take it with its faults, or not at all.
The main one is the slide transport. It's basically a slide projector, that has to cope with different mounts and magazines. If all your slides are in CS mounts, in CS magazines, I suspect you will have no problem. Mine aren't. I have had to put them into a conventional straight magazine (several types of magazine are compatible), and there is a small percentage of misfeeds. You just have to expect them, and you will get used to sorting them out. I had one misfeed which dropped the slide into the body of the machine, from where I have been unable to retrieve it. So start with your least valuable slides. Perhaps borrow a manual scanner for any that are really precious. You can't go out and leave it, but it is a lot less time-consuming than a manual or flat-bed scanner.
Finally, I bought mine from Pixmania. That was a mistake. The first one did not work, and it cost me £30 ($60) to return it to them. They did replace it, but without so much as an apology, let alone a refund of the costs. I'd have preferred to buy it from a local shop, but none stocked it.
I hope this helps.