When this scanner first came out, it retailed at about $1700. If you want a great 4000dpi (35mm only) scanner, without the bells & whistles of ICE or multi-pass scanning, this is a great scanner, and at about $570 including the $100 rebate, venture over to Buy.com, Computers4SURE, or Amazon-whatever- and jump on this deal. I don't know if this is a discontinued model-did not call Microtek to find out, but I am glad I bit the bullet for this model.

The SCSI card installed easily, my WinME system recognized it right away-no going to the Adaptec site for further driver downloads. I run with a 900 Athlon, 40GB and 256megs RAM. While the file sizes may seem large at 4000dpi, for 35mm they are not so bad and are handled well by my system. Should I need to upgrade memory in the future, I will, but no need to so far.

Microtek's software is very user friendly, with preview windows and a cancel option to redo for pre-scan editing. What the descriptions for this scanner fail to mention is that you can set the density to 4; so the 3.4 rating is not exactly accurate-easily evidenced in your results! It does come with Photoshop 5 LE-very useful, event though it is not PS 6, so you can edit before or after scanning. It also comes with Silverfast and Genuine Fractals software, but I have not used either one. PS 5 LE is fine for my film.

I think Microtek scanners were made to scan Fuji Velvia slides, however most of my work was done with Kodak Royal Gold 100 film before I finally started using Velvia. Shadow detail is fine; some of my RG100 film-like some of my night shots-the noise is almost non existant (or none at all!). Subtle adjustments in levels or curves in the 16bit mode (or 8 bit) can help this out with a little experimenting if necessary. Scanning time is pretty fast, in 4000dpi mode, 48bit color.

You can get a 19" print on the long end after scanning in at 4000dpi, 100% magnification (1:1), then resizing in Photoshop at 300 dpi resolution-not too shabby for the price of this scanner. I think this is probably one of my best buys this year-very sharp, nice scans, nice shadow detail, user friendly software. I use 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 also, but cannot shell out $2800 for a multi format scanner, so for me, this is a great compromise. (I also have the Microtek 8700 (35, 6x9, 4x5) and will use that for my 2x3's, but will use only the 4000T for my 35mm work.) Buy with confidence.

If you use a Mac System, you will need an SCSI port or an extra bay to be able to install an SCSI port, as this is an SCSI only interface.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 570
Interface: SCSI