Nikon SF-210 Auto Slide Feeder by Nikon
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Digital camera reviews of Nikon SF-210 Auto Slide Feeder
Digital camera Review: Not as bad as everyone makes it out as.
Summary: 4 Stars
Before buying this, I was worried that I would be wasting my money. I had about 4,000 slides to scan, and I needed it to work. My slides were the paper-like slides, not the plastic slides. I had read on another site about putting some kind of piece at the end of the slides to get the feeder to work right. I used a piece of emery board-2 in by 3/4 in and less than 1 mm thick. I put my slides in the feeder then put the emery board behind the last side, placing it at the edge of the slide that was closest to me. This served to place more pressure on the area of the slides that was closest to me and helped the slides feed in better. So for what it's worth, I have scanned all of my slides using this slide feeder and about 10-20 of the slides got stuck. It was well worth the purchase for the amount of slides I had.Digital camera Review: Not perfect, but sure beats scanning manually
Summary: 4 Stars
I've scanned about 500 slides. The slide feeder manual states cardboard Kodachrome, Ektachrome and Pakon slide mounts are not supported... Great, so eliminate a good chunk of the USA market :-)
None the less, I have been scanning a combination of Kodachrome, Ektachrome and Pakon mounts and my experience so far is that the degree of warpage in the slide mount from one slide to the next seems to be the biggest cause of jams for me. If I am scanning slides that were stored in a Kodak slide carousel, I see a slight difference in the warpage of the Kodachrome and Ektachrome cardboard slide mounts, and mixing the two types seems to frequently trigger jams when transitioning Ektachrome to Kodachrome. Separating the two types and also looking at the resulting "stack of slides" for noticable warpage differences and removing the more-warped slides seems to greatly reduce the jam rate.
I see similar results to the above when scanning slides that were stored in NON-archival plastic notebook-page slide holders (i.e, 20 slides / page.) However, the slides I've stored in archival plastic notebook pages appear to be flatter than from the carousel or from the non-archival pages, and generally have scanned okay even when mixing Kodachrome and Ektachrome slides. I saw two jams total when scanning about 7 or 8 groups of 20 slides each from the archival storage pages.
In addition, I've also scanned about 70 Pakon mount slides stored in archival plastic notebook pages. All of these have been very-very flat and scanned without a jam. (I hope this holds true for the rest of the Pakon mounts I have.)
I have not seen the blank slides following jams as described in some of the other reviews. I did upgrade from Nikon Scan 3.x to 4.0.2 before using the scanner and I suspect 4.0.2 may not have the blank slide problem. I do see the other problem mentioned where the scanner stops and loses/skips one index number following a jam.
I am using the slide feeder with a Nikon Super Coolscan 4000 ED. It took me a while to find out online if the the feeder worked for the 4000 ED (not just the 5000), but it is supported and is called out as such in the slide feeder manual.
Digital camera Review: Okay, but could be better
Summary: 3 Stars
After reading some of the other reviews, it is with some fear that I bought the slide feeder.
Unless you have a very small project, this item is a must have. I am in the middle of a 5000+ slide project. Hand feeding them isn't an option.
The scanner worked well initially, handling 400 odd 1980's vintage Kodak processed slides without a hitch. Older slides (Kodak processed from the 1960s and 1970's) resulted in about 1 jam in 100 slides. Slides in poor condition resulted in more jams, particularly dog eraed corners and warped slides. I had a roll that wouldn't feed well. When I went to hand feeding with the single slide loader, I was reminded how much better the auto feeder was and gave up on hand feeding and went back to the feeder with some babysitting.
Another disappointment is that it is not compatible with the less expensive coolscan V, requiring the more expensive Coolscan 5000.
I have also found that it feeds better running vertically.
Digital camera Review: Shame on Me
Summary: 1 Stars
Why did I buy this thing? With all of the negative reviews, I can't believe I went ahead with it. The physcial design problems have been pretty well thrashed out. It jams - - a lot! And the cover will break off eventually.
But there are other problems with the unit. Why should we have to go through a stack of slides and re-orient them all in the landscape position. I don't take pictures that way, so that means wading through the stack and getting them in the right order. Then, to add insult to injury, the feeder returns them to you in reverse order!
I don't know, it seems to me that for $450, you ought to be able to stick a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the thing without a jam (pun definitely intended).
The software that comes with the Coolscan 5000 ED is another piece of work, but I'll save that for another diatribe.
Shame on me for buying this thing.
Digital camera Review: Supplier OK and product OK
Summary: 5 Stars
However my experience is limited to PLASTIC framed slides.
Product arrived in time and properly packaged.