It's scanner time!

[John V]

Time to buy a new scanner. In an old thread the Canoscan 8800F got some good reviews. Has anyone tried the new 9000F?

[NATCARD]

I use the Epson Perfection V300. It is a low cost exceptional quality scaneer and scans at a very quick speed on 150-300 dpi images.

[DixieBaseball]

John,

Don't know about the new one, but I bought the 8800F after reading the very thread you are referring to, and a year later, it is a fabulous scanner. I have no complaints other than maybe a little too many bells and whistles, but after awhile of tinkering with it, I realize it is a powerhouse scanner.

FYI

[soxinseven]

I have the 8800f and think it is great. I haven't touched any of the settings and my scans come out great. Check out my site on my signature below, I have scanned every card on there with the 8800f.

[John V]

We set up our new Canon 9000F. Here are some sample scans. One set on color documents and the other set on color photos. Both are far better than our old Canon 650!

[DixieBaseball]

John - Which scan is the color photo and which is the color doc ? (The first scan is better, more vibrant so I am assuming this is the color photo, but want to ask you to be sure)

Thanks - JJ

[John V]

I found the first to be more colorful also. Surprisingly, that's the document setting. After spotting the difference, I held the card up to my monitor and found the photo setting to be pretty much on target.

[shaunsteig]

The key feature is that the scanner technology needs to be CCD, not CIS. The CIS is only good for flat images -- ie that sit flush with the screen, while a CCD scanner head has a longer depth of focus that will accomodate some element of 3D images -- such as cards within holders that sit slightly raised off the glass.

Personally, I didn't have the desk space to accomodate a seperate scanner unit. I already had a personal laser printer as well as a color inkjet all-in-one, which I mostly used for copying, faxing, and the occasional scanning or color printing. The AIO though had a CIS sensor and therefore scanned holdered cards very blurrily (cause of the short focal depth). So when I realized that I needed to improve my scanner in order to scan holdered cards, I struggled to find a machine that could fit all those needs. For the most part, AIOs of the inkjet variety, are all CIS sensors. I think there was either a high-end Canon or Epson unit that had a CCD sensor, but had no fax nor advanced paper-handling capability (eg duplex scanning or printing) and was really intended as a photo printer. After searching extensively I ended up with the HP CM2320 -- it's a color laserjet all-in-one with a CCD scanner head, and has been working very well for me. Another alternative is the Brother MFC-9840 -- I actually purchased them both, set them up side-by-side, and used them both for a week. I found the Brother's construction to be rather shoddy (which I find typical of Brother devices) and print quality was far far inferior to the HPs -- although it did have the benefit of true automatic duplex scanning of documents (the HP can copy both sides of a two-sided document automatically, but it can't scan it similarly) and the scan quality between the two was similar.

Hope this helps.
--S

[nodgrass]

Very good information Shaun. I wish the sales poeple at the Apple Store knew this a few weeks ago as I asked that specific question and told them what I needed. No one knew enough ablout the printers to answer. I think I got the right type of scanner head out of luck but I'll have to check on that.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by shaunsteig

The key feature is that the scanner technology needs to be CCD, not CIS. The CIS is only good for flat images -- ie that sit flush with the screen, while a CCD scanner head has a longer depth of focus that will accomodate some element of 3D images -- such as cards within holders that sit slightly raised off the glass.

Personally, I didn't have the desk space to accomodate a seperate scanner unit. I already had a personal laser printer as well as a color inkjet all-in-one, which I mostly used for copying, faxing, and the occasional scanning or color printing. The AIO though had a CIS sensor and therefore scanned holdered cards very blurrily (cause of the short focal depth). So when I realized that I needed to improve my scanner in order to scan holdered cards, I struggled to find a machine that could fit all those needs. For the most part, AIOs of the inkjet variety, are all CIS sensors. I think there was either a high-end Canon or Epson unit that had a CCD sensor, but had no fax nor advanced paper-handling capability (eg duplex scanning or printing) and was really intended as a photo printer. After searching extensively I ended up with the HP CM2320 -- it's a color laserjet all-in-one with a CCD scanner head, and has been working very well for me. Another alternative is the Brother MFC-9840 -- I actually purchased them both, set them up side-by-side, and used them both for a week. I found the Brother's construction to be rather shoddy (which I find typical of Brother devices) and print quality was far far inferior to the HPs -- although it did have the benefit of true automatic duplex scanning of documents (the HP can copy both sides of a two-sided document automatically, but it can't scan it similarly) and the scan quality between the two was similar.

Hope this helps.
--S

Shaun - I did a ton of research on this about 2 years ago and found the HP L7780 is an AIO with a CCD, which is what I use.