Canon CanoScan 8800F Scanner

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Didn't scanners used to be super-thin?

I don't know, did Ben count every color that the scanner can do?

This is a great scanner. I used only 1200 dpi to scan all medium format negatives for these following photos:
http://www.dakunphoto.com
Get it for a such great item.

#1, the super thin ones typically use LED illumination and CIS sensors instead of CCFL lighting and CCD sensor.

CIS sensor scanners have poor greyscale discrimination typically, and practically no depth of focus so they are a worse choice for anything except scanning dark text on light colored paper that is perfectly flat, they can't even handle scanning a book very well compared to a CCD type scanner due to the depth increase nearer the spine.

The only two advantages CIS scanners have are they typically cost a little less, and some are powered by USB so if for some reason you need a (different form factor) small portable scanner to take with a laptop and have no AC power you can stil scan.

The second advantage is that CIS scanners don't have to wait for the illumination source (a CCFL) to get to full brightness and hue, so there is a much shorter wait before the first scan after the scanner comes out of sleep mode. That makes them convenient for all in one B&W printers with a one-touch copy button to quickly copy text documents.

Canon scanners are pretty good hardware quality, even the lower end 4400F CCD type scanner is a good budget choice, but where many of them fail is driver bugs, often if the scanner goes to sleep the system can't see it anymore until the system is rebooted and canon never fixed the problem. Most people are not effected by this bug but a significant % are, and for those who are it is not worth the hassle, scanner should be returned for refund.

Fortunately Newegg is very good about this, you can even do an automated online RMA instead of having to call and "ask" for one. For anyone who has to return something like this, they may initially charge a restocking fee but should remove that fee after you contact them and explain the scanner's bugs prevent reasonable expectation of a replacement... [Truncated]

overview : "Get scanning quickly with the CanoScan 8800F. The white LED light source has no warm up time, ."

I've had an 8800F for more than a year and love it. Almost no wait for warm up... the LED backlight is ready in less than 10 seconds. In addition to normal scanning it does transparancies... both positive (slides) and negatives and its built-in software turns negatives into positives. Lots of programmable buttons make scans fast and easy.

For fast document scanning, get a Fujitsu Scansnap for about $300 when discounts are running. The thing slurps paper at about 18ppm, 2 sided, great quality and really small, portable and reliable.

Get a slow flatbed like this for an occasional book page or such. For good film and/or print scanning, you need a professional quality quality like a Nikon.

Good ccd arrays vs CMOS are not that different, but having said that I don't know what is in this particular scanner. Seems like dave_c and I have had some disagreements, but can't tell here. I use a fairly slow now old HP flatbed for that occasional book page or such- Snapscan sheet feed is higher quality even though faster- but you can put a book through a sheet feed (unless you rip it apart first).

Thanks for pointing that out #5, I was generalizing within the topic of thin scanners which typically use CIS and LED to achieve their thinness, while it is good you have pointed out the light source on some has replaced CCFL with LED. On this one they have used LEDs with a CCD sensor so it may be the best of both worlds providing all the LEDs were carefully color binned so the hue is uniform across the page.

Good CMOS can be near enough to equal a fair, not particularly good CCD, but as implemented as CIS to reduce scanner size and cost they aren't using good quality CMOS and the focal depth is very shallow because it skips the mirrors and lens in your garden variety consumer grade scanners.

Comparing some ancient scanner isn't a fair comparison. Back then CCD were better than CIS too but both techs evolved, it's just that CCD scanners are still better.

#8 - A little puzzling to learn that they're using inferior CMOS sensors in scanners. Since CMOS sensors have pretty much replaced CCDs in the newer generation DSLR cameras with overall image quality improvement, one would assume scanners would be going through a similar evolution using the CMOS sensors.

cheapandlots wrote:

#8 - A little puzzling to learn that they're using inferior CMOS sensors in scanners. Since CMOS sensors have pretty much replaced CCDs in the newer generation DSLR cameras with overall image quality improvement, one would assume scanners would be going through a similar evolution using the CMOS sensors.

They're also still using the lower grade CMOS sensors in lower end cameras, you have to look at the price range, and you have to consider that in a camera it is a single module while in a _CIS_ scanner there is an array the width of the page. CIS is not the way to make a high quality scanner regardless of CMOS or CCD, but all else equal if they're going to make an inexpensive CMOS it is going to be inferior. Granted, CCD based scanners do cost a bit more on average but are still within the same ballpark unlike DSLR cameras versus the $20 Barbie toy cameras.

good price

no it is not a good price.

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