Wolverine F2D20 20MP 35mm and 110 Film to Digital Converter

Six years ago, I purchased a Veho VFS-001 Slide and Negative Scanner to scan my old slides. I was recovering from an illness at the time and had plenty of time, so I scanned about 15 boxes of slides, but it was slow, and the quality was only just tolerable. The actual scanning time wasn't so bad, a few seconds, but the time it took for transfer to my computer limited the rate of progress.A few weeks ago, I got out the old scanner again with the intention of scanning more of the old slides, but the first box had been underexposed, and it really showed up its limitations for slide scanning. All of the underexposed slides were completely unviewable with the old scanner. So I did some research and learned that the new Wolverine model has a built-in capability of adjusting exposure, and it scans directly to an SD card, speeding up the process. So I ordered one.With the Wolverine last weekend, I scanned two boxes of slides and about five envelopes of B&W and color negatives. I spent a some time optimizing scans on a few sample transparencies from the first box, which was the same one that the Veho VFS-001 couldn't properly scan. There was no problem getting adequate exposure adjustment with the Wolverine, and most of the time was spent adjusting the color to correct for dye fading in those old slides, which gave them a slight pinkish cast. After I got the color balance fixed, I was able to quickly scan and transfer the rest of the slides. The results were very good, maybe not perfect, and I am sure not as good as can be achieved with a scanner that has an IR channel for dust correction, but good enough for on-screen viewing without further correction.Scanning negatives on the Wolverine gave even better results, and much faster than with my old scanner. I had trouble stopping once I got started, and I scanned a whole lot of B&W negatives from the 1960s and 70s, many I had never enlarged. It is much easier to scan negatives in the Wolverine, where the viewer shows you a positive image right away, than it is to look at negatives with a magnifier to decide which to print. Many of the negatives I scanned had better images on them than I had thought.For the money, I would say the Wolverine is a very good investment. For scanning B&W negatives, it is all you will ever need. If you need professional quality on a few slides or color negatives for a show or for publication, then I would say, scan them first with the Wolverine and then select the ones you want professionally scanned and pay for someone to do them on a scanner with the IR channel.

To be honest, I didn't know what to expect when I ordered this slide converter. I borrowed a Nikon slide scanner (no longer manufactured but available as VERY expensive used equipment) and it was fairly easy to use but I was scared I'd damage it somehow so gave it back. I bought a flatbed scanner with slide scanning capabilities and couldn't figure out how to make decent scans so returned it. I bought a Plustek scanner because it gets rave reviews and couldn't figure out how to get it to work (there's a definite lack of in depth helpful information available) and now it's collecting dust. Buying this was my last hope and I wasn't expecting too much. Well, hallelujah, finally a slide scanner that's fast and easy and actually does a decent job scanning old slides. I pulled my scans into Photoshop Elements and did post processing on the images which turned them into keepers. See a big smile on my face!The manual is short, to the point and easy to understand. I've got many thousands of slides and have found it very easy to sort through them and run them through the scanner while watching TV. Good job, Wolverine!January 18, 2014 update: I still think the scanner is worth the money paid but a couple of warnings. You do need to dial down the red by a full stop. Also, it doesn't handle highlights very well, especially reflective surfaces or bright whites. I've had to project those slides onto a white wall and shoot them with a DSLR to get anything remotely usable, even after extensive editing.

The Wolverine scanners have some really nice features.They're small and easy to stash. They're USB bus-powered, which is excellent; they can be powered by the small included USB wall-wart, a connected computer, or a powered USB hub. They don't require a computer and can scan directly to a SD card. This is great, because scanner software is universally terrible and my life is better without any.The UI is pretty awful. The menu system is hard to navigate, and the scanning process, while fast, is unintuitive. There are manual exposure and RGB compensation tools (accessed by pressing the Scan button, for some reason) which is nice in theory. But there is also automatic exposure compensation, which makes me wonder what's actually happening. The auto compensation causes some nasty overexposed vignetting along the left side of the frame if your negative is underexposed, which is a bummer. Scans of properly exposed negatives look great, however.I've only scanned 35mm black & white negatives, so I can't speak to color accuracy. Given the compensation, I'd be surprised if it accurately reproduced color.Finally, the metadata is pretty screwy. You can't set the date and time, so all my scans are dated January 21, 2011. Every image comes with "My beautiful picture" as the Description text. Also weird. You'll need an EXIF metadata editor to change this.For most uses, these are probably not show stoppers. There really aren't reasonable competitors in this price range with comparable features and resolution. Expect some headaches and have fun with this one, or save up for a Plustek or Pacific Digital for better quality scans.-- UPDATE --Couple of quick points:1. M. Mardini has pointed out that the latest firmware fixes some issues with B&W white balance and metadata. See his comment for details.2. I scanned some color reversal film slides using the 35mm slide trays, and the results were pretty poor. Color fidelity is average, but scans are disappointingly out of focus. I'm not sure why; maybe the tray places slides too far from the lens, or too close. In any case, I'd put off any expectations of high-quality slide scans and stick to negatives.