Wolverine F2D Saturn Digital Film & Slide Scanner - Converts 120 Medium Format, 127 Film, Microfiche, 35mm Negatives & Slides to Digital JPEG - Large 4.3" LCD w/HDMI Output (Blue)

I couldn't fit medium format slides (all in cardboard carriers) in the adapter, which is designed for film or negative, but managed to scan them anyway by making a cardboard adapter with a cut-out to fit the carriers. Since they were all over 60 years old, I wasn't worried about getting cardboard specks in the images. I just wanted to digitize these while they were still in good shape (too late for some; colors had gone way red.) I didn't know at the time I was looking at scanners that half of my in-laws slide collection were the medium format size, but by sheer luck I decided to get this one because it said "120 professional film" or something, and knew my father-in-law was a photography nut. Little did I know, but old Brownie cameras used that size, too. I am very pleased with the product, which I think saved me a ton of time trying to rig up something to handle those bigger slides.

It's a nice machine but it DOESN'T DO MICROFICHE like it shows on the box and stated!It does Microfilm! Micro film is like 35mm film on a roll. Microfiche is a piece of film 4"x6" with 40 or so images the size of a standard piece of paper.

Let's start with a reality check: For less than $200, one can't expect a truly high quality film scanner, but it did seem reasonable to expect better quality than one might have found in 2001. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for the Wolverine F2D Saturn digital film & slide scanner that can convert 35mm negatives and slides, 120 medium format and 127 format film, and microfiche to digital JPEG images.I own a Plustek OpticFilm 35mm scanner, but it can't handle medium format film. I had hoped that, even with the anticipated low quality of the Wolverine scanner, it might produce acceptable images from the much larger negatives.The quality of the images reminds me of what we were able to get from the Sony Mavica. This was the early digital camera that recorded low-resolution, low-quality photos with a great deal of artifacting. The quality was barely acceptable back then. Now it's unforgivable.So is the Wolverine FD2 Saturn good for anything? Maybe, if you understand and are willing to accept the shortcomings.It is a clever device because it's really not a traditional film scanner. Instead, it has what's probably the equivalent of a smart-phone digital sensor. Instead of waiting 30 to 90 seconds for a traditional scanner to process the image, the Wolverine captures the image instantly and displays it on a small screen. Pressing one more button writes the image file to the device's internal memory or to a secure digital card.(1) That's where the process falls apart. Instead of processing the image as a lossless TIFF or even writing it as a high-quality JPEG image, the scanner writes and incredibly small file. When I scanned a 645-format image, the resulting file was just 2MB. The manufacturer claims the maximum scanning resolution is 4600 samples per inch, so the image should have been approximately 11,500 pixels by 8300 pixels and the expected file size would be more than 20MB and the dimensions were 5164 x 3876.(2) The smaller physical file size would still have created a highly usable image if the manufacturer had chosen not to use such extreme downsampling that creates horrid artifacting. A 10MB JPEG would have virtually no visible artifacting. As a result of poor design choices, the images are fuzzy.(3) Most people who purchase a device such as this will want it for 35mm negatives and slides. How well does it work there? It's even worse. The scanned image was 5480 pixels by 3652 pixels. That's about 2600 samples per inch, which is higher than the setting I generally use on the Plustek scanner. That device can scan at 7200 SPI, but doing so takes more than one minute per slide. I usually use the 1800 SPI setting on the Plustek because that drops the scan time to about 30 seconds.(4) The Plustek can also save files in lossless TIFF format, which is what I use. At 1800 SPI, the quality of an image saved as a TIFF far exceeds that of the Wolverine's higher resolution coupled with the extremely lossy JPEG format.(5) The Wolverine's artifacting loses all fine detail.

I bought this after I discovered that I was not going to be able to scan some of the old negatives I have with the scanner I borrowed from the library. So glad I did! It is very easy to use (although it took me a minute to figure out how to correctly use some of the pieces) and I am happy with the results. I would definitely recommend this!

If you want to scan your mixed collection of 135 or 120 film or slides, you are stuck with few affordable options. I just went through scanning almost 1000 photos in different formats and the experience with the Wolverine was not ideal.- Manual: useable- Software: feels old and outdated, date settings automatically start each session with Jan 1, 2021. Limited options to adjust image quality.- Display: same size as scanned image. No option to check focus, especially when your film is slightly warped due to temperature changes or the way it was stored.- Top tray, for 135 and 126 film/slides: After inserting the tray into the scanner, you need to feed your film into the corresponding slot. This would be easy if there were any guides and if the edges of the film holder were smooth enough to guide your film smoothly. Unfortunately, I spent more time trying to aim for the opening, pushing, pulling, wiggling, until the film finally finds the opening. And the trouble is not over at that point, because it needs to find the exit as well, and without guides it tends to get stuck again, and some more wriggling is needed. Picture quality is ok as long as your film is flat.- Bottom tray, for 120/127 film: same manufacturing problem with inaccurate guides. To find the guides, you need to push the film about one inch into the tray before it catches the guide. And even then the film is not guided very accurately and can still 'get off the rails' and end up being stuck.- My biggest issue is that it is NOT possible to scan framed 120 slides. The tray is not wide enough. To scan slides, you need to remove each photo from the frame and manually place it into the tray. This would be ok if there were an adapter, but in its current configuration it is just not feasible to use it to scan slides.- Overall observation: too expensive for such a cheap device.