Canon CanoScan 8800F Flatbed Scanner price and reviews

Have had experience with commercial quality scanners at work, but couldn't handle the commercial-style prices for a home one, so I settled on The Canon. I have to say that the quality approaches that of the one at work, which brand new was about $2,000. The LED lights mean fast startup. It's also very quick in capture, even at 600 dpi. Makes a big file but as long as I don't let a lot of them pile up, system is unaffected. Still not as good as a digital photo, but still great. About $169 at Amazon.com back in April 2008.

I purchase the 8800F primarily to scan medium format film. But 35mm film scans are better than my Nikon Coolscan IV. I use the scanner principally for 48 bit color scans from Fuji Astia exposed with a Rolleiflex MX f/3.5 Tessar. It's a camera from the 1950's and takes great photos. My subjects are mostly urban landscapes that are converted in Photoshop CS4 to black and whites for printing.

I am getting results that have the look and feel of wet chemistry B&W prints.

It all starts with the Canoscan 8800F.

The software works well with my Windows Vista x64 machine.

I sometimes use the scanner to make .pdf's and the software works well.

Great Scanner.

I've been using this scanner doing massive amounts of projects (including slides back to the 1930s). One clarification that needs to be made is the software that launches with the buttons on the front is only rudimentary. It's for speed. It's the PhotoStudio (also included) that allows power scanning with full flexibility. I've been reading a lot of reviewers saying they can't scan add sized slides and negatives (or positives.) This is not true and I made a quick trick video to show how to do various sized media. I hope you find it useful: You can watch my tricks and tips for the 8800F at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoLYVqFZsEU

Stephen Paul West of www.stephenpaulwest.com

I am your "Joe average" when it comes to computers. I found the Photo shop Elements 5, that Canon obliges me to use, difficult and time consuming to work with. Nor did I find any real benefit over the results I get from my simpler, faster, more intuitive Picasa programme. When I called Canon Technical for help I was simply told. " We do not support that programme". End of story ! Such inflexibility cannot be of benefit to the user. If I want to buy or use any other programme I should not be obstructed from doing so - especially in such a none caring manner. I will not get into the great difficulty and the excessive time I spent trying to load Canon's programme but I will say that I have a fast desk top computer with lots of memory and disc space. On top of all this nonsense I had the extra cost of shipping this restrictive product back across the country. I am disappointed that none of the "rated highly, independent reviews" picked up on this disappointing limitation. Google is not a minor player, nor, do I expect, that Picasa user's are either.

Updated on Sep 17, 2010

This was by far the easiest scanner to setup and start using out of the box, but, yes, you have to TURN IT ON FIRST.
My old Epson Perfection 2400 is like a toy in comparison.
If you are looking for high quality, easy to use, LED bright white light, fast scans and ability to scan 12 negatives at a time, this is it. Magnificent, best scanner I have ever owned in this price range.
Deserves a 10 to compensate for guy who rated it a 6 after he forgot to TURN IT ON.

As hardware, the scanner is fine (but noisy); the problem is software. What came with the scanner simply would not install completely or useably. After a lengthy internet search I found some directions and after putting f file in the correct location and restarting the computer, was actually finally able to scan! (TWAIN Source Manager.Shlb into Library/CFMSupport)

Bought this scanner today. It installed fine under Vista. This scanner is replacing my old trusty HP 4C that is no longer supported under Vista (boo hiss!).

About 90% of my scanning is directly to PDF. When I tried this, the resulting scans were unusable, they were too light. Plus, the software would not remember the folder and file name that I wanted to use from the last scan, I had to Browse and re-enter it EVERY TIME. Huge pain. There is no way to adjust the brightness threshold using the automatic PDF buttons, it set the level automatically, which in my case was always too light, the scans were terrible and unusable. I had to use the general "Save" option, then drill into the settings EACH TIME and play with the threshold setting to get it right. Then deal with the saving location and name each time. This is not acceptable.

I have an HP G5040 at home that is MUCH better than this. This Canon is going back into the box and back to the store, I'll buy the same HP for my office. This is the first (and probably last) time I strayed from HP for peripherals, I learned my lesson.

I think the pros and the cons say it all. This scanner combined with acrobat makes it amazingly easy and fast to create pdf files or any other files that you want. Another very cool feature for those who like to do photo scans is that despite not having a duplex (who wants to put pictures through a duplex anyway) you can still put a few pictures on the scanner bed and the software will recognize you have more than one photograph and treat them as such. Another cool thing is that this scanner comes with 35 mm film guides for your negatives. I don't do photography myself, but I can see how this might be useful for those that do, or for myself should I choose to do so in the future.

Program installed with no problem using Vista. USB cord could be longer. For multiple scans it would be better if the program returned you to where you last made a save so you don't have to search it down every time. There is 1 scanto file prgram that will work this way but it doesn't give you the chance to crop the scan before saving it.

I like the appearance of this scanner. The lid tends to hold itself up so as not to be dead weight. The unit seems to be heavy duty. Scans are very quick as compared to 2 other scanners I have owned.

Unfortunately you need to find somewhere to store the 3 negative template frames for scanning. They do not store in the lid. There also is a separate lid attached to the lid that needs to be removed before scanning negatives. Replace it before returning to normal scanning.
Tried scanning both the 120 & 35 MM negatives. It worked good.

On multipile scans for saving to a disk there is one method to get around the problem of finding the save location anew each time. Just breifly name each scan and let it save to the default cannon MP Navigator file as in the current date folder that it wants to use. Then go to this Navigator file as found in your pictures file and drag each scan to the location on the disk that you have displayed by using the explorer. At this point you can rename the files to a longer name as required before saving it to the disk.
Tried OCS once and it didn't really work that good without misintrepeting the letters. I gues it depends what you are scanning from.

Overall this scanner meets my needs good. There are more functions then I use. I have owned for just 2 months.

Bought the unit for faster scan time. Set-up a breeze, no problems. It was money well spent, scans start immediately - no bulb warm-up time! Scan software, and on unit buttons very user friendly and intuitive, scan quality excellent. Going to white LED light source was worth the price paid. Canon should put this technology into it's multifunction products. The unit is a little large on the desktop.