Hi,

i recently aquired a used M1 on ebay. After setting everything up and getting it running i have a couple questions that i hope yall can answer for me.

As a background, ive been scanning my negatives for about a year now with a Canon Canoscan 8800F but its limited to 120 film. I always had decent results and gotten good prints up to 11x14 with my 8800F so i expected the M1 to do at least as good but from all the research it should do better.

The main advantage of the M1 besides the resolution is that its glassless scanning and the scanner has autofocusing. it also does larger formats which lets me scan my 4x5's myself.

So this is my workflow, i select a negative, clean it with a cloth, put it emulsion side UP in the film holder as indicated in the manual, open scan wizard, preview, select auto focus point and then scan.

My problem is as follows, i think it lies in the auto-focus feature. Scan Wizard and Silverfast allow me to choose an auto focus point in the negative, how do i know where to pick? ive been picking a spot that i know is sharp in the negative but my results havent been that great over the 8800f. Everything at 2400dpi, no sharpening applied.

Ive used scan wizard, vuescan, and silverfast. I was really expecting something sharper than the 8800f and am a little dissapointed in the results i am getting.

Im sure i missed something vital to the conversation so if you have any advice, help, questions ill be more than happy to offer anything i can to get a solution.


ALSO, for those who have used the scanner, is the loud and obnoxious noises it makes normal? it has like 5 different noises, ranging from low to extremely high pitched.

Thank you in advance!