Nice but way overpriced.

There are four key reasons why the inexpensive 35mm film scanning device from JJC was such a success:

• Under $100
• Assured parallelism of camera sensor and film planes
• Superior definition to that from flat bed or dedicated scanners
• Fast

Checking my LRc catalog I see that I ended up scanning 2300 35mm negatives and slides over an 8 week period working 2 hours or so daily (a rate of 20.5 scans per hour, including processing time at a cost of just 4 cents a scan) and were I using a traditional flatbed scanner I would still have another 12 months of wait time ahead of me …. and with lower definition results. How about 1 hour per high quality scan using a flat bed? Talk of using the wrong technology.

Now a 120 version of the JJC device has been announced by Valoi, using identical design principles but with one big if. It’s very expensive. By the time you add a film holder, duster and the advance mechanism you are looking at $750. Checking my physical albums I count 28 rolls of 120 film negatives and slides, or 336 images which works out to $2.26 and, no, I will not be taking any more film snaps on 120 or any other format, despite the imminent arrival of a gorgeous ‘display only’ Rolleiflex 2.8D from 1955. All this extolling of the purported superiority of film over digital is straight out of Pseuds’ Corner, attributable to people who (rightly) place a very low value on their time.

The Valoi 120 film scanning device. Click the image for their web site.

The specs state that 6×4.5, 6×6 and 6×7 (no mention that I can find of 6×9) film format masks are available, each at an outrageous $75 each for a simple piece of plastic.

If a Chinese copy comes along at $200 or less I’m a buyer. Otherwise those 120 film originals can wait.