I couldn't find a discussion board related to scanners. So I will try to pass on what I learned about my new CanoScan 9000F Mark II. I have many old 35mm negatives that I wanted to scan to determine if I wanted to print them or just place them into a document folder. Some of my old 35mm negatives are 1 1/4" wide and when I tried to scan them, a scanner generated dividing line was printed in the middle of the scanned image. I contacted a Canon Technical Support Representative and was told that the 9000F would only scan the standard 1 1/2" 35mm negative and there was no way to adjust the settings to allow it to scan 1 1/4" 35mm negatives.
On my own I experimented and discovered that if I cut a piece of paper that light can't get through (like photographic paper) and covered all the images except the one I wanted to scan, it came out perfect. So I sent another email describing what I did to allow my CanoScan 9000F Mark II to successfully scan a 1 1/4" 35mm negative, showing that the description of the scanner could include this task as well, thinking Canon would like to be able to include this ability in the description of the scanner making it more desirable.
This is the reply I received from Damonn, a Canon Technical Support Representative:
Dear Steve,
Thank you for writing back to us.
We did receive your email, and I personally feel that the solution you found was quite clever.
Because 1 ¼" film is outside of the specifications for the CanoScan 9000F Mark II, this is considered a non-standard use of the scanner, and we cannot personally or as a company make this recommendations to customers.
Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.
Thank you for choosing Canon.
Sincerely,
Damonn
Technical Support Representative
So rather than include information in the specifications that would indicate that the 9000F was capable of scanning the non-standard 1 1/4" negatives in addition to the standard 1 ½” negatives, Canon would prefer to keep that information hidden from customers. For what reason, the cost involved in adding a paragraph in the next series of specifications? So Canon chose the bottom line over allowing their customers to know the scanner is capable of more than originally reported? It doesn’t make sense to me.
