I need the scanner mainly for scanning 36 negative films. for this application you will probably not find a better scanner. i also work with the silverfast 8 se version. you can safely throw the supplied software in the bin, especially if you want to automatically remove dust and scratches (only works with colour films). I can confirm that the autofocus doesn't work properly (at least with silverfast), but the manual focus is easy and with a little training, you'll soon get the hang of the scanner in general.
when i do a batch scan, it sometimes scans the last frame as the first, and then again at the end. the first frame on the film is then not scanned, which is often a bit annoying, but that's probably due to silverfast. it seems to be a bug. sometimes everything works fine if you give it enough cpu and ram power.
otherwise, the scanner pulls on flawlessly and works very fast, especially in the 16 bit and 8 bit colour range (i.e. b/w). in terms of resolution, you won't find a scanner in this price segment that offers a higher dpi than the 4300dpi that it effectively achieves. on the other hand, it already reaches the effective 4300 at the 5000dpi setting, which means that the image is not so blown up and therefore eats up less memory. I am very satisfied with the device because it exactly covers my area of application. I think there are better alternatives for scanning individual images. for scanning entire films, I think this model offers the best value for money that you can find.
here is a very detailed test report on scanners
http://www.filmscanner.info/ReflectaRP...