Originally posted by PeterAM I think the duplicator is a very clever product that may fill a niche in the marketplace. I have a Nikon 35mm scanner; haven't used it in several years. Scanning is a huge PITA (unless you are into it) and Nikon no longer supports their scanner products. Flatbeds give marginal results on 35mm, better on MF; still a PITA to get good scans. For those of us that shot/shoot film and have X number of slides/negs around, this might be the way to go. For a scan of a special picture that I want to print and hang, I'll get a drum scan done.
I agree that scanning is something of a PITA, but I'm not sure how the duplicator would be any better (indeed, one suspects it could only do one slide, etc. at a time unlike a scanner, so it will take forever). Also, from my own experience of scanning my film collection, one of the big boons of a decent scanner is ICE to remove dust from the final digital image, but the duplicator couldn't do that. I'm still curious about the lens for the duplicator--any of the current 645 lenses look like they'd be too big for the purpose. Will Pentax include an special-purpose lens (they did once make a 50mm and 80mm enlarging lens for another brand, as the rumour goes), or will one have to bring their own enlarging lenses?