Yup, it seems to really need the adjacent frame non-empty. Must be light leakage from somewhere. The manual warns about this. So, if the manual warns about this, why has it taken me over a year to figure it out? The answer is the 35mm negative carriers on the Nikon Supercoolscan 8000 are REALLY a pain in the butt. It is difficult enough just juggling the two side-by-side strips of film to line up with the little plastic thingies. It is, I'm convinced, impossible to juggle two film strips, plus two mylar masks, and get everything to line up, (without sort of "helping" things with a finger across the image). And no one, not even the high-priced pro labs I've checked with, will trim 35mm to 6 per strip like the Nikon really wants to see. The optics and digitization with the Nikons are wonderful! The ICE dust removal part of the software works great. For $3000US the mechanics are pathetic. Constant fight with the negative carriers. A little plastic door on the front went "sprong" on my second scan. I see now that Nikon has announced the next generation of this scanner. What did they improve? The optics, the digitization, and the ICE software. The price did drop! From the pictures, the mechanics look identical. Seems to use the same film carriers; at $54, the words "cheap plastic" take on an entirely new meaning.