35mm scanner packed up, any recommendations?

[Vanwall Man]

Hello,

 

My trusty Nikon Super Coolscan 8000 ED has packed up. Can anyone recommend a replacement that will scan strips of 35mm film and 6 x 6cm rollfilm?

 

Haven't contacted Nikon yet to see if they can repair it, but looking online it seems most people have found support for it discontinued and at best, just a cleaning is offered.

 

Thanks

 

Edit: Broken again

[Ed Endicott]

I have a Plustek OpticFilm 120 Film Scanner in my sights.  Apparently, they released a few earlier this year and the good ones were just amazing, but they had a small issue with quality control on a small number of units and decided to stop shipping in order to fix the problem.  B&H had them listed as expected on July 1, they changed that to July 30 on July 1. 

 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/890953-REG/Plustek_783064365642_Optic_Film_120_Scanner.html

 

From what I have read, this is the best option out there aside from an Epson 700 (or 750).

[fotoDogue]

I believe Nikon still has a flat-rate repair program for scanners. The last time I checked it was $250 US plus shipping for my LS 5000 ED. A friend of mine sent his LS 9000 ED back for repairs and said, all in all, it cost about $500 US.

http://www.europe-nikon.com/en_GB/service_support/Support_Repair_Home.page

[Vanwall Man]

Contacted Nikon and they don't have anything to do with it now and put me in touch with Fixation, a company in London. They were able to do repairs/new parts/cleaning, very happy

[Ed Endicott]

Congratulations!  I ended up with an Epson V700.  It takes some getting used to.  Not sure if I'll be able to submit any of the images to Alamy though.

[Graham Morley]

Yes, the V700 (750) takes some getting used to.  Mine is 5 years old and I am very pleased with it.  It has given excellent scans from 5x4 and 6x6, and I have a number of Epson V750 scans from 35mm on Alamy, too.  I have not had any V750 scans from 35mm fail QC as I only scan pin sharp 35mm transparencies.  I do not use ICE on 35mms as the image is softened too much, so quite a bit of time is needed to scan and clean up a 35m transparency scan.

 

I understand that there is a separate high quality lens for scanning at 6400 dpi (this may not be on the V700), and I use this setting when scanning my Kodachromes. I then reduce down to the resolution needed.

 

I did not find the Epson film holders very satisfactory – too flimsy, and not enough adjustment of film height. Lack of film height adjustment is not such an issue with 5 x 4 scans but it is with 35mm. I have heard that the betterscanning holders are excellent (I used the neg carriers from my Chromega enlarger located in a holder that I made from aluminium sheet fitted with nylon adjusting screws). As a result of testing of different scan heights I saw a significant increase in sharpness with 35mm scans, and although not really needed, I scan my larger transparencies this way too. 

 

I passed QC with V750 35mm scans when the min file size was 48MB, including when just 35mm scans were submitted, so a 35mm must have been looked at by QC. These days I tend to submit at 24MB.

[Ed Endicott]

Good to know.  I have been scanning at 6400 dpi and reducing resolution.  The results are decent on 35mm Tri-X.  The images are good enough for prints and print sales.  I haven't failed QC at Alamy yet (knock wood) and I'm not sure I want to brave it.  I submitted the images to two other agencies that accept film scans and I'll try that route first.

[Ed Rooney]

I'm surprised to read that flatbed scanners are good enough for stock now. 

[Graham Morley]

Yes, the V750 produces 35mm scans good enough for stock, providing the provisos given above are followed.     I originally bought the V750 for scanning 5x4s and 6x6s, but  I was surprised at how good the scans were from 35mm. BG0KY9 (a 48.2MB scan of a Kodachrome) passed QC when it was submitted on its own.  This was submitted before I used an improved  holder.

[5DMIII Shooter]

As I no longer use scanner, but when my Minolta packed up due software issues and everyone was tossing theirs someone at Sony suggested I try Hamrick Software. After a short email on a Sunday morning I received a response in about 7 minutes to my surprise. http://www.hamrick.com/ Hope this may help you. Regards JC

[Martin P Wilson]

I too use Vuescan from Hamrick software (with old Artixscan 4000t - SCSI interface!) and support has always been good, I only scan my archive from time and usually during the winter.

[Vanwall Man]

My coolscan packed up again, same problems and a new one. Now have a V700 and have only done a handful of scans but I'm quite happy with it.

 

Edit: Ice isn't as effective on the V700.It leaves a lot of jagged, pixelated, nasty looking marks.

[Martin P Wilson]

An alternative I plan to try is use my dslr and a slide copier or a macro lens and lightbox

[Joe Gaul]

Thanks for the tip 5DMk111 Shooter. I was just about to use the Minolta Dimage 5400 on my old Sony XP machine that I keep for scanning only since it refuses to run on Windows 7. Have downloaded the software to the W7 machine but encountered problems which I will try to get around when there is more time.

Regards

Joe

[Vincent Lowe]

Edit: Ice isn't as effective on the V700.It leaves a lot of jagged, pixelated, nasty looking marks.

 

Are you scanning Kodachrome?

[GaryK]

An alternative I plan to try is use my dslr and a slide copier or a macro lens and lightbox

 

 

+1  there is no real need to use a dedicated scanner any more, any digital camera with a macro function will suffice, plus you have all the benefits of RAW processing.    I sold my Nikon ED5000 for much more than I bought it for and now use a Nikon 60mm macro on my  D600/D7100 DSLR's ,

 

Just take a bit of time to set up and support the camera and use a light box or a flash to illuminate,  you'll rattle through your archive collection much quicker than a any scanner could, plus you'll getter better results.

 

Biggest problem is cleaning the slides,  I use a compressor with a 30psi limiter, .....and,,,, you have an ideal excuse to treat yourself to a new macro lens if you haven't already got one.

 

 

Gary

[MDM]

+1  there is no real need to use a dedicated scanner any more, any digital camera with a macro function will suffice, plus you have all the benefits of RAW processing.    I sold my Nikon ED5000 for much more than I bought it for and now use a Nikon 60mm macro on my  D600/D7100 DSLR's ,

 

Just take a bit of time to set up and support the camera and use a light box or a flash to illuminate,  you'll rattle through your archive collection much quicker than a any scanner could, plus you'll getter better results.

 

Biggest problem is cleaning the slides,  I use a compressor with a 30psi limiter, .....and,,,, you have an ideal excuse to treat yourself to a new macro lens if you haven't already got one.

 

 

Gary

 

I would wonder how time effective copying really is if you have to spend a lot of time afterwards digitally cleaning the images - not only will there be spots on the slides but there is also the usual sensor dust problem. Digital ICE is highly effective. And film can be bulk-scanned with the right gear.

 

Using a RAW processor is not an issue either way as you can run scanned TIFFS through Camera RAW. The dynamic range will already have been lost in the original simply because slides have such a tiny range in comparison to a modern DSLR .

 

I think the real issue here could be quality - is a well-copied slide better than a well-scanned one? When I look at my old scans from a Coolscan 4000, they are dire in terms of sharpness in comparison to anything from my cameras (edit - I mean actual pictures not slide copies which I have not attempted)

[Imagery by Charly]

 

An alternative I plan to try is use my dslr and a slide copier or a macro lens and lightbox

 

 

+1  there is no real need to use a dedicated scanner any more, any digital camera with a macro function will suffice, plus you have all the benefits of RAW processing.    I sold my Nikon ED5000 for much more than I bought it for and now use a Nikon 60mm macro on my  D600/D7100 DSLR's ,

 

Just take a bit of time to set up and support the camera and use a light box or a flash to illuminate,  you'll rattle through your archive collection much quicker than a any scanner could, plus you'll getter better results.

 

Biggest problem is cleaning the slides,  I use a compressor with a 30psi limiter, .....and,,,, you have an ideal excuse to treat yourself to a new macro lens if you haven't already got one.

 

 

Gary

 

This is very interesting. I just started shooting film (35mm last semester, 120 this one) and bought a small stand alone scanner. It does ok but not the res I'd like and wonder if you could elaborate a bit. I haven't had enough coffee, but seems illuminating the negative would be a challenge.

[Sprocket]

 

 

An alternative I plan to try is use my dslr and a slide copier or a macro lens and lightbox

 

 

+1  there is no real need to use a dedicated scanner any more, any digital camera with a macro function will suffice, plus you have all the benefits of RAW processing.    I sold my Nikon ED5000 for much more than I bought it for and now use a Nikon 60mm macro on my  D600/D7100 DSLR's ,

 

Just take a bit of time to set up and support the camera and use a light box or a flash to illuminate,  you'll rattle through your archive collection much quicker than a any scanner could, plus you'll getter better results.

 

Biggest problem is cleaning the slides,  I use a compressor with a 30psi limiter, .....and,,,, you have an ideal excuse to treat yourself to a new macro lens if you haven't already got one.

 

 

Gary

 

This is very interesting. I just started shooting film (35mm last semester, 120 this one) and bought a small stand alone scanner. It does ok but not the res I'd like and wonder if you could elaborate a bit. I haven't had enough coffee, but seems illuminating the negative would be a challenge.

 

If you fancy going down the DIY DSLR scanner route, there's a long-running discussion on the Large Format Photography forum

 

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?87536-DSLR-Scanner-Light-Sources

[Imagery by Charly]

Thanks Sprocket!

[GaryK]

 

+1  there is no real need to use a dedicated scanner any more, any digital camera with a macro function will suffice, plus you have all the benefits of RAW processing.    I sold my Nikon ED5000 for much more than I bought it for and now use a Nikon 60mm macro on my  D600/D7100 DSLR's ,

 

Just take a bit of time to set up and support the camera and use a light box or a flash to illuminate,  you'll rattle through your archive collection much quicker than a any scanner could, plus you'll getter better results.

 

Biggest problem is cleaning the slides,  I use a compressor with a 30psi limiter, .....and,,,, you have an ideal excuse to treat yourself to a new macro lens if you haven't already got one.

 

 

Gary

 

I would wonder how time effective copying really is if you have to spend a lot of time afterwards digitally cleaning the images - not only will there be spots on the slides but there is also the usual sensor dust problem. Digital ICE is highly effective. And film can be bulk-scanned with the right gear.

 

Using a RAW processor is not an issue either way as you can run scanned TIFFS through Camera RAW. The dynamic range will already have been lost in the original simply because slides have such a tiny range in comparison to a modern DSLR .

 

I think the real issue here could be quality - is a well-copied slide better than a well-scanned one? When I look at my old scans from a Coolscan 4000, they are dire in terms of sharpness in comparison to anything from my cameras (edit - I mean actual pictures not slide copies which I have not attempted)

I've scanned many many slides  on Nikon Ed 4000 and Ed5000 scanners,  all for professional purposes, Digital  ICE is good but it will soften images significantly -  I've done many comparisons,  K64 suffered the worst and to get satisfactory results the Digital ICE had to be turned off and the slides cleaned manually.

 

 

Tiffs from a scanner can never become true RAW, apologies but you are misinformed on that one.  For me , sensor dust is a thing of the past,  I can't see it should be an issue for anyone nowadays.

[MDM]

 

 

+1  there is no real need to use a dedicated scanner any more, any digital camera with a macro function will suffice, plus you have all the benefits of RAW processing.    I sold my Nikon ED5000 for much more than I bought it for and now use a Nikon 60mm macro on my  D600/D7100 DSLR's ,

 

Just take a bit of time to set up and support the camera and use a light box or a flash to illuminate,  you'll rattle through your archive collection much quicker than a any scanner could, plus you'll getter better results.

 

Biggest problem is cleaning the slides,  I use a compressor with a 30psi limiter, .....and,,,, you have an ideal excuse to treat yourself to a new macro lens if you haven't already got one.

 

 

Gary

 

I would wonder how time effective copying really is if you have to spend a lot of time afterwards digitally cleaning the images - not only will there be spots on the slides but there is also the usual sensor dust problem. Digital ICE is highly effective. And film can be bulk-scanned with the right gear.

 

Using a RAW processor is not an issue either way as you can run scanned TIFFS through Camera RAW. The dynamic range will already have been lost in the original simply because slides have such a tiny range in comparison to a modern DSLR .

 

I think the real issue here could be quality - is a well-copied slide better than a well-scanned one? When I look at my old scans from a Coolscan 4000, they are dire in terms of sharpness in comparison to anything from my cameras (edit - I mean actual pictures not slide copies which I have not attempted)

I've scanned many many slides  on Nikon Ed 4000 and Ed5000 scanners,  all for professional purposes, Digital  ICE is good but it will soften images significantly -  I've done many comparisons,  K64 suffered the worst and to get satisfactory results the Digital ICE had to be turned off and the slides cleaned manually.

 

 

Tiffs from a scanner can never become true RAW, apologies but you are misinformed on that one.  For me , sensor dust is a thing of the past,  I can't see it should be an issue for anyone nowadays.

I'm not misinformed. I didn't say they become RAW files in the sense that they suddenly increase their dynamic range - that would be ridiculous - it would be impossible to recover the dynamic range of a scene having compressed it with a slide in the first place. All I meant is that you can run the TIFFs through ACR if you want to use the ACR controls.

 

In relation to ICE, I never really noticed much difference scanning Velvia and Fujichrome 100 with or without ICE but Kodachrome is undoubtedly a different matter. 

 

I'm surprised sensor dust is a thing of the past. Not for me and I almost never change lenses. I don't know where it comes from. Shoot a bland sky at f11, put a hard s-curve on the raw and there it is.

[Chuck Nacke]

I guess I am too "old school"  I cannot imagine getting the same quality out of duping a 35mm chrome (positive) or neg with a DSLR as I get from a full 4000dpi scan?

 

I'm wondering what I am missing.

 

 

 

I still use and plan to continue using a Canoscan FS4000 for 35mm chromes and negs.  I get a 16bit 120-135MB file.  I do not use any auto retouching software

 

and it takes a lot of time, but I get everything that is on the chrome or neg.  I also do not scan mounted slides and I clean them before the scan with PEC-12 film

 

cleaner.  I also use Noise Ninja with masking on the finished 16bit scan for small dust and scratches.  I am scanning everything from Tri-X to PKL (Kodachrome 200).