400UC film in Nikon Coolscan V?

[Bill Tuthill]

Practical Photography (UK) just did a review of half a dozen scanners,
and top-rated the Nikon Coolscan V, with the Minolta 5400 coming 2nd.

Because a friend has one and it worked well for me, I was just about to
buy a Minolta 5400 until I saw this review. The Coolscan V was rated
higher due to speed and easier autofocusing, you might say.

www.datamind.co.uk/merchant/ Plustek_OpticFilm7200_PP_Review_Summary.pdf

So here's my question: how does print film in general, and Kodak 400UC
in particular, work in your Coolscan V?

It seems most of my friends who own Nikon scanners (older than the LS-50)
soon learned that slides scan better than negatives in their scanners.
I have a large library of negatives, and will soon acquire a DSLR, so
the ability to scan negatives well is critical to me.

A corollary question: does autofocusing work more reliably on the 5400
using negatives (or bare E-6 film) than with mounted slides?

 

[Mxsmanic]

So here's my question: how does print film in general, and Kodak 400UC
in particular, work in your Coolscan V?

All recent Nikon scanners do very well with both print and slide film.
The Kodak Portra films are optimized for scanning and generally scan
very well indeed.

 

[Tony]

I loved mine until it broke down. Then after a three month struggle with
Nikon I finally got it fixed -- for 370 dollars, and it runs at 1/3rd the
speed it did before they "fixed" it. They never answered my emails about
this. It takes forty five minutes to do a 4000 dpi scan at 14 bit depth with
ICE running - no other ASF features - I figure I would not be alive by the
time it finished.
I have to recommend the Minolta based on the ineptitude and arrogance
of Nikon Service in Melville. I know I'll never waste money on another Nikon
product.

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[Mxsmanic]

I loved mine until it broke down. Then after a three month struggle with
Nikon I finally got it fixed -- for 370 dollars, and it runs at 1/3rd the
speed it did before they "fixed" it. They never answered my emails about
this. It takes forty five minutes to do a 4000 dpi scan at 14 bit depth with
ICE running - no other ASF features - I figure I would not be alive by the
time it finished.

Try getting a faster PC. ICE is handled inside the PC, not inside the
scanner, as far as I know.

 

[Alan Browne]

Practical Photography (UK) just did a review of half a dozen scanners,
and top-rated the Nikon Coolscan V, with the Minolta 5400 coming 2nd.

Because a friend has one and it worked well for me, I was just about to
buy a Minolta 5400 until I saw this review. The Coolscan V was rated
higher due to speed and easier autofocusing, you might say.

The 5400 does take longer ... of course, it's delivering 82% more pixels for a
full frame scan, so quite normal. I've never had a serious autofocus issue with
the 5400.

www.datamind.co.uk/merchant/ Plustek_OpticFilm7200_PP_Review_Summary.pdf

So here's my question: how does print film in general, and Kodak 400UC
in particular, work in your Coolscan V?

Some films, such as Portra 160NC are very east to scan. Some films give you
fits. (Some are hard wrt color, some are hard wrt grain).

It seems most of my friends who own Nikon scanners (older than the LS-50)
soon learned that slides scan better than negatives in their scanners.
I have a large library of negatives, and will soon acquire a DSLR, so
the ability to scan negatives well is critical to me.

A corollary question: does autofocusing work more reliably on the 5400
using negatives (or bare E-6 film) than with mounted slides?

The few times I've had focus problems with the 5400, requiring manual focus, has
been with poorly exposed negatives.

The problem with all (non drum) film scanners is how flat the film is. A
seriously curled negative strip of 4 frames will not be perfectly flat. A
badly mounted slide can have a pretty bad bow in it too.

Cheers,
Alan.

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[A. Merschman]

Hi Bill

It seems most of my friends who own Nikon scanners (older than the LS-50)
soon learned that slides scan better than negatives in their scanners.
I have a large library of negatives, and will soon acquire a DSLR, so
the ability to scan negatives well is critical to me.

I use the Coolscan V and am extremely satisfied. Before that I owned a
Canoscan FS 4000 which just cannot compete (noise and 'speed'). I find
scanning negatives quite easy. It works well with the OEM software and
might be even better with Vuescan or Silverfast. As a matter of fact,
I use much more negatives now that I have this scanner because they
yield such an enormous amount of detail. Slides might be considered
easier to scan because of the less obstrusive grain and they rarely
produce any serious colour casts. But this is true for any scanner.
Actually I don't find grain a big problem in negatives either. People
claim that the LED light source exaggerates the grain. Compared to the
Canon (which has a more diffuse light source similar to the Minolta) I
couldn't really see any disadvantages. On the contrary, the LED
combined with an ED lens yields so much sharpness out of the box and
ensures very constant scanning conditions. I even got some decent
scans from classic silver BW. However, I play around with GEM a bit
(setting 1 or 2 usually give me good results). I have scanned all
sorts of negs and found the Kodaks easier to scan because of their
colour balance. However, Reala has the best grain as far as I know so
far. I have never used 400UC.
Hope that helps you with your decision.

Cheers.
Arnold.

 

[false_dmitrii]

Try getting a faster PC. ICE is handled inside the PC, not inside the
scanner, as far as I know.

You missed what Tony wrote--the scanner ran much faster before the
repair. And 45 minutes on a Coolscan "5" series would be excessive
under almost any circumstances. ICE isn't just the software...the IR
lamp has to be working properly as well.

My Epson flatbed takes a huge speed hit when the calibration area is
blocked. Maybe the above case likewise involves a calibration or
similar sensor-related failure, if it's not a malfunction within the
motor itself. (But I have a horrible record when making guesses about
Nikon scanners. Wait and see--Kennedy or another Nikon owner will
find something 100% wrong in the above, even though I kept it as
generic as possible. )

false_dmitrii

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

45 minutes on a Coolscan "5" series would be excessive
under almost any circumstances.

Wait and see--Kennedy or another Nikon owner will
find something 100% wrong in the above, even though I kept it as
generic as possible. )

Not at all. 45minutes to scan a normal film with such a scanner
certainly would indicate a fault. One has to wonder why anyone would
accept such a "repair" without returning it to be done properly.

It is possible to make a correctly functioning operating scanner take
that long, using 16x multiscan of extremely dense film with the analgue
gain wound up to maximum on the master and all channels, but that would
certainly not be considered "normal". Under standard settings it is
just a fault. The scan time is part of the scanner specification - if
the scan time is excessive after the repair then the repair is
unsatisfactory, its as simple as that.