Nikon LS-5000 poor performance

[John]

I recently bought a Nikon LS-5000 film scanner. I've tried it with
several packages including NikonScan, Vuescan and SilverFast but in all
cases the results are not good in the darker areas of the picture.

I tried looking at the raw data with a USB sniffer, and it looks like
the lower 8 bits of the pixel values are random. For example if I use
the multi-read option to read the CCD lines several times then the upper
byte is the same each time but the lower byte can vary between 0 and FF
on successive reads of the same pixel.

I've tried talking to Nikon support about this but they claim the
scanner is working normally.

Can someone with an LS-5000 confirm that the scanner should be better
than this please? I want to know whether to return the device and ask
for a replacement, or just ask for my money back.

John

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

It should do better than that.

Make sure the mirror is clean (Google will find you instructions).