Nikon super coolscan 5000 ED B&W film compatabilites

[JimKramer]

I recently got a 5000 ED and have been very pleased with the results
for most things....
But it will not scan any of my Fuji Acros 100 films. All sorts of
errors: program crashes, "no film detected", "can't autofocus"

Any thoughts?

Has anyone else run across films that simply are incompatible with this
scanner?

Thanks,
Jim

 

[David J. Littleboy]

I recently got a 5000 ED and have been very pleased with the results
for most things....
But it will not scan any of my Fuji Acros 100 films. All sorts of
errors: program crashes, "no film detected", "can't autofocus"

Any thoughts?

Do you have ICE enabled for preview? You have to turn off ICE to scan films
that have silver in them.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

 

[Dan M]

I've only had a problem when the negatives were very dense and there
was nothing the autofocus could lock onto. You might try turning off
autofocus or moving the negative slightly to put the edge of the frame
into the lightpath and set the focus on that.

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

I recently got a 5000 ED and have been very pleased with the results
for most things....
But it will not scan any of my Fuji Acros 100 films. All sorts of
errors: program crashes, "no film detected", "can't autofocus"

Any thoughts?

Has anyone else run across films that simply are incompatible with this
scanner?

Not films that are incompatible, but a serious big in the driver which
can cause just these symptoms. If the scanner is looking for one type
of film (say colour slide film) and you feed it negative film then it
will crash, fail to detect or otherwise object as soon as the hardware
starts to look at it. Very occasionally, it will accept the film but
the thumbnails will be miles out of position. I suspect that this
problem has something to do with the way the driver looks for the film
sprockets and gaps between frames as it pulls the strip into the
adapter, rather than any fundamental incompatibility, and earlier
versions of the drivers did not suffer from this fault.

I reported the problem to Nikon when the drivers were released, more
than two years ago(!) and they confirmed the problem but have done
"nothing to fix it since. IMO, that is disgraceful as they have
continued to sell their scanner products for all of that time with an
acknowledged bug which can even crash the computer!

A work around is to go into "Preferences", select "Automatic Actions"
and deselect *all* of the Preview and Thumbnail options. This will stop
the scanner from trying to automatically scan your film with the wrong
settings as soon as you insert the strip.

When you do insert the film strip, make sure that you select the correct
film type (ie. Negative, Positive etc.) in the driver *BEFORE* creating
the thumbnails by clicking on the slide out area at the side of the
window.

As others have noted, ICE doesn't work on silver loaded film, so you
will have to disable that as well or the scanner will interpret the
denser parts of your image as dirt.

 

[JimKramer]

ICE is not enabled for the B&W scans.

 

[JimKramer]

The negatives are not particularly dense. I was curious if it was the
film base that was the issue as the Acros is almost clear?

Too many crashes to even get to the manual focus stage. :-(

 

[JimKramer]

Not films that are incompatible, but a serious big in the driver which
can cause just these symptoms. If the scanner is looking for one type
of film (say colour slide film) and you feed it negative film then it
will crash, fail to detect or otherwise object as soon as the hardware
starts to look at it. Very occasionally, it will accept the film but
the thumbnails will be miles out of position. I suspect that this
problem has something to do with the way the driver looks for the film
sprockets and gaps between frames as it pulls the strip into the
adapter, rather than any fundamental incompatibility, and earlier
versions of the drivers did not suffer from this fault.

I would concur based on the different noises the scanner makes with the
Acros in it.

I reported the problem to Nikon when the drivers were released, more
than two years ago(!) and they confirmed the problem but have done
"nothing to fix it since. IMO, that is disgraceful as they have
continued to sell their scanner products for all of that time with an
acknowledged bug which can even crash the computer!

I have to agree, but then I suspect Nikon thought that we would all be
100% digital by now.

A work around is to go into "Preferences", select "Automatic Actions"
and deselect *all* of the Preview and Thumbnail options. This will stop
the scanner from trying to automatically scan your film with the wrong
settings as soon as you insert the strip.

Unfortunately for me, these are all already unchecked.

When you do insert the film strip, make sure that you select the correct
film type (ie. Negative, Positive etc.) in the driver *BEFORE* creating
the thumbnails by clicking on the slide out area at the side of the
window.

As others have noted, ICE doesn't work on silver loaded film, so you
will have to disable that as well or the scanner will interpret the
denser parts of your image as dirt.
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)

Thanks

 

[Dan M]

It might be the same issue in reverse. Maybe you could try putting in a
regular negative to set / uncheck whatever settings (auto preview off,
autofocus off, etc.) and then try it again. I know it's frustrating and
time consuming.

I've never used the film feeder -- I use an older FH-3 (I think that's
its designation) single strip holder that was from the LS-10.

Dan

 

[JimKramer]

It is indeed frustrating. The results so far have simply been
stunning, with the exception of one type of B&W film (Two separate
rolls)

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

Unfortunately for me, these are all already unchecked.

That is just the first part. Are you then proceeding with the
following?

If you don't do this, and the scanner attempts to create thumbnails for
the wrong type of film then it usually causes a crash. As Acros 100 is
a conventional silver halide film, you should select "Neg Mono" from the
second drop down menu. Then, and only then, click on the slide panel
just to the right of the "Settings" drop down (it partially opens when
the mouse moves over it). Then click the first icon in that panel, to
initiate the scan.

If your scanner is crashing or otherwise rejecting the Acros film before
you get to this stage then it must be attempting to prescan the film
when you insert it. There have been a couple of reports that Nikonscan
doesn't take changes to the Preferences at the first attempt. This
isn't something I have ever found myself, but others have reported it.
In case this is the problem, after deselecting everything in the
"Automatic Actions" section, close NikonScan and switch the scanner off
for at least 15 seconds. Restart it as normal and try again. If these
functions are deselected and you still get crashes before initiating a
thumbnail or preview scan then there is a problem with the software, and
it might require reinstallation.

Have you successfully scanned any traditional B&W films before, such as
Pan F, FP-4, HP-5 or Tri-X?

 

[JimKramer]

That is just the first part. Are you then proceeding with the
following?

Did all that several times with the same unpleasent results.

If you don't do this, and the scanner attempts to create thumbnails for
the wrong type of film then it usually causes a crash. As Acros 100 is
a conventional silver halide film, you should select "Neg Mono" from the
second drop down menu. Then, and only then, click on the slide panel
just to the right of the "Settings" drop down (it partially opens when
the mouse moves over it). Then click the first icon in that panel, to
initiate the scan.

If your scanner is crashing or otherwise rejecting the Acros film before
you get to this stage then it must be attempting to prescan the film
when you insert it. There have been a couple of reports that Nikonscan
doesn't take changes to the Preferences at the first attempt. This
isn't something I have ever found myself, but others have reported it.
In case this is the problem, after deselecting everything in the
"Automatic Actions" section, close NikonScan and switch the scanner off
for at least 15 seconds. Restart it as normal and try again. If these
functions are deselected and you still get crashes before initiating a
thumbnail or preview scan then there is a problem with the software, and
it might require reinstallation.

Have you successfully scanned any traditional B&W films before, such as
Pan F, FP-4, HP-5 or Tri-X?

HP-5 scans well, I just tried some T-Max and had the same type of
failure.

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

Kennedy McEwen wrote:
Did all that several times with the same unpleasent results.


HP-5 scans well, I just tried some T-Max and had the same type of
failure.

Can you tell us *when* it fails - at what point in the scan process does
this fault occur?

 

[JimKramer]

Turn scanner on with film strip adapter in
Start Nikon Scan
Set media to "Neg (Mono)"
Insert Film strip (It only feeds to the first frame so it is not auto
previewing)
Select the view thumbnails (Acros will crash the program here after a
very noisy attempt to focus, if it doesn't crash outright I will get
a series of error messages one after another(Failure to autofocus -
no film in adapter - crash))
If the thumbnails come up select one
Set curves
Hit scan button
It will either scan or cause the program crash

Again this is only with Silver B&W negatives, Chromogenic B&W, Color
negatives and Transparencies have had no problems.

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

Turn scanner on with film strip adapter in
Start Nikon Scan
Set media to "Neg (Mono)"
Insert Film strip (It only feeds to the first frame so it is not auto
previewing)

OK - here is where it is probably going wrong by switching to your
default user setting. Inserting a new strip causes the scanner to go
through an initialisation process, including a calibration for dark
current, which it follows by loading the default user setting.

Select the media type *AFTER* inserting the film strip but *BEFORE*
requesting the thumbnail scan.

Alternatively, after selecting "Neg (Mono)", safe this as the default
media type under "Settings|Set User Settings". Beware, however, that if
you then subsequently scan chromogenic films or Kodachrome you will get
the same crash problem. Consequently I recommend leaving the User
Settings to the most popular type of film you use (along with all of the
other parameters you prefer) and just select the media type immediately
before thumbnailing the film strip.

Select the view thumbnails (Acros will crash the program here after a
very noisy attempt to focus, if it doesn't crash outright I will get
a series of error messages one after another(Failure to autofocus -
no film in adapter - crash))
If the thumbnails come up select one
Set curves
Hit scan button
It will either scan or cause the program crash

Again this is only with Silver B&W negatives, Chromogenic B&W, Color
negatives and Transparencies have had no problems.

As mentioned above, depending on the media type selected in the default
user setting you can force this crash to occur with almost any media
type. Worst of all, when the driver crashes it fails to release the
resources allocated to it, so after several attempts to make the scan
you can run out of system resources, depending on your OS, thus crashing
the entire system, not just the application.

IMO it is a *serious* bug and totally disgraceful that Nikon have failed
to fix it since acknowledging it over 2 years ago.

 

[Don]

Turn scanner on with film strip adapter in
Start Nikon Scan
Set media to "Neg (Mono)"
Insert Film strip (It only feeds to the first frame so it is not auto
previewing)
Select the view thumbnails (Acros will crash the program here after a
very noisy attempt to focus, if it doesn't crash outright I will get
a series of error messages one after another(Failure to autofocus -
no film in adapter - crash))
If the thumbnails come up select one
Set curves
Hit scan button
It will either scan or cause the program crash

Again this is only with Silver B&W negatives, Chromogenic B&W, Color
negatives and Transparencies have had no problems.

A this point I would try reinstalling NikonScan to get back to the
baseline. It may very well be that your installation has been
corrupted after all the crashes, etc.

BTW, when re-installing don't forget to run the RegCleaner manually!

Also, delete (or rename) the directory with the preview and everything
else just to be on the safe side and start with a totally clean
install.

Don.

 

[JimKramer]

I noticed after the first round of uninstall/reinstall that it was
"kind enough" to preserve all of my user setting from the last set of
scans

I hope Nikon wasn't hoping to win an award with this software.

Jim

 

[JimKramer]

OK - here is where it is probably going wrong by switching to your
default user setting. Inserting a new strip causes the scanner to go
through an initialisation process, including a calibration for dark
current, which it follows by loading the default user setting.

Select the media type *AFTER* inserting the film strip but *BEFORE*
requesting the thumbnail scan.

Alternatively, after selecting "Neg (Mono)", safe this as the default
media type under "Settings|Set User Settings". Beware, however, that if
you then subsequently scan chromogenic films or Kodachrome you will get
the same crash problem. Consequently I recommend leaving the User
Settings to the most popular type of film you use (along with all of the
other parameters you prefer) and just select the media type immediately
before thumbnailing the film strip.

As mentioned above, depending on the media type selected in the default
user setting you can force this crash to occur with almost any media
type. Worst of all, when the driver crashes it fails to release the
resources allocated to it, so after several attempts to make the scan
you can run out of system resources, depending on your OS, thus crashing
the entire system, not just the application.

IMO it is a *serious* bug and totally disgraceful that Nikon have failed
to fix it since acknowledging it over 2 years ago.
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)

No luck with either of those fixes, Nikon is not becoming popular in
my book.

Thanks,
Jim

 

[rafe b]

I noticed after the first round of uninstall/reinstall that it was
"kind enough" to preserve all of my user setting from the last set of
scans

I hope Nikon wasn't hoping to win an award with this software.

There's nothing wrong with NikonScan -- once it's
properly installed. I've been using it for years
and it's stable as Gibraltar.

There are issues with Nikon's uninstaller, but then,
I've had similarly infuriating issues with other
uninstallers, eg., from Epson, HP, Canon, et. al.

NikonScan wants a powerful CPU and as much memory
as you can throw at it.

The "key" to uninstalling NikonScan is to drill
down to:

[root]\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Nikon

Remove the files from that folder, or the folder itself.

Also, Nikon supplies (on the CD that came with your
scanner) a utility for cleaning out the registry
after a driver uninstall. At least they did with
my 8000.

And here's a kicker, that even I had trouble believing.

About a year or so ago, NikonScan started acting flaky.
But this was after installing a new motherboard. After
trying everything under the sun -- including a new
system power supply -- the problem was eventually
traced to an improperly installed heat sink on the CPU.

I wouldn't blame anyone for disbelieving this story,
but it's the truth.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

 

[JimKramer]

I've already had some additional issues with it running ICE. It won't
finish the scan, runs up to almost 100% and then stalls.

I think a 2.8GHZ PIV with a GB of Ram is sufficient overkill for a
program that was copyrighted in 2003.

I liked the heat sink on the CPU story. "Most" of the newer processors
have some overheating protection, usually they will just slow down,
sometimes waaaaaydown.

When the scanner works, it is absolutely fantastic, when it doesn't its
a $1,000 paper weight. I don't need a paperweight. I will continue to
work with it for a litttle while, but if its issues don't get resolved,
it's going to get sent back.

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

No luck with either of those fixes, Nikon is not becoming popular in
my book.

When you initiate a thumbnail scan does the film type remain unchanged
at Neg (Mono)?

If nothing else works, you might have to get a FH-3 film strip holder to
scan these as single frames manually. :-( Worse, these are not easy to
find.

Before going that far though, I would suggest putting a single frame of
your film into a slide mount and then trying to scan that with the basic
MA-20/21 adapter. That should work even if you try to scan the image as
a positive, and if successful then you will be OK with an FH-3.

If the above works though, look at the perforations. There may be
something unusual with them that is causing the scanner to get bad
information about the film type - eg. black edges to the film.