Nikon CoolScan V LS-50 ED Film Scanner by Nikon
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Digital camera reviews of Nikon CoolScan V LS-50 ED Film Scanner
Digital camera Review: Great Scanner but software could be better
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased my V ED scanner through Amazon about 2 years ago and have been extraordinarily happy with it. While slower than professional-level scanners the quality is sooooo far above the 100$ film scanner that I first attempted to use that I can't imagine getting a better deal. As far as the hardware goes I can think of anything substantial to complain about. The software that is included was ok - though I found it to be really buggy when I tried scanning B&W film. I actually downloaded and purchased a license for VueScan (I use a Mac - not sure if there is a PC version) that really lets me drive the hardware to its full potential.Digital camera Review: Great alternative to more expensive Coolscan 5000
Summary: 5 Stars
The Coolscan V is an excellent cheaper alternative to the Coolscan 5000 which I have also owned. My immediate project included about 1500 slides from my own collection, my fathers collection, and my grandfather's collection.
Most of my father's slides are Kodachrome. Much has been written about the inability of this scanner to scan Kodachrome slides and said about ICE4 not working with Kodachrome. Well, I have some good news The ICE4 does work extremely well for the most part. However, with Kodachrome slides it does produce minor artifacts in about 5 percent of the slides. I scanned with ICE (not ICE4) always on and then rescanned if I encountered unacceptable artifacts. I did notice that the scanner ICE feature was more likely to be stumped by old Kodachrome slides where subjects were wearing shirts with stripes.
The GEM ROC and DEE (the other stalwarts of the ICE4 other than ICE itself) work on Kodachrome slides as well, but I found that the results were unpredictable and that I could achieve better results myself in Photoshop far more quickly. The GEM ROC and DEE features simply took too long and slowed down the scanning unacceptably. The results, for me, were not worth the additional scanning time. So I never used these features. But the "enhance" feature on the scanner I used nearly 100% of the time with great results - much better than the GEM ROC and DEE features.
The scanner is fast and does produce wonderful wonderful detailed scans, easily demonstrating the grain in the transparancies at 3000 and 4000 dpi. The Kodachrome slides were a challenge to the Dynamic Range of the scanner, but I believe that most of the detail in the shadows that is there was extracted. With dark slides I used the VERY useful gain feature turning it all the way up to 2 in the really dark slides. Unfortunately, Kodachrome, with all of its many attributes, does have substantial downsides including a very narrow exposure latitude and shadow detail is simply lacking. I think the scanner accurately reproduced the information including the colors on the Kodachrome slides, with perhaps a slight bluish cast noticed in some cases.
It wasn't until I was finished scanning all of the culled slides that I undertook to scan my select color negatives. And this scanner really came into its own scanning color negatives. Don't even TRY to scan color negatives without ICE because the results are unbelievably bad. Even pristine negatives have scratches and dust that magically are erased by the ICE feature. What a godsend. The scanned color negatives were just beautiful with very accurate color rendition. But immediately I noticed much more grain in the color negatives (Royal Gold and Fuji Superia Gold) than in the scanned slides.
One note unrelated to the scanner itself. Until you've used a digital scanner to scan your color negatives you can't begin to realize how far superior Kodachrome, Provia, and Ektachrome slides are to color negatives insofar as capturing detail. Even the best color negatives have much more grain that Kodachrome. And the difference in color negatives is substantial too.
The V was slower than the 5000, but honestly the difference for the non-professional scanner, to me, was not worth the additional investment. The V represents a superb value giving you nearly all of the advantages of the 5000 other than speed for a substantially cheaper price.
The included Nikon software worked fantastic for me. I downloaded a copy of VueScan which according to many reviews is superior to the Nikon software and found that for me the Nikon software was easier to work with and produced superior results.
Setup Summary: I scanned at a 16 bit color depth and 4000 pixels per inch with the scan enhancer turned on and the Digital ICE turned on. I did not use GEM ROC and DEE because of inconsistent results. I turned up the gain as necessary for dark slides and turned it down for light slides. Gain adjustments were only necessary on about 15 - 20% of the slides.
Setting up the Nikon Scan window was a little tricky too. I placed the tool palette in the far upper right corner of the window with the scan window placed under it to the right. The image window occupied the largest portion space to the left.
I can recommend this scanner without reservation. It is a phenomenal piece of equipment. If speed is not a paramount consideration and you are not a professional scanner needing the options (the auto feeder) offered by the 5000 then, in my opinion, the V represents an absolutely tremendous value.
Digital camera Review: Great scanner despite being slow and tedious to operate
Summary: 4 Stars
I love the results of this scanner, and their Mac software is pretty good. But there is no batch mode at all, no slide feeder available, and getting through a roll of slides or 5 strips of film takes all night! I had the Minolta ScanDual before - it was much faster to scan batches but the quality was not nearly as high. I think at this price point, there has to be a tradeoff, and Nikon chose to go for quality of image at the expense of speed of operation.
With 1,000 slides and hundreds of rolls of negatives to scan, I know I'll become very close to this new device over the coming months - hopefully the speed won't drive me crazy!
Digital camera Review: Great scanner for an Intel Mac
Summary: 5 Stars
This scanner and Nikon Scan 4 software has given me excellent results so far using a 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac computer. I customarily can make up to 13" x 19" prints or 13" wide panoramics from the scans. Some people with Intel Macs seem to have had problems with the Nikon Scan software. I talked to Nikon before purchasing the scanner, and they said to be sure to make sure any old Nikon Scan software was completely uninstalled before installing Nikon Scan 4. Also they said to put the sleep mode to "never." as putting the Mac to sleep will break the scanner-software connection. Then it should work fine.
An alternative to Nikon software would be to purchase SilverFast software (http://www.silverfast.com/scanner-software/). Many reviewers have recommended this software since it has the appropriate integration with all Nikon scanners and is apparently even easier to use than Nikon software. There are several versions (SE, SEplus, Ai) depending on your budget and need for basic vs. more complex manipulations.
Thus, I highly recommend these scanner-software combinations (the scanner is nothing without good software). The biggest negative for some persons might be the lack of an auto slide changer for this scanner. You would have to migrate to the Nikon CoolScan 5000 ED to get the auto scanner (about $1,500 for the scanner and auto slide changer compared to about $600 for the Nikon CoolScan V ED).
Digital camera Review: Great with color, Good with Black and White
Summary: 4 Stars
It's not fast, but the quality and ease of scanning color slides and negatives is very good and the results are just spectacular. It's very good at getting a good quality scan from less than great slides and negatives. There are a few negatives, though not enough to make me regret my purchase.
1) Inadequate documentation (John Shaw's scanning article online was very helpful)
2) Most of the special scanning features (DEE, ICE, GEM) don't work with Black and white and you have to figure out how to create your own black and white settings so that you can just specify them once when scanning a negative strip or else you go crazy setting all the buttons and you get posterized black and white.
3)Without ICE in black and white (which doesn't work with the infrared tech they use) you have to have really clean negatives or spend a lot of time spotting. And even when you get good scans, it scans in color so you have to futz with color balance on every negative.
4) You have to cut the sprocket holes on the sides of the first negative so that there aren't any open sprocket holes or else it causes the scanner to error out and you have to open it up to get your negatives.
5) The software crashes occasionally (about 1-2 times per evening) on a modern Core 2 Duo iMac.
So though black and white is a problem, it's not negative enough to detract from a truly great piece of hardware.