Nikon Super CoolScan 5000 ED Film Scanner by Nikon
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Digital camera reviews of Nikon Super CoolScan 5000 ED Film Scanner
Digital camera Review: CoolScan 5000 ED is Cook
Summary: 4 Stars
Except for being slow it is a great product. I found that is takes a very long time to scan and save pictures. Although I am still learning, most slides came out much better than other methods of sanning I have used.Digital camera Review: Crystal Clear Images
Summary: 5 Stars
Purchased this scanner based on the positive reviews for image quality and it has certainly exceeded my expectations. Software is easy to use and and with a little tweaking and experimentation cleans up the slides beautifully. Even incredibly dark, under exposed slides have been resurrected to reveal hidden gems. Scans in single pass mode create near perfect replicas of the original slides, comparing the scans to slides viewed in fine detail with a hand lens. Having scanned over 100 slides, I have experienced the software crash mentioned by other people only 2-3 times. But even then, it's just a simply matter of starting up the software again and I'm back up in running within 30 seconds. There seems to be some correlation to the crashes and waking up my computer from sleep. The scanning process does take a little longer than I would have hoped, but I'm sure that is due to my older computer which only has USB 1.0 capabilities (the scanner comes with USB 2.0 - which is much faster). Having said that, users with older computers need not fear, it's works perfectly with mine. I'm currenly running Mac OS X 10.4.8 on a Power Mac G4 tower (Dual 1.42GHz PowerPC G4 processors).Digital camera Review: Defective Products out of the Box and Cost of Ownership
Summary: 1 Stars
One star is not for how Nikon products perform once they work properly, it is a measure of the lack of product defects (quality) and the extra costs incurred by the customer to get Nikon scanner products to work properly.
I purchased a CoolScan-IV. When I received it, it was defective out of the box. I contacted Nikon technical support and they told me to exchange it for a new scanner. The new 12-Bit CoolScan-IV worked perfectly. When I was ready to upgrade to 16-Bits, I purchased a CoolScan-5000 and gave my CoolScan-IV away. What a mistake!
This "upgrade" scanner was a total piece of junk. The images were noisy. I immediately contacted Nikon technical support about the problem. After some back and forth, they told me there was nothing wrong with the scanner; I was the problem. I recently found an archive copy of an under-scanned photo that I scanned on the old CoolScan-IV. I compared the images. The CoolScan-IV produced a very good image. The CoolScan-5000 was horrible. Without spending hundreds of dollars to pay Nikon Service to correct Nikon's initial quality defects, I am stuck with a piece of junk.
NikonScan. NikonScan is the scanning software that comes with the Nikon scanners. When it works, NikonScan works acceptably; however, it locks up repeatedly requiring closing the program and reopening it. Earlier versions worked much better in this regard to locking up.
Bottom line, Nikon quality has deteriorated to become very poor. I just described four Nikon product quality problems (initially defective products). There is a fifth: Nikon does not stand behind errors that their technical service personnel make.
Each item described above had additional out of pocket cost or lost time associated with it. I know the scanners can perform exceptionally well once they are working to spec. I would recommend a Nikon scanner only if you are willing to unnecessarily pay out a lot of extra money and waste a lot of time correcting initial Nikon product quality defects and incompetent technical service advice.
Digital camera Review: Don't count on future support for Nikon scanners
Summary: 1 Stars
My review deals with all Nikon scanners based on my experiences with the Nikon LS-4000 ED scanner and Nikon's lack of commitment in the very area that once made them the first choice for professional and serious amateur photographers. We spent several thousand dollars on a scanner that, although being a recent product, will not work on Mac OS X Leopard or Windows Vista, even though Nikon claims to support both. The Nikon Scan app that supposedly works with our systems will not recognize the scanner and the 4.0.2 updater for that software falsely reports a successful installation when in fact it leaves the former version untouched. We've practically begged Nikon for help and have been told that, in effect, they can't continue to support "older" products and they're sorry they can't help us. They're not the only ones who are sorry -- I deeply regret the huge amount of money I've invested in Nikon gear. If you are considering the purchase of any Nikon scanner, I suggest taking a very careful look at competitors and their reputation for supporting what they sell. If this was a 20 year old product I could be more understanding.
To all the 5000 ED owners who have written favorable reviews I would only say that I once felt the same way about the 4000 ED and I sincerely hope you don't run into this same support nightmare in the future.
Digital camera Review: Excellent Product
Summary: 5 Stars
There are not many options film scanners in this range and I balked at the $1200 price tag but this is an excellent tool.
The software gives you all the control you need to produce excellent scans of all kinds of slides and negatives.