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: Great Brand in cameras, but not in digital equipments...
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought Nikon CoolScan 5000 ED to scan my positive and negatives. Machine scans good and sometimes perfect and before i bought it i thought it was my only need. But the scanning machine has to have a suitable software. The software they gave with the machine is really old and not user friendly. Additionally, with strip film holder, Coolscan automaticaly takes the strip but can not recognize the exact frame on the strip. Sometimes it stops the strip in the middle and shows one half from previous photo and one half from the next photo. Despite these unquality things the scanning performance is great.Digital camera Review: Great Scanner
Summary: 5 Stars
I rented this scanner over the weekend to start scanning hundreds of slides. Included was the SF-210 automatic slide feeder. I had imagined putting 25-50 slides in the hopper and coming back periodically to change them.
As it turned out, the SF-210 was a miserable waste of time. See my review of this product.
I had scanned slides with several brands of scanners (Epson and Canon) and found that the result was marginal at best because of dust and dirt. Regardless of how I cleaned the slides and the scanner, the dust was always a problem.
This scanner has the wonderful ICE technology which almost completely eliminates the problem. The 4000 dpi resolution allows cropping.
The software that comes with the scanner, and the updated versions available from the Nikon web site are both clunky and have not kept up with the times. More than a year after Windows Vista was released and they do not have a version that will work with it! I have been a software engineer for decades and know a poor user interface when I see one (Nikon Scan 4.0). For instance, when you choose preferences, it asks you if you want to save them, load them, or use defaults. Not how to set them. Often the software's user feedback is erroneous or confusing. You click on the Scan button and find a minute later that nothing happened. If the scanner jams, it doesn't provide decent error recovery and recommends that you press a button that does not exist.
If you know how to do photo retouching with Photoshop, you will find a way to set up Nikon Scan and then be able to produce some eye-popping results.
It is really unfortunate that the only automatic slide feeder you can use with this product is so completely flawed.
After giving up on using the slide feeder, I was able to scan slides at a rate of one per 2 minutes.
Digital camera Review: Great Scanner
Summary: 5 Stars
I have used several other film/slide scanners in the past, the 5000ED really performs. I really like the multi-scan functions for higher signal to noise and 8 or 16 bit files. I highly recommend this scanner for archiving slides and film and for get a good digital image to work with if Photoshop. I have no problems producing 16x20 prints from scanned image. Quality in and Quality out. Quick scans for such high resolution with very consistent work flow. I will be doing a more in-depth review at [...] in the future.Digital camera Review: Great Scanner... use different software
Summary: 4 Stars
I've used both the CoolScan III and the Coolscan 5000ED, unless you're selling pictures the III does just fine. I found Hamrick Software Nikon didn't update the software for the LS-30 to work with Vista. It makes a good scanner great, so would highly suggest the additional expense and not even waste your time using the OEM software.Digital camera Review: How to fix and use this scanner
Summary: 4 Stars
Here is how to fix the jamming problem with the 210 slide feeder. This fixes 99.9% of the jamming problem.
1. Put a 1.5" thick block of wood under the right side of the scanner.
2. Cut a 2" by 2" square out of light cardboard.
3. Slide the feed side slide pusher all the way to the right and pull it towards you. This locks it in this position.
4. You will be able to scan up to about 40 slides. Count the number of slides. Enter this number in the Scanner Extras window.
5. Load the slides in the feeder with the 2" by 2" cardboard in the stack as the last slide.
7. Place a C size battery in the slide feed tray so that it wants to roll and push the slides into the feeder. Put the flat side of the battery towards you.
8. Start scanning. If you want to scan more than 40 slides, it is easy to remove the slide pusher. Remove the 3 screws on the right side of the feed tray area. Flip the feeder over and remove the two screws on th bottom. Remove the pusher and its spring. Reassemble the feeder. With the pusher out of the way, you can now completely fill the feed tray with slides plus the battery.
I've scanned about 2000 slides. Here are the settings in Nikon Scan 4 that have worked best for me.
1. First, go to Scanner drop down menu, select Settings and Reset to Factory Defalults.
2. In the Tool Palette 1 window: under Digital Ice Advanced, check all three boxes. Keep the default settings of 5,3 and 50. Don't use Scan Image Enhancer. If the image is very over or under exposed, use the Analog Gain Master control to fix this problem. Otherwise leave the gain settings at 0.
Hope this helps. The scanner produces beautiful images.