Coolscan 5000 questions

[squirrel$$$bandit]

In the wake of my scanner-complaint thread, I've decided to sell some stuff (in particular a 1/4-inch analog tape machine) and get myself a really, really good film scanner. I've made a commitment to 35mm film shooting, and am tired of being frustrated by the relatively poor resolution of my V500. I'm thinking what I am after is the Coolscan 5000, and if it's as good as people say, I should be more than satisfied with it for many years to come.

So I have a couple of questions. One, this machine doesn't use film holders, correct? One just feeds in a strip of negs and it takes care of it? One of my complaints with the Epson is that the film holders are flimsy, and a little frustrating to use. Does the film have to be perfectly flat with the 5000, or can you feed it in while it still has something of a bow?

Two, I've read a few online complaints about the software the 5000 ships with. Is it indeed a pain to use? Should I plan on using Vuescan? And how does Vuescan work with this scanner? In general I find Vuescan a little awkward, but have had no real trouble using it with the V500.

I've seen a few internet comments to the effect that the 5000 is excellent with color, but less good with B&W. Is this true? Perhaps you could share with me your experiences using it with B&W, because that's mainly what I shoot.

Finally, the SA-30 is the adapter that lets you scan an entire roll of 35mm at once, right? Man, that sounds sweet. Does it work well in practice?

Thanks, all.

 

[pesphoto]

I used to have one of these, and I can tell you the roll film adapter is the best thing you can get with it. It makes scanning so easy. It sucks it right into the scanner and then spits it out as it scans each frame. A must get for sure! The film doesnt need to be perfrectly flat, I think the scanner flattens it as it goes in. I didnt have any problems with teh software that I remember, but others might say differently.

 

[historicist]

I had a Coolscan IV, but the film holders are the same, so I'll answer anyway:

The scanner takes the film via two adaptors, which are delivered with the scanner. One is for mounted slides, the other for film strips from 2 to 6 frames. You just stick the slide or film strip into the adaptor, there's no film holders in the sense of the V500. The film strip adaptor is motorised, and sucks the film in and out, with the slide adaptor it is manual as it takes only one slide at a time.

I found the scanner never had any problems with curly film but it does come with a film strip holder specifically for curled film, similar in concept to the V500 holders but sturdier, when film is really curly it can be placed in that and then scanned via the mounted slide adaptor.

The software is, seemingly like all scanner software, not super well thought through but works fine. One thing to bear in mind is that on a Mac it is not supported under 10.5 and the chances of an update from Nikon are pretty much non-existant. It may nevertheless work but the chances of it continuing to do so in the future are low.

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

Actually i find the FH-3 plastic film strip holder works better than the supplied motorized one as i found the edges of my negs to be soft when scanned using the latter. Maybe this is just my particular model. Interestingly i run mine on an old G4 Powerbook with 10.4.11 Tiger OS and recently it has ceased to work with Nikon Scan and the dedicated Silverfast Ai Studio software but scans still perfectly with Vuescan ??? I've had it 3 years and up until recently it worked perfectly with all three softwares.
Either its the scanner and it needs a service or my software drivers need reloading?

Of all the softwares i favored the Silverfast but it's very expensive and they make you buy a separate software license for every scanner model you use.....

 

[thirteen]

I have the 5000. I echo the comments ahead of me about loading the scanner.
With regards to the software I find the Nikon Scan 4 software that comes with the scanner easier to use than Silverfast and have had better results from it than from Silverfast.
If you get the scanner try the Nikon software first before buying any other - you might find it meets all your needs.

 

[sbramin]

all scanners are better at colour then b/w, you get digital ice and don't have to worry about dust, also because of the way they work they are better with slide film. something of a non issue as it can't be avoided.

the software is fine, its nothing fancy but it doesn't need to be. it does what it is supposed to. i have used it on osx 10.5.2 - 10.5.5 and it always worked.

the roll film adapter is stupid expensive and unless you have money to burn i would not bother. the regular auto loader can take curled film and will mostly flatten it.

the nikon scanner is the best 35mm scanner short of an imacon and even then people compare them favorably for prints up to 16x20. i have never used an imacon so couldn't say but am plenty happy with my nikon scanner.

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

the nikon scanner is the best 35mm scanner short of an imacon and even then people compare them favorably for prints up to 16x20. i have never used an imacon so couldn't say but am plenty happy with my nikon scanner.

I have used the Imacons and you can see the difference in the scan quality like night and day - however i'm not sure the price of one would justify this difference unless you were always making files for exhibition prints....

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I have used the Imacons and you can see the difference in the scan quality like night and day - however i'm not sure the price of one would justify this difference unless you were always making files for exhibition prints....

No, I'm just a super-intense hobbyist with a couple of local gallery shows. I am sure the Nikon will be great.

Can the film strips be anything from 4 to 6 frames?

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

I think shorter than 5 or 6 frames you need the film strip holder but i'm not 100% sure and don't have the scanner with me as i write this.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Holy moses, the hell with the SA-30! I'm going to do this:

http://www.jumboprawn.net/jesse/cam...scan-4000-sa30/nikon-scanner-roll-feeder.html

One drop of solder, and you can convert the stock feeder to accept entire rolls at a time. The only thing missing is the holder at the end, but I will just let the film fall into a basket.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

One more question--can the Coolscan 5000 only detect 3:2 aspect ratio photos, or will I be able to scan strips of photos from my square-frame Robot, then draw in the individual frames myself in preview mode?

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

One more question--can the Coolscan 5000 only detect 3:2 aspect ratio photos, or will I be able to scan strips of photos from my square-frame Robot, then draw in the individual frames myself in preview mode?

Giving this a bump, because I think I'm gonna order the Coolscan tomorrow...and I'd really like to know if this is possible. I assume it is, but has anyone done it?

 

[sbramin]

i scanned panoramas once which was a bit strange, basically scanned two frames and joined them in post.

the autoloader wills scan 2-6 frames, but not a single. as for things smaller then the regular 36x24 i don't know what the autoloader will do, might be confused. but you can scan them with an fh-3 tray. http://www.adorama.com/INKFH3.html?searchinfo=coolscan&item_no=6 the fh-3 will also let you scan a single frame and i think it gives you flatter negatives.

its a bit dinky but not as bad as the totally plastic ones with flatbed scanners.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I have used the Imacons and you can see the difference in the scan quality like night and day - however i'm not sure the price of one would justify this difference unless you were always making files for exhibition prints....

I don't know that I'd call it night and day. Michael Reichmann compared the Nikon 8000 (medium format, this is the scanner I use) to one of the Imacons a few yrs ago and said the difference wasn't that great. His examples he posted showed a little more shadow detail in slides, but in negs, which have much lower dynamic range than slides, I doubt there's any difference. Certainly not enough to justify the price.

I use the Nikon 8000ED and have exhibited the prints and have sold the photos to people all over the world. the quality matched what I got in the darkroom and in some cases exceeded it.

 

[sojournerphoto]

One more question--can the Coolscan 5000 only detect 3:2 aspect ratio photos, or will I be able to scan strips of photos from my square-frame Robot, then draw in the individual frames myself in preview mode?

I think it will get confused if you want to auto detect squar fraes, but you could try it out. You could easily use the FH3 tray which is cheap and works with the slide adaptor. Also, it solves the occasional issue of soft edges to some frames scanned with the SA auto adaptors (you see the softness in th grain mostly).

Agree the SA30 is silly expensive, but it makes scanning a whole roll a pleasure. I got mine secondhand from ebay.

Mike

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

I don't know that I'd call it night and day. Michael Reichmann compared the Nikon 8000 (medium format, this is the scanner I use) to one of the Imacons a few yrs ago and said the difference wasn't that great. His examples he posted showed a little more shadow detail in slides, but in negs, which have much lower dynamic range than slides, I doubt there's any difference. Certainly not enough to justify the price.

I use the Nikon 8000ED and have exhibited the prints and have sold the photos to people all over the world. the quality matched what I got in the darkroom and in some cases exceeded it.

Well to me i can see a clear difference - in the same way when i make a from a point source enlarger light - it shows up all the characteristics of the grain of the negative (and any film abnormalities/damage) when compared to to one i make from my cold cathode light source. But this is going well off topic. Apologies.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I think it will get confused if you want to auto detect squar fraes, but you could try it out.

I'm not interested in auto detecting necessarily, I just am hoping to have the strip of negs appear as a whole in preview, then draw the frames myself in Vuescan. Or, alternately, just have the strip scan as one big file, then cut it up. Can it do this?

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

From my experience of my 5000 using all three softwares you can set the scanning area to cover the entire frame area and then crop as you see fit when you make the final scan. You can then increase the enlargement ratio to increase the file size. This works on the FH3 film strip holder. I also scan my Xpan negs this way and blend in CS3. I no longer use the supplied automated film holder as i find the edges of my negs are soft. This is easy to see when you enlarge the file on the monitor and go to the edges it's noticeable especially when using fast films. At least this is what i see from my 5000 model when using the automated film holder. YMMV.

The FH3 film strip costs about £20 GBP, it is quite flimsy, in fact i bought two just in case, it is quite slow to work with but it does hold the film flat. This feeds into the supplied single slide holder. I wish it would cover the edges of the film frame or you could file it out like on the Imacon film holders (which are metal) but you can't as it's very thin plastic. Perhaps i'm just a fussy bugger!

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Me too! Which is why I'm not satisfied with the Epson...

Simon, are your soft edges the result of a slight curl in the film? I generally eliminate curl before I scan, and I'm hoping I'll be able to feed a whole intact roll without any fuss.

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

Me too! Which is why I'm not satisfied with the Epson...

Simon, are your soft edges the result of a slight curl in the film? I generally eliminate curl before I scan, and I'm hoping I'll be able to feed a whole intact roll without any fuss.

I think it's unlikely as some of them are from years back and have been keep very flat. There are reports of users findings about the film's loss of sharpness when using the automated feeder on the net. If i can find them in my web archives i'll post a link but i stopped using the feeder several years ago so the links may be old. I would guess these might vary from machine to machine - maybe mine is slightly out of alignment.

I have a special tool for aligning all my enlargers and the difference when one is correctly aligned on all planes is really very clear when you go to the very edge of the baseboard with the projected neg. Maybe the same discrepancies apply here as it has been reported that that are differences on the Epson flatbeds.

I became aware of all this when i compared the Imacon scans against the 5000 but the film holders of the Imagon are magnetic ensuring all the flim edges are held flat at the same time - i'm sure this makes a difference. I might be splitting hairs here.