Coolscan V for Kodachrome?

[Samuel D]

Hello, all.

I’ve never digitised my collection of film images, in part because the scanner options on the market have been unappealing for years. But I really should get my skates on with that job, and I also intend to keep shooting a modest amount of film for the foreseeable future. So, a scanner.

The collection includes all sorts of emulsions, almost all in 35 mm format: E-6, C-41 (colour and black-and-white), traditional black-and-white negative, Agfa Scala, and maybe a couple of thousand Kodachrome slides. I remember Kodachrome was difficult to scan in the early years. Does it remain a serious problem?

My feeling from reading around is that the Nikon Coolscan V would be good enough for a first scan and possibly an archive-quality scan at a pinch. And if I discover something truly worthwhile in my old photos, I could send those out for a professional scan or wait until I snag a cheap Flextight (that’ll be the day!).

I am moderately computer-savvy and could probably manage to get some old Windows XP software running one way or another.

Any tips or warnings?

 

[Godfrey]

The Nikon Coolscan V ED and the SuperCoolscan 5000 ED sibling are the two best scanners on the market for 35mm film short of a drum scanner. Very few slides or negs are good enough to warrant spending for a drum scan.

Most professional scanning services use one of these two film scanners. The key to getting excellent scans, once you have one of these, is learning how to use it to best advantage.

G

 

[Mackinaw]

Nikon Scan, the software that comes with the Coolscan V, has a separate "Kodachrome" setting. It works well too.

Jim B.

 

[Samuel D]

Very few slides or negs are good enough to warrant spending for a drum scan.

Touché!

I’m not surprised there’s a learning curve. There usually is. I feel like I’ve been climbing curves non-stop since I adopted digital. That said, I have climbed those curves, steadily.

Is the Coolscan V ED noticeably worse at punching through deep shadows than the SuperCoolscan 5000 ED? I ask because Nikon specifies their respective density ranges as 4.2 and 4.8, but those numbers happen to precisely match their A/D converter bit-depths of 14- and 16-bit. They might therefore be pretty meaningless.

The 5000 is unfortunately a good deal more expensive than the V (perhaps because it supports some auto-loader options?). I don’t think those auto-loaders would greatly help me. I suspect it’ll be all I can manage to keep up with the V, in terms of tweaking curves and dust-busting.

I appreciate your reply, G.

Nikon Scan, the software that comes with the Coolscan V, has a separate "Kodachrome" setting. It works well too.

Sounds like it’s made for me, then. Thanks, Jim.

 

[helvetica]

For the quantities you are talking about, it might be worth considering the time investment in what you are looking at. Even if scanning was intantaneous, there's still the time of removing the negs from sleeves, loading trays, naming files, and replacing in sleeves.

I would suggest taking into consideration an Epson V700 flatbed. Its tray adapter will let you scan 24 pictures (4 strips of 6 shots) at a time - assuming you cut your strips that way. I have the V500 and it has been quite handy in that regard. The Epson software does a decent job at auto-cropping the images, and auto-incrementing the file names. My scans are usually labeled something like Christmas-HP5-800-12.jpg for the 12th image from a Christmas roll of HP5 that was pushed to ISO800, naturally.

The Coolscan, as a disclosure, would probably out-resolve the Epson when you are looking closely, but give the total workflow consideration.

 

[lewis44]

If memory serves, the difference is that the 4000 & 5000 will scan a full roll of film and the IV & V will only do 6 frames. There is a slot on the rear of the scanner for a roll film attachment that takes up the full roll and also a different adapter for the front.
There is also a mod for those two scanners to do it w/o the front adapter.
I've had the 2000, 4000, V & 5000 at different times and $$$ wise the 4000 or V are a better bargain and hard to tell the difference.
The 4000 is hard to get repaired as Nikon is out of some parts.
This link will give you a good look at the spec's:
http://www.nikonusa.com/en/Nikon-Products/Film-Scanners/index.page

 

[sevo]

The one thing that will not work with Kodachrome is straightforward IR dust detection, as the cyan dye in Kodachrome is opaque to IR. Some software interpolates a mask from the difference between the cyan and IR channel, but only the last generation Nikon pro scanners made a really good job of it, for the rest you'll fare better if you scan Kodachrome without DigitalICE.

 

[Godfrey]

Nikon Scan, the software that comes with the Coolscan V, has a separate "Kodachrome" setting. It works well too.

NikonScan hasn't worked on Macs for some revisions of OS X. I use VueScan to drive both the Coolscan V and Super Coolscan 9000 ... Works perfectly on the latest versions of OS X and hardware. There are no problems scanning Kodachrome or any other film. However, Kodachrome uses pigment based dyes which, like traditional gelatin-silver based B&W film, doesn't get along well with IR-based dust and scratch removal systems. Just turn those off when scanning these types of films.

G

 

[venchka]

I guess I'm too old to care...
Links to Kodachrome, and all of the other film in my galleries, scanned with an antique Epson Expression 1680 scanner. Good enough for publication. Good enough to hang on walls. YMMV.

LUG Yearbook

Kodachrome 64

My LUG Gallery

Wayne

 

[Samuel D]

I found a Nikon Coolscan V ED with a late serial number (437xxx) and bought it, so that’s that.

I was able to get Nikon Scan 4.0.3 running on an old ThinkPad with 64-bit Windows 7 by following these simple instructions. I’m still at the experimental stage, but thus far I’ve scanned into Adobe RGB TIFF with pretty much everything set at default in Nikon Scan, and then copied the files over to my colour-managed Mac for tweaking.

So far, so good, though the scanner certainly doesn’t see into the full inky depths of a contrasty Kodachrome 25 (PKM) slide. It’s impressively good at resolving dust, though!

 

[aldobonnard]

I (still) own a Coolscan 5000, Minolta DI5400 I, Minolta DI 5400 II, and the best for kodachromes and slides in general, is without the shadow of a doubt the Minolta DI 5400 I.
No discussion.
I have spent lots of time comparing, and when I want the best quality, I use the DI 5400 I.
The nikon 5000 is all right, because it's fast and has a very good ROC implementation, but a much lower resolution (20% at least) than the minolta's.
If you want the best for kodachromes, don't use the nikon's.

 

[heller]

All I can say is, 3F files from the Hasselblad Flextight X5 are awesome.
www.daniheller.com

 

[Samuel D]

I know you said “no discussion”, aldobonnard, but it would be nice to know what you find better about the DiMAGE Scan Elite 5400 compared to the Scan Elite 5400 II and SuperCoolscan 5000 ED.

The resolution of the Coolscan V ED is adequate considering the edges and corners of the frame are never in good focus (due to curvature of the film). I suppose there are sharp slides which would benefit from higher scanning resolutions in the centre, or just a higher-fidelity grain structure over part of the frame – but the main problems I have are shadow noise and dust, not centre resolution.

I wanted an Imacon/Hasselblad scanner very much – it seems to be the only way to get corner-to-corner sharpness and rich shadow detail – but the Flextight 343 was too expensive and the older SCSI Flextights would have required a secondary (old) computer, which I don’t have space for.

The new X1 and X5 models are undoubtedly wonderful, but they’re far too large for my apartment, and if I had that much spare cash I’d buy a Cessna 152 instead.

 

[Fernando2]

Aldo is right, the Minolta 5400-I is the best 35mm scanner if you can't afford a Imacon.
It has better resolution than every Nikon and has better shadow details than the 5400-II.
This is because Minolta much enhanced the speed of the 5400-II, by boosting the sensor gain. This worsened the shadow noise and thus the useable dynamic range:

5400-I dynamic range (look at the "Med-High" number on the right)

Minolta 5400-II:

Example of shadow noise (boosted to facilitate comparison): see the pattern noise in the 5400-II sample?

 

[rbrooks]

For Kodachrome (and B&W) the trick is to get a scanner with diffuse lighting. So that means the 5400 version I, the Nikon 9000 and some of the Flextights/Imagcon.

If you go with the Minolta I suggest you also consider mounting the best slides with glass otherwise you won't be happy with the focus. The Nikon also has a narrow focus but with less dpi you don't notice it as you do on the Minolta.