New scanner - Pakon vs Nikon

[glassportal]

Hi guys,
Ive been hunting around for a Pakon F135 plus but it seems i missed the boat and they're up around $700 now compared to the $300 of last year. I also just got offered a Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED for $1000. I love the color of the Pakons but also need to print sometimes. How large can i go on the Pakon? Ive actually never seen the color out of the Nikons is it as good as the Kodak?

I know thats a great deal on the Nikon I'm just worried about it not being serviceable. Should I keep hunting for a cheap F135?

Cheers - Alex

 

[benmacphoto]

How large do you need to print?
Straight from the scanner I believe you can get an 8x10 from the Pakon.
With the Nikon you can get close to 16x20 straight from the scanner.
I've always preferred Nikon scanners, but cannot comment on color rendition against other scanners such as the Pakon.

I know thats a great deal on the Nikon I'm just worried about it not being serviceable.

I don't think the Pakon scanners are serviceable either.
And the price is so close now since they went up in price.

 

[Glenn2]

If the CS-5000 is in good shape that price is not too crazy. I've seen them for a lot more. Make sure the device that feeds film is included.

I bought mine new for ~ $1400 quite a few years ago. The results are very good, I make 13"x19" prints using an Epson 3880 that are better than I could get in a wet darkroom on graded paper. In the past I only seemed to print the easy negatives, now it's easy to tweak scanned images in Lightroom or some such software.

Check out my gallery here on RFF, all the film images were done on a CS-5000. I rate it two thumbs up!

 

[splitimageview]

The Pakon is an excellent scanner but has woefully old software so one has to do a bit of hoop jumping. But it works great once set up, and it's very fast. And the color is excellent. It's a minilab scanner so it's forte is scanning entire rolls quickly. It's essentially 6 megapixel, so it can handle somewhat larger than 8x10 depending on the viewing distance.

If you need more resolution, the various Nikons work great with Vuescan and modern operating systems, but they are slow. Best to only scan the frames you really intend to print.

The best solution is to have both. 🙂

 

[yanchep_mike]

The Pakon will do 8X10 no problem i use a Plustek with Vuescan for larger prints, for about 90+% of my needs the Pakon is the go too now. You will need an old pc with XP to run the Pakon software. Bought a Nikon ls-50 on Gumtree a while back crapped out after about 6 month and repair is not possible. So have 2 options is the way to go if you can. The Pakon is lightning fast doing whole rolls.
The Plustek is single frame on a holder, frame by frame the results are good but not really for 16X20 prints, but depends if you hang it up and look at it from a distance.
cheers

 

[glassportal]

I just saw some scans side by side and ill be holding out for a Pakon. Now I'm just wondering if i should buy the Nikon and resell it.

 

[JSturr]

I just started this whole process -- so I'm came at this with rose colored glasses. I went from Digital to souping and scanning in under a month.

And what an eye opener it has become. It was a battle between what I can do, and what the lab can do - and how much I wanted to pay.

The driver of the whole scanning process - short of a drum, was the best result possible, and for me that metric is based upon resolution. Get the scan in the system and then post process
is the other learning curve.

All the reviews drove me to Nikon's or Minolta's. Minolta's don't have much of a following - but they have the res. So I found a new in box 1st generation Minolta Dimage 5400 for 35mm for $400, and I backfilled
that with a Nikon LS-8000 for Medium format becuase the 35mm tray was not included, couldn't beat the $500 price for that. The Minolta gives me great autofocus.

Also -- no matter what you get, especiall the Pakon, you will need to run that on an OS from last century. Not big deal - just some other hurddle to jump.

Eventually - you will want the resolution, in my opinion - stuff to think aobut.

 

[Gregoyle]

One thing to remember with the Pakon is that you have to go through the rigmarole of either setting up a virtual machine on a Mac or setting up an old PC to run Windows XP, as the software doesn't run anywhere else.

The Pakon gives better results out of the box than most scanners, and being able to scan a whole roll in a few minutes is a huge plus. If you are going to run one, I highly recommend joining the Facebook group. There is a lot of good info there, and also the most recent version of the software which allows scanning of regular B&W film.

-Greg

 

[bence8810]

I have the Pakon and it's an excellent device. I scanned 4 rolls yesterday in 1 hour including cutting up the film / numbering them (bulk film) / making contact scans of the strips on a flatbed and finally storing them away in sleeves. It's so simple!

Granted - I don't print digitally - only wet prints in a darkroom so can't comment on that. But for Flickr etc - it beats out every other option I've seen so far.
I like it so much I bought a 2nd one in case the first one gives in.

Ben

 

[Faintandfuzzy]

Just curious if anyone has compared the latest Plustek scanners vs the Nikon 5000. Any thoughts?

 

[JSturr]

There's a number of threads on the Plustek subject - for me it all came down to optical resolution - and basically nothing currently made which is desktop based can compare to the past Nikon / Minolta equipment.

Also -- it seems - even considering the age of this older hardware, it's really robust and just keeps on performing.

 

[wblynch]

I have 16x20 prints on my wall that came from a Pakon F-235. I get compliments on them all the time.

Back in the 'olden days', the rule of thumb for 35mm was print no larger than 8x10.

No need to scan contact sheets on the flatbed, the Pakon can output an Index Print with the click of a button.

 

[bence8810]

No need to scan contact sheets on the flatbed, the Pakon can output an Index Print with the click of a button.

How do you do that? I thought you need to have a printer hooked up as it was originally intended for the contact sheet to work.

Please let me know!
Thanks
Ben

 

[glassportal]

Now its just the hard slog to find one at a decent price. If anyone has a spare or a hookup please send me a pm.

Thanks for all the interest and info everyone.

Alex

 

[bence8810]

Now its just the hard slog to find one at a decent price. If anyone has a spare or a hookup please send me a pm.

Thanks for all the interest and info everyone.

Alex

Are you a member of the Pakon group on FaceBook Alex?
They do come up for sale there and often in the $500 vicinity

Ben

 

[glassportal]

Are you a member of the Pakon group on FaceBook Alex?
They do come up for sale there and often in the $500 vicinity

Ben

I have been for a week and I'm waiting. Just thought id check out all other avenues.

 

[bence8810]

I have been for a week and I'm waiting. Just thought id check out all other avenues.

Good - that would be your best bet. That's how I sourced my 2nd Pakon too!

Hope you get yours soon!
Ben

 

[jarski]

Recently heard about Pakon too. Funny it was out there all these years, until someone discovered it for hobbyist use instead of minilab. Now prices have gone up.

 

[bence8810]

Recently heard about Pakon too. Funny it was out there all these years, until someone discovered it for hobbyist use instead of minilab. Now prices have gone up.

It's the Facebook group to blame, those amazing people there came up with all the tutorials and made it Printer-independent so the average Joe could use it.

Blame is a strong word of course - they did it for the community and I appreciate them much. If I had to scan with the flatbed, I'd shoot half the amount I shoot now.

Ben

 

[jarski]

Yes YouTube demonstrates how effortless the process is. Why no other maker thought of that when they were still making film scanners? Am happy too its an option, although got Coolscan years ago.