Patman
Established
The Minolta Dimage Elite 5400 is excellent, i highly recommend it. Their is also new software available for it from Minolta's site. All of my photos in my gallery were scanned on it.
kaiyen
local man of mystery
In reality, this really isn't that complicated of a situation, IMHO. I recommend only the Minolta or Nikon scanners, and the latter more than the former. In the $500-ish or less range, you therefore only have 2 options.
Your across-the-board options, then, are:
Minolta DS IV - if you're doing traditional B&W only. can't beat the price, but I recommend ICE if you're going to do any slide or c41 work.
Nikon V - This is the lowest end current scanner I'd get, personally. Try getting the film strip holder, which is apparently an option now (came standard on my IV).
Minolta 5400 II - this is like $650 or so, I think. People have had issues with it, esp. with the software and Vuescan's dust removal has gone back/forth, but still a good buy. It's not particularly fast, and the extra 1400 dpi above the Nikons is, in all honesty, not much of a practical difference. But if you want more than the V but can't afford the 5000, this is your bet.
Nikon 5000 - faster than the V. The 4.8 dmax is pretty impressive. But at $1000 it's getting out of all of these required price ranges.
Nikon 9000 - if you're going to get just 1 scanner and you're not going LF, get this bad boy. This is what I want. I'd prefer to use a flatbed only for LF (I shoot 5x7). But it's $2000.
so there you go. In the aforementioned price ranges, you're looking at the DS IV or Nikon V. Both are good scanners. I'd recommend the V cuz it's got ICE. I always recommend ICE. And, as most people know, I also recommend getting Vuescan.
allan
Your across-the-board options, then, are:
Minolta DS IV - if you're doing traditional B&W only. can't beat the price, but I recommend ICE if you're going to do any slide or c41 work.
Nikon V - This is the lowest end current scanner I'd get, personally. Try getting the film strip holder, which is apparently an option now (came standard on my IV).
Minolta 5400 II - this is like $650 or so, I think. People have had issues with it, esp. with the software and Vuescan's dust removal has gone back/forth, but still a good buy. It's not particularly fast, and the extra 1400 dpi above the Nikons is, in all honesty, not much of a practical difference. But if you want more than the V but can't afford the 5000, this is your bet.
Nikon 5000 - faster than the V. The 4.8 dmax is pretty impressive. But at $1000 it's getting out of all of these required price ranges.
Nikon 9000 - if you're going to get just 1 scanner and you're not going LF, get this bad boy. This is what I want. I'd prefer to use a flatbed only for LF (I shoot 5x7). But it's $2000.
so there you go. In the aforementioned price ranges, you're looking at the DS IV or Nikon V. Both are good scanners. I'd recommend the V cuz it's got ICE. I always recommend ICE. And, as most people know, I also recommend getting Vuescan.
allan