film scanner - to buy or not to buy?

[deadhippo]

hi guys,
im new to the forum
but i have a question if you dont mind

im thinking of buying a film scanner actually a nikon coolscan V ED to be precise
http://www.nikonusa.com/template.php?cat=1&grp=98
who here uses a filmscanner and what do you think of it?

im thinking that i could go digital but i already have many slides that i might want to get high quality scans of
and also digital equipment is expensive

anyway
what are your views?

should i buy one and if so which one would you recommend?
and equally which one should i avoid?

 

[joeboot]

I have a Nikon Coolscan 4000 ED and have had good luck with it. I'm not "going digital", but sometimes I want an electronic version of a slide - as a computer background or to make prints. I spent the last six months scanning slides to make photo albums for my kids. It's a lot cheaper to scan them yourself and get them printed for 12 cents each than it is to have a lab make prints from slides and when you scan them yourself you have some control over the results.

I don't think you could go wrong with a Coolscan V ED, but I would also take a look at the price and features of the Konica Minolta units.

I'm not sure what you plan to do with the digital version of your slides, but keep in mind digital projectors are expensive, produce low resolution images, and have to be hooked up to a computer, which you may or may not have in the room you would like to project in.

 

[ThatCameraThingy]

I'm using a Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED in the shop where i work.

I really like it. The quality is very good. You do need a fairly hefty computr to bring out the best performance from it - eben then the scanner is not very fast( if you are trying to use it for production work)

It takes about 45mins to scan a 24exp set of negs.

The computer at work is 2GHz processor with 1Gig Ram. The Ram makes a HUGE difference to the speed. With less Ram the scanner takes an awful lot longer.
All this said - I think the scanner is very good- Scratch removal is excellent. Old slide rejuvination is very good.

HAnno

 

[deadhippo]

thanks for the replies
i think my pc has the power to handle it (2.8ghz processor) with 1gig ram
and the time consumption is not all that important for me
at the moment anyway
i want the digital images for a stock photo company
its their preference
actually i have stopped printing photos and keep all my photos digitally now but i was usng a low end scanner
the canoscan 8200f flatbed scanner (japanese only version) but im told that it doesnt do my photos justice

 

[ThatCameraThingy]

Then I think the Nikon is perfect.

I can get about 5300 x 3500 pixels.

in tiff format that is a 55Mb file - if I scan in 16bit colour that becomes 110Mb file.

I find that a that resolution I start to see the film grain(even on 50iso slide) long before the pixels are showing.

Hanno

 

[DaphneOracle]

I appreciate the discussion here. I'm thinking about the scanner too.

I want to be sure I understand...can I take print negatives and scan them to prints? Same with slides? Oversimplified do you just put the negs/pos in the machine and wait for the prints to be digitalized?

Bryant

 

[glasswave]

Can this scanner be accessed over a network? In other words can someone at another computer access the scanner and scan even if the workstaion hooked to the scanner is being used?