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matter of getting the right combination of setup for each type of film. I wish apple designed their software, but it does the job. received on time. scanning like a marmot.
The software dust removal does a great job as well.For my fine art 35mm b+w negatives it delivers good quality, high resolution scans. I've owned this scanner for several years. I'm not aware of any new negative scanners coming onto the market in the past few years that would change that assessment.I also have an Epson Perfection V500 Photo Scanner which I use for large format negatives. Still, since then my scanner has worked like a trooper.I've demo'd other plugins like Silverfast but I don't like them very much so I use NikonScan in Windows.I've often considered selling this scanner and getting something else, but I haven't found a better tool in this price range.
Sure it's inconvenient but after all the crashing in OSX I just gave up.Nikon's support sucks so pray that you don't have a problem. I did and it took forever to get it handled. It seems crazy but it works pretty well. However, I have had good, consistent success running NikonScan on Windows via Parallels.
The results are good with all of them. They seem completely uninterested in helping their Mac users and I have found the whole situation quite frustrating. I did quite a bit of research when I purchased it and felt that it was the best value for the money at the time. The dust removal software doesn't work on B+w however, so there's always some post clean-up involved.I'm a Mac user and I have to warn you all that Nikon's included software just doesn't work on an Intel Mac.
The main difference is edge focus which isn't perfect with the Nikon.For my old 35mm color negs (which are generally from an old point and shoot) this scanner (along with the NikonScan software) does a great job. I've tried it for 35mm and I can tell you that the Nikon delivers superior results - no question.I scan color slides as well as color & b+w negatives. The scans are not as good as professional drum scans, but from a cost-per-scan standpoint this is the way to go.
I put a small felt floor protector on the left side to minimize pressure on the right and enhance on the left and the problem disappeared. I think the spring loaded plate can put too much pressure on the right side of the slides causing the uppermost slide to catch on the one below. I also have auto focus and exposure on in my batch settings.You will need to tweak the settings obviously depending on what you're scanning, but the above seem to work well for most of my batched images.Good luck.For those that have had problems with the 210 feeder jamming, I had a few hiccups at the outset but these calmed down after an hour or so.
Running the coolscan 4000 and 4.02 nikon scan software, I experienced crashes every 7 slides or so. I would recommendDigital Ice on (magically removes all scratches)Enable Digital DEE shadow adj 40 highlight 10 threshold 100 (lightens dark shadows, drops highlights)I am not using post processing ROC or GEMAlso in preferences make sure you set advance colr settings to a sample point size of 5x5 and drop contrast calculations to 0 for both black and white. I have used the coolscan 4000 for a while with mixed results and recently had a horrible time with it on a friends mac running OsX 10.5 with the newest cool scan 4.02 software.Well I'm very happy to report that I picked up the 5000 over the weekend along with the 210 auto feeder and have been extremely impressed with the results.
This will prevent the auto contrast function from blowing out your highlights. Since then, I've removed the pad and have not experienced a single jam scanning hundreds. Not so with the Coolscan 5000, nikon scan 4.02 running on an iMac with 2 gigs ram and sys 10.5.I've easily bulk scanned 50 slides in a sitting without jam or crash.
Now that I've tweaked my settings, the result have been excellent.Right now I'm scanning kodachromes mostly.
All with good results. The scanner produces excellent quality images. The auto slide feeder, if used, is problematic unless modified to reduce jamming. The software is adequate but somewhat prone to crashing (Windows XP Machine). The process is fast and easy. I have successfully scanned color and black and White negatives as well as slides.
Where are those.For those willing to pay a little more, Silverfast can step in with something more reliable and with a few useful bells and whistles, like automatic HDR.If you need an excellent tool for pulling 35mm film into the 21st century, this is it. Nikon creates great hardware, but the team that made the software should be bludgeoned for besmirching an otherwise great product. I was able to rescue many previously useless images and get decent digital files.Speaking of rescues, many old family photos have rolled through my scanner, and the pleasure of saving and restoring old memories has been of great worth.The negative strip feeder struggles with strips less than two frames long; some of my old negatives were strangely cut, and I ended up enclosing them in plastic slide frames.At full resolution and color depth, you can generate 120MB TIFF image files from a scan. It's relatively fast, is accurate on the color, the scratch/dust reduction is awesome, and it's *only* a thousand bucks. It works, but it is unintuitive and quirky. I'm a fairly accomplished amateur photographer.
If it was unintentionally underexposed, the 16-bit color depth gives lots of room for adjustment. Plus- upgrades and bug fixes, Nikon. I've got film from Africa, National Parks and other places, and have now put around 500 slides and negatives through this scanner.It's *great*.The dynamic range is fantastic. Occasionally it crashes. Once you're dialed in on the software, you can do wonders with those old photos. 'Dark' images come through wonderfully.
You will want lots of storage.The only weak point of this scanner is the software.
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