Scanning negatives

[Morten Grathe]

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Recently I purchased an old Leica M6 TTL, and I am grown quite fond of working with film again. I am thinking about purchasing a Nikon Coolscan 5000 for scaning my negatives. Often I like printing my images with the holes punched for film-advance as well.

Will the 5000 let my do that? If not the 9000? (I have an eye for a old Rolleiflex TLR)

 

Morten

[antistatic]

I have the 5000. It is a great scanner but you can not include the sprocket holes when scanning.

 

I also have a Rolleiflex so I use the 5000 for the 35mm and Epson V700 for MF. Still works our much cheaper than a 9000 and MF on the V700 gives me all the quality I need.

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[Morten Grathe]

Thanks David.

Good idea - the to smaller scanners will even be cheaper together than the 9000 alone.

[mmk60]

I have the 5000. It is a great scanner but you can not include the sprocket holes when scanning.

 

I also have a Rolleiflex so I use the 5000 for the 35mm and Epson V700 for MF. Still works our much cheaper than a 9000 and MF on the V700 gives me all the quality I need.

 

 

Hi - I am thinking about getting a Coolscan 5000 as well. Can you tell me/us why you use your Coolscan 5000 for the 35mm, instead of the V700? I believe that the V700 handles both formats. Any advantage with the Coolscan 5000 over the V700?

 

Thanks a lot!

 

m

[tgray]

The 5000 will let you dig more detail out of your frames than the V700 will.

[PeterD]

A straightforward flatbed will let you include the sprocket holes - AND - is far cheaper than a CoolScan

[leica007]

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I like my Coolscan 5000. Brings out very good details. a sample is here : an old negative recently scanned with it

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[Dan States]

The V700 is a good scanner for MF and LF, but it's pretty far off from a 35mm film scanner when it comes to detail rendition. It's also a bit finicky in that you can only adjust "focus" with shims on the film holder.

 

For MF it's outstanding however!

 

Best wishes

Dan

[antistatic]

My 35mm negs need all the help they can get, hence the Coolscan

[AgentX]

I'm almost in the exact same boat as you--I have just begun shooting film again, with a new-to-me M3 and soon with my old Mamiya TLRs. (And a host of old 120-format folders and box cameras...)

 

I have a Nikon LS-40 ED scanner I just took out of mothballs as well. However, my first attempts at scanning black-and-white negs were a little unsettling...then I searched the Web and found that many people have difficulty with the Coolscan series and silver-halide emulsions. It comes out extremely harsh, contrasty, grainy, dusty and scratchy--even brand new professionally-processed film straight out of the neg sleeve. (and the ICE feature can't clean the defects up on B/W film either.) I was glad to find I wasn't the only one with such results with the standard settings.

 

Chromogenic b/w films are supposedly no problem...makes sense given it's a dye-based image like color.

 

But I also read that using the Vuescan application instead of the Nikon scanner software helps quite a bit. I downloaded the trial and found it was true, then paid the $80 for the full version. I've also been experimenting with scanning using the color neg settings with a black-and-white film profile. Seems to work pretty well.

 

Might pick up a flatbed now, too, for use with the 6x6 and larger. Vuescan supports multiple scanners with the same interface, so I think it's a good value. It's new to me and I'm still learning it, though, so I can't say I haven't had frustrating moments or that I understand the user interface terribly well.

 

Edit: Also, the Nikon won't let you print sprocket holes as noted by another...but it doesn't even generally let you have a thin natural black border all the way around the image, if that's your thing.

[Chrizzlie]

...but it doesn't even generally let you have a thin natural black border all the way around the image, if that's your thing.

 

You can get this quite easily on your automatic film strip feeder:

 

Just gently grind off some of the plastic mask on both long sides of the scanning window.

 

I used a plain cutter on my LS-50 and it worked well as the plastic is quite soft.

 

Just make absolutely sure you don't loose any debris - otherwise you may f**k up all your film strips with scratches.

[woody]

Morten, here's another thread that might help.

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/film-forum/79682-coolscan-5000-epson-v-700-750-a.html

[timgo]

Morten,

You may consider a used Flextight 636 scanner. It works well for both 35mm and 120 negatives. Biggest feature would be the accurate sharpness across the image. My previous Nikon 5000 scanner never fully compensated for the film curl so I had to choose between sharp center or sharp film edges, not both. The Flextight scanner solves that problem for both 35mm and 120 film.

 

I recommend you stay away from the older SCSI versions of the Flextight scanners unless you are handy with SCSI card installation and configuration for your computer.

 

The 636 and newer have firewire connections.

[treeplanter]

....I am thinking about purchasing a Nikon Coolscan 5000 for scaning my negatives.....

 

It was mentioned on RFF a few days back that Nikon will soon discontinue all of their film scanners. Only hearsay, but still worth reading:

 

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72422

 

Jim B.