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coolscan 5000 vs. 9000?


mdozier

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I've decided to get one of the Nikon film scanners and I'm looking for input and suggestions. It seems there's a better savings on a used 9000 than 5000. A used 5000 is selling very close to the price of a new one, so I've been comparing used 9000's with a new 5000.

 

I process my own b+w and I would like a good quality scanner and printer to be able to complete the process myself rather than relying on outside forces.

 

Firstly, I'll be scanning only 35mm initially, both transparencies and negs. I know the 9000 is capable of larger formats but other than that, are the differences still worth consideration? It seems the light source is larger and improved for the 9000. From what I was told the 9000 could also have improved scan times for 35mm but I can't seem to verify that in published data.

 

Any advice and input is appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Matt

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Hi Matt,

Like you, I'm aiming to hopefully get the best of both worlds by using film and scanning the negs to enable me to use a digital "lightroom" to produce the final output.

 

There are already quite a few threads on this forum that detail the workflows of many here. Worth a look.

 

Another good site is Filmscanner shop: slide scanners, accessories, light panels, colour management, literature, scanning + image editing - ScanDig which has reviews of many film scanners together with output resolution data.

 

Hope this helps,

 

 

Mike.

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Thank you Mike for the input. I was not aware of the ScanDig site.

 

I did try to search some of the other threads but couldn't seem to find many specifics comparing these 2 other than the medium format difference.

 

I'll go through the site you provided and try to research elsewhere as well.

 

Thanks again,

m

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  • 3 weeks later...

My .02:

I've owned the Coolscan IV, then the 9000, now Coolscan V.

If you need to scan 35mm slides in batches, the 5000 is your choice (with extra accessory); it's also the fastest.

If you need MF capacity, the 9000 is the one; it is huge and sounds like a trash compactor at work, the 6X6 carrier is finicky; you may need extra glass carrier.

The Coolscan V seems the best compromise for me, I usually only scan a few images at a time.

The resolution of any of them is more than adequate.

Do youself a favor and get VueScan Pro.

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Scandig confirms that the 5000 is faster than the 9000. Also, apparently the 9000's film strip holder wears out after about 500 scans and has to be replaced.

 

Nice sounding 5000's are often on Ebay at about £800. 9000's seem to come up at about £1400

 

You occasionally get new examples of each coming up - add about £400 to the price of each for a new one which presumably has been found in someone's old stock. This will happen less and less, of course.

 

The 5000 and 9000 scan at 16bit per channel colour whereas the V scans at 14bit (I think) - probably not much noticeable difference.

 

Check that your scanner is compatible with Silverfast or Vuescan. Nikon aren't supporting them any more with software updates but SF and VS do. If you get some other scanner then make sure that these third party software houses support them - or else you will find that your scanner won't work with a 64bit Win 7 OS - or whatever else comes up in the future.

 

The 9000 is not only slow but it is also huge. It may be an additional factor for you to consider.

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Thanks to you both, Pleeson and Marcg.

 

I've just negotiated with a fellow forum member for his lightly used 9000 at a good price. While I'm a 35mm guy at present I know and trust this member and got a reasonable price on a well cared for unit.

 

As soon as it gets here I'm adding VueScan pro as recommended.

 

Thanks again for the advice and assistance.

 

m

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gpleica, I was not able to determine if they are still in production. I could not locate one in-stock at any of the usual retailers on the web and our local guys didn't have one. Fwiw the local guys didn't think they were discontinued and showed that they could place an order if I wished.

 

On another note, I set up and tested the 9000 this weekend with good results. I loaded the Nikon Scan software that came with the unit just to see, and it seems to work just fine in Snow Leopard. I downloaded the updates this morning and will give it another test this evening.

 

I'll add vuescan but the documentation indicated there's a plug-in for photoshop that (if I read it correctly) allows you to scan directly from within ps. I'll try that as well.

 

Thanks for the input, assistance and information. Now to get caught up on my backlog of developing...

 

Thanks again,

m

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