Picking a film scanner... What a pickle

[philipus]

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I've also been wondering this for whenever my 9000 gives up the ghost and I need to find an alternative way to scan 6x6. I haven't done any major research yet but from what I understand the older CFV backs are lower resolution which may not be enough for the information a 6x6 frame delivers, for instance when scanned at 4000dpi with a 9000. I'm also wondering how well older backs would deal with contrasty negs/slides (though the CFV-16 apparently has "amazing" dynamic range). Btw this is an interesting page (written by a fellow Swede, no less) with practical info on digital backs.

 

I expect stitching would be an option so finding a suitable digital camera would be an avenue. Or buying another 9000 (or other high end scanner), I guess.

 

 

For quite a while I've been anxious about what I'd do when the coolscan 9000 breaks, but recently I've been seeing what great results people get when they use a digital camera mounted on a stand.

 

So what would be the drawback of getting a Pentax 645D and one of the really sharp manual macro lenses available for that system? I think it would cover 35mm at 1:1 with the lens I had in mind - though I'm not sure about 6x6 negs?

 

This way you get a scanner and a medium format digital camera thrown in for 'free'.

Edited November 3, 2015 by philipus

[fotohuis]

If the Nikon 9000 scanner stops and is broken you can always buy a Reflecta 3200dpi MF scanner. Only Eur. 1400 and not much less then the 9000. Or buy a good enlarger with a Heiland Split Grade unit. Then you can make (photo)  scans with a cheaper flatbed scanner.  

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[250swb]

Do yourself a favour and steer well clear of any Plustek scanner. Having had a Nikon Coolscan that sadly went faulty I replaced it with a so called top of the range Plustek 8200 scanner. What a heap of absolute frustrating rubbish it is compared to the Nikon. Slow to use and poor scans - a complete waste of time and it's just a paperweight at the side of my Mac now.

 

Without a doubt the most useless piece of photographic equipment that I ever bought!!

 

Really........? I wonder why so many people use them successfully? One of life's conundrums I guess.

 

As for replacement of a Nikon 9000 the Plustek 120 is as close to being a drum scanner as you will get without buying a drum scanner. It is fast, reliable (and Plustek are known for great customer response), and can do 10,000 dpi. The very first batch did have a problem with the plastic of the film holders, but this was soon reported and the holders replaced. The downside is the Silverfast software bundled with it, but I've never used it and replaced it with Vuescan from the word go. For reference I have in the past owned both a Minolta Multi Pro and a Nikon 9000 (amongst others).

 

Steve

[philipus]

Thanks Steve. From reading here and at RFF (in particular, it seems) there's a lot of bashing of the 120 Plustek and I find it is difficult to know what is true or false, esp now that the company has been delivering such scanners for quite a while.

 

Is it really 10,000dpi though? 

 

The one thing that would make me hesitate is the lack of autofocus, though.

 

br
Philip

 

Really........? I wonder why so many people use them successfully? One of life's conundrums I guess.

 

As for replacement of a Nikon 9000 the Plustek 120 is as close to being a drum scanner as you will get without buying a drum scanner. It is fast, reliable (and Plustek are known for great customer response), and can do 10,000 dpi. The very first batch did have a problem with the plastic of the film holders, but this was soon reported and the holders replaced. The downside is the Silverfast software bundled with it, but I've never used it and replaced it with Vuescan from the word go. For reference I have in the past owned both a Minolta Multi Pro and a Nikon 9000 (amongst others).

 

Steve

[250swb]

.

 

The Plustek 8200, in my opinion is a complete waste of time and it's an amateur scanner at best masquerading as a professional piece of equipment.

 

Yes it is an amateur scanner that only does 35mm and needs to be hand fed. So why compare it with a 'professional' Nikon 9000?

 

Any of the Plustek 35mm scanners are well able to make scans that lead to exhibition quality prints, and an 'amateur' should have no need to buy a Nikon 9000 just to scan 35mm. As for your piddling Nikon 9000, did you say it can only do a whole strip of six thumbnails? Hmmm, the motorised Plustek 120 can do twelve, but I wouldn't recommend it for scanning 35mm alone. An 'amateur' could buy a dedicated 35mm Plustek and an Epson V700 for the digital contact sheets, and be able to do medium format, and do large format and come away with plenty of change. So, talking of money, how long before your Nikon 9000 becomes less useful that the paperweight you have on your desk?

 

Steve

[chrism]

Some months back I reported my X1 had broken down with a dead light tube. B&H, from whom I bought the X1, had no replacement available on their site, but after six weeks of e-mails they allowed me to order one and yesterday it shipped. If I were a pro four and a half months of downtime would bankrupt me. Curiously, I approached Hasselblad in NJ and they sent me a tube which arrived four days after my first enquiry. Why couldn't B&H do just the same thing? I kept their order open out of curiosity and in order to have a spare tube around. This reinforces my belief it is a good idea to keep the 9000 and 5400 around as backups.

[plasticman]

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Yes it is an amateur scanner that only does 35mm and needs to be hand fed. So why compare it with a 'professional' Nikon 9000?

 

Any of the Plustek 35mm scanners are well able to make scans that lead to exhibition quality prints, and an 'amateur' should have no need to buy a Nikon 9000 just to scan 35mm. As for your piddling Nikon 9000, did you say it can only do a whole strip of six thumbnails? Hmmm, the motorised Plustek 120 can do twelve, but I wouldn't recommend it for scanning 35mm alone. An 'amateur' could buy a dedicated 35mm Plustek and an Epson V700 for the digital contact sheets, and be able to do medium format, and do large format and come away with plenty of change. So, talking of money, how long before your Nikon 9000 becomes less useful that the paperweight you have on your desk?

Just for the record, the 9000 scans twelve 35mm negatives. And judging by the relevant thread over on RFF, will probably be a 'paperweight' long after the Plustek.

Anyway, I'm sad to see the tone of this discussion - I'd rather see more choices, rather than people trying to rip a strip off each others' equipment, the way people do over on the digital sections.

[250swb]

Just for the record, the 9000 scans twelve 35mm negatives. And judging by the relevant thread over on RFF, will probably be a 'paperweight' long after the Plustek

 

Well misinformation is as rife here as on RFF (I'm surprised you take any notice of the whiners over there) because I confess I didn't recall how many the Nikon 9000 did myself, I sold it and bought a Minolta Multi Pro instead many many years ago. But the point is of course the snooty nose in the air attack on people who don't have as much money to throw around as some others do. As you also decline to defend those fellow photographers for being 'amateur' you can go to snob camp as well, see who wins in the one-upmanship contest with paulmac (I reckon you don't stand a chance ).

 

Steve

[wattsy]

I can't say I've ever considered Paulmac as part of the "one-upmanship/snob" fraternity. Maybe he has a wonky Plustek because it has a decent reputation (certainly for the money), especially if used to its potential.

[Berlinman]

Can we come back to the starting Point: Picking up a scanner ? I'm searching for scanner for my actual BW-negatives and for the rest of my old color-slides (The first part with approx 10.000 slides is scanned with a Nikon Coolscan 5000 by a company in Berlin). Today I only use 35mm but You never know  ... I love cameras like Hasselblad or Linhof Technikardan ...

In the pricerange under an Imacon Flextight X1/X5 I understood the options:

 

KB and MF:

Nikon Coolscan 9000

or Plustek 120

or Braun FS-120

 

Only KB (and for MF an Epson xxx):

Nikon Coolscan 5000

Nikon Coolscan V

Plustek 8200

one of these Reflecta/Braun-Scanners ??

 

I don't wan't to have the need to by an old PC/Mac for running scanners with old SCSI-connection or outdated software. It looks like you can ran theses scanners with Vuescan on an MBPro.

Experience / Help / Comments / Additions welcome.

[NJH]

Older scanners aren't so much of a  problem if one buys a Windows 7 PC as I did last winter. My KM 5400 has no problem on it and it was the latest Intel tech when I bought it (Devils Canyon).

[MarkP]

Can anyone who has used both a Nikon Coolscan 5000 and Plustec 120 (for 35mm) comment on what they think of the relative quality of the output from these two scanners.

I have the Nikon and am wondering whether the Plustec is worth upgrading to.

[philipus]

I can't comment Mark, but just wanted to point to filmscanner.info's reviews (which you've probably seen) of the 120 and the 5000. It is unfortunate, I find, that they didn't include in the 120 review the same larger image of the resolution test chart as they did for the 5000 (and the 9000). This would have made it a bit easier to compare.

 

 

Can anyone who has used both a Nikon Coolscan 5000 and Plustec 120 (for 35mm) comment on what they think of the relative quality of the output from these two scanners.

I have the Nikon and am wondering whether the Plustec is worth upgrading to.

[250swb]

The Scandig review of the 120 is very unreliable. It was done before Plustek had addressed the problem with the negative holders (which caused out of focus scans) and has never been updated. So all the information regarding scan quality is redundant. The other concern was scan speed, and the times quoted using Silverfast are longer than using Vuescan, and comparing the two software programmes should be a reviewers normal comparison.

 

Steve

[colonel]

This looks fun:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jumbl-High-Resolution-22MP-Scanner-Digitizer/dp/B00LU0XO3O/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1447086825&sr=8-6&keywords=plustek+8200i

 

I know most folk here would put their nose up but I was wondering the quality of this, and similar types, of scanner.

It has 4000dpi and auto-feed ...... could be fun for a first pass .. and all at £105 !!!

[tobey bilek]

KM 5400 is a great scanner.  Software is excellent regardless of what people say.   It does not work with modern OS. I am looking for an old computer.

 

You can use Vue scan which I find a kludge or Silverfast which is very good which it should be at $300.  Problem is it is scanner specific  so if the bulb blows,  the software is worthless.

 

There are no good affordable scanners.  Get a supported drum scanner or Plustek better model and be happy. 

[NJH]

It works fine with win 7 Pro or Ultimate. I have a KM 5400 + the Minolta software all working fine on my Haswell (Devils Canyon) machine running win 7 Pro that I bought last year. Hardly an old computer or non modern OS but yes not as pretty as a Mac.

[Mark Pope]

I got a Plustek  8200i SE last week.  I had a few problems getting the bundled Silverfast software to work on my iMac running El Capitan.  I kept on getting an 'unknown error' message and the scanner would just hang.  But after a certain amount of googling, gnashing of teeth, deleting driver files, reinstallation of the latest version of the software and reboots, it now works fine.  My initial feelings are that it's a very good piece of kit.  The scans I have made so far look very good.  

[EoinC]

I got a Plustek  8200i SE last week...

Hi, Mark. Can you please show some images from scanned films? Even better would be a .tiff file, if you have a shot that you're not concerned about sharing. I've been looking at the 8200 (have to get it on back-order here), and would like to see what sort of results it is capable of.

 

Thanks,

Eoin

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[chris_livsey]

Not Mark but I have these from 2013 from the 8200:

These from Silverfast out of the scanner slight sharpening in post that is all.

I have never saved as Tiff file.

 

 

 

 

8200 Plustek

Full frame HP5+, TD-201, Nikon S3 (sorry) 50mm 1.4 Olympic Nikkor

 

Crop from above:

The eyes have it !!

 

Edited November 23, 2015 by chris_livsey