VueScan or SilverFast to Nikon coolscan LS - 5000 ES

[Ted99]

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I have finally managed to get the new Mac Mini M1 OSX 11.4 in good working order, things change during a period of 14 years I can see now. The old "steam computer" served me well especially the applications that just running excerpt for the last years.

Now i like to hear what the Nicon scanner users have to say about VueScan 100€ versus SolverFast 350€ scanner applications ?
Nikon have there own apps for this versions of Mac. Macintosh: Mac OS 9.2.2, OS 10.1.x, 10.4.11, 10.5.x not supported*.
 

Ted

 

[Bikie John]

In general I have found Vuescan to be pretty good, I'm using it with with Epson and Nikon scanners. Haven't tried Silverfast for years so can't comment on it.

I can't speak for Mac, but with Windows systems there is a problem that Nikon's own Nikon Scan software is not supported on recent versions of Windows ("recent" being about 10 years!). Nikon no longer support the scanners or the software so there will be no solution from them. There is a work-round which is specific to Windows so won't be any use to Mac users, but there may be something similar available if you dig deep enough on the web.

Good luck ... John

[Guest]

Am 14.6.2021 um 18:25 schrieb Ted99:

I have finally managed to get the new Mac Mini M1 OSX 11.4 in good working order, things change during a period of 14 years I can see now. The old "steam computer" served me well especially the applications that just running excerpt for the last years.

Now i like to hear what the Nicon scanner users have to say about VueScan 100€ versus SolverFast 350€ scanner applications ?
Nikon have there own apps for this versions of Mac. Macintosh: Mac OS 9.2.2, OS 10.1.x, 10.4.11, 10.5.x not supported*.
 

Ted

NikonScan was supported up to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard with Rosetta.
As there is no better software specifically for Kodachrome color slides, I bought an older but still perfectly running MacMini of 2007 for 40€ and connected it via FireWire to my Coolscan 9000 as a stand alone device only for scanning.
Further post-processing is carried out using modern equipment.

[CapoKees]

Hello to all, 

I am Kees from the Netherlands and I am using the scanprograms Nikonscan 4.0 and Vuescan with Windows 10.

When you have a working Vuescan professional you can use Nikonscan because the Nikon program uses the Vuescan drivers. 

I like the Nikon program more than Vuescan the colours are more natural when scanning negative. 

Good luck to all of you. 

[250swb]

I would never argue Silverfast is better than Vuescan, Silverfast is a a carbuncle on scanning software. But equally scanning has moved on and the better option is to bite the bullet and admit regular film scanners are unable to match a good digital camera 'scan'. Use the 100 or 350 Euro you save and put it towards a digital body and a macro lens, copy stand, and light source. Hey, you get another camera and new lens at the same time! 

[erl]

On 8/11/2021 at 7:22 AM, 250swb said:

I would never argue Silverfast is better than Vuescan, Silverfast is a a carbuncle on scanning software. But equally scanning has moved on and the better option is to bite the bullet and admit regular film scanners are unable to match a good digital camera 'scan'. Use the 100 or 350 Euro you save and put it towards a digital body and a macro lens, copy stand, and light source. Hey, you get another camera and new lens at the same time! 

Steve, I totally agree with you re. Vuescan Vs Silverfast, but now NEVER use the Silverfast. ViewScan IMO is brilliant, with a doable learning curve. A top quality scanner is a must of course.

I am intrigued by your second observation  to use a digi cam and macro lens + copystand and light source. Seems that would exceed the cost of the software and maybe susceptible to mis-alignment. I think I can cobble together all the above from my 'junkpile'. Must give it a go some time but rather prefer my scanning with either Nikon 5000 for 35mm or Nikon 8000 foe 6x6cm. However, prepared to learn something new always.

P.S. Would I be right in assuming a scanner would be faster, especially for multiple scans, than the camera/macro lens setup?

Edited August 15, 2021 by erl
additional comment

[250swb]

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Hi @erl. The scanner definitely wouldn't be faster than a camera. As I recall a full resolution 6x6 scan my Plustek 120 would take four or five minutes (not including the preview time). A 6x6 scan with my Nikon Z7 takes 1/15th second at f/16. The 47mp sensor is obviously rectangular and the image square, but the full RAW file it produces is 53mb, which when inverted into a positive, cropped to square, and saved as a TIFF gives a 6x6 image of 173mb of genuine un-interpolated information. So using a suitable negative holder a strip of three 6x6 can be scanned with the camera in around fifteen seconds if you account for blowing any dust off and positioning the image square under the lens. You also don't create files with digital noise as happens with dedicated film scanners, especially with multi-scans. The camera, well a modern-ish one, will also have a far greater dynamic range than even the best dedicated film scanner. The camera also see's through the negative in the same way an enlarger lens does, the grain in the negative is layered but scanners tend to have very, very narrow DoF scanning only the emulsion surface. But in the darkroom or scanning with a camera the DoF is much greater, so the whole depth of grain is projected onto the paper or recorded as a file, even to the point that DoF can be used to tame a curly negative.

The last point about DoF taming a curly negative also partially covers your question about any slight mis-alignment, but this is fully solved with an iPhone laid flat on the LCD using a free bubble level app, this will confirm when everything is square. I don't think you would need to go as far as 47mp to see an improvement over a dedicated film scanner. A friend of mine recently decided to go the camera route after years with a Nikon 9000 and put together a system for less money than a new Epson V850 using a secondhand Nikon D810 (32mp) plus a macro lens, stand, light source, a couple of neg carriers etc. He's very happy indeed.

 

Edited August 15, 2021 by 250swb

[philipus]

I think Vuescan is a steal for 100 Euro for a lifetime licence. It is frequently updated and easy to learn. It works very well with the Coolscans. 

On 6/14/2021 at 6:25 PM, Ted99 said:

I have finally managed to get the new Mac Mini M1 OSX 11.4 in good working order, things change during a period of 14 years I can see now. The old "steam computer" served me well especially the applications that just running excerpt for the last years.

Now i like to hear what the Nicon scanner users have to say about VueScan 100€ versus SolverFast 350€ scanner applications ?
Nikon have there own apps for this versions of Mac. Macintosh: Mac OS 9.2.2, OS 10.1.x, 10.4.11, 10.5.x not supported*.
 

Ted

 

I think it's great that digitising has come so far and will probably go that route once my Coolscan 9000 and X1 die. But the highlighted text below intrigues me – can you show it somehow?

On 8/15/2021 at 9:48 AM, 250swb said:

Hi @erl. The scanner definitely wouldn't be faster than a camera. As I recall a full resolution 6x6 scan my Plustek 120 would take four or five minutes (not including the preview time). A 6x6 scan with my Nikon Z7 takes 1/15th second at f/16. The 47mp sensor is obviously rectangular and the image square, but the full RAW file it produces is 53mb, which when inverted into a positive, cropped to square, and saved as a TIFF gives a 6x6 image of 173mb of genuine un-interpolated information. So using a suitable negative holder a strip of three 6x6 can be scanned with the camera in around fifteen seconds if you account for blowing any dust off and positioning the image square under the lens. You also don't create files with digital noise as happens with dedicated film scanners, especially with multi-scans. The camera, well a modern-ish one, will also have a far greater dynamic range than even the best dedicated film scanner. The camera also see's through the negative in the same way an enlarger lens does, the grain in the negative is layered but scanners tend to have very, very narrow DoF scanning only the emulsion surface. But in the darkroom or scanning with a camera the DoF is much greater, so the whole depth of grain is projected onto the paper or recorded as a file, even to the point that DoF can be used to tame a curly negative.

The last point about DoF taming a curly negative also partially covers your question about any slight mis-alignment, but this is fully solved with an iPhone laid flat on the LCD using a free bubble level app, this will confirm when everything is square. I don't think you would need to go as far as 47mp to see an improvement over a dedicated film scanner. A friend of mine recently decided to go the camera route after years with a Nikon 9000 and put together a system for less money than a new Epson V850 using a secondhand Nikon D810 (32mp) plus a macro lens, stand, light source, a couple of neg carriers etc. He's very happy indeed.

 

Edited September 14, 2021 by philipus

[chrism]

As you might know from the "I Like Film" thread, I have spent today exploring this. It is trivially quick to mount the EL-2 film holder on the front of a lens on the Nikon D850. A few seconds each to slide through the five frames in the film holder, autofocus and snap the picture. Getting them into the computer is just as quick as transferring them as scans over my network from the scanning iMac to my MBA. At that point B&W photos are pretty much just as fast to process; they might need some cropping now rather than in VueScan, then inverting and then standard post-processing. It's colour negatives that have given me pause, until I figured out what to use to make a TIF from the raw file, and one that the ColorPerfect plug-in (in PhotoLine as I am done with Adobe) will happily ingest and spit out again nicely inverted. Then the standard post-processing. So it's not as quick and simple as 'focus, snap. next!' but it is still quicker than using a scanner at high resolution. I'm not ready to sell the Nikon 9000 yet, as most of the time I can leave it to do its thing while I go off and do something else. But I can see that this is a reasonable way of going about it, especially if one already has an appropriate camera and lens. Half the reports on Plustek scanners aren't complimentary, Nikon scanners are getting rare and expensive, and I shan't be buying a third Flextight at any time in the future.

[Hans Harro]

On 8/10/2021 at 3:41 PM, CapoKees said:

 

 When you have a working Vuescan professional you can use Nikonscan because the Nikon program uses the Vuescan drivers. 

 

 

Hi,

As CapoKees describes, when installing Nikonscan, you can select the drivers that come with Vuescan - if you already use Vuescan.

There is another way to create valid drivers for the antique Nikonscan software, even on an up-to-date Windows-10-64bit-system:
Instead of selecting the drivers that come with Vuescan, you can get the (modified) drivers for your
Nikon coolscan (5000 or 9000) from  colorperfect.com  and select them, when completing the installation of the Nikonscan software.

I belive that 250swb and chrism might be right, saying that using a modern digital camera with a macro lens is the better way to scan film.
But in case you already have a Nikon coolscan (5000 or 9000), than you might like to use it
 - maybe just for the reason that you can use it with a 24 inch monitor instead of a camera finder.

This is the way, I installed Nikonscan (version 4.0.3) on a Windows-10-64bit-system (the same procedure works on a Windows-7-64bit-system):
There is no need for a virtual machine.
 - I installed the Nikonscan software (version 4.0.3)
 - I replaced the content of the files "Nks1394.inf" and "NksUSB.inf" (the files are the drivers) as described here:
https://www.colorperfect.com/XP/Vista/7/driver-for-64-Bit-Windows/Coolscan/Nikon-Scan/
 - than I connected the Nikon scanner to my Windows-10-system and changed to the 'windows device manager' ; in the 'windows device manager' I updated the missing drivers from the just copied files "Nks1394.inf" and "NksUSB.inf" (via 'windows device manager' you can select the folder on your system from where to update the drivers).
 - Before installing the modified drivers it is necessary to allow the installation of drivers without valid signature (duckduckgo.com and mama google know how to do that..)
 - And then I tested if the antique Nikonscan software runs on my Windows-10-system. And YES Coolscan + Nikonscan + Windows-10 work very well together.

Running the Nikonscan software on a windows 10 64bit system is possible, because of the modified drivers that I found on colorperfect.com  .
If you use the search term 'Photo.net Steel Chn Nikon coolscan driver' on  duckduckgo.com  or  google
you will find some more information about the modified drivers for the Nikon 5000- and 9000-scanners.

I hope this helps, if someone wants to run his/her Nikonscan software on a windows 10 system without the vuescan drivers.
Hans Harro

 

 

 

[erl]

I just quickly scanned (pun intended) the post by Hans Harro and the firsdt question in my mind is  - why would you want/need to use drivers other than those that come with Vuescan. Or what is the advantage of incorporating Nikonscan if you have decided to use Vuescan.

Bit strapped for time at present but I have a corollary comment to make re Digital Camera scanning V's Scanner copying of film images. I will post some interesting examples some time over the WE I hope.

[erl]

There has been a lot of discussion on the forum from time to time about scanning film using either a digital camera, appropriately set up, or a dedicated scanner.

I have always been in the dedicated scanner camp because that is the gear I have and it works really well. I have seen and reads some of the argument in favour of using a digital camera, and for those that practice this method, well done!

Recently I have had two experiences with film that frankly IMO defied scanning by any means. ie. until I for some reason (can't explain why 🤓 ) I did try scanning using my Nikon CoolScan 5000. The result blew my mind as I expected to get nothing but rubbish from the two negs in question. One was from my hasselblad when i seriously miscalculated the dilution ratio of dev to water. Something like 5ml of dev instead of 50ml! 😂 Result: Hideously under developed film. See below.

The other from a disposable film camera (shot by my granddaughter) of a 'selfie' when the flash apparently failed to fire.

First images of the negs on light table, followed by scans done on scanner.

I suspect scanning using a digital camera could not achieve this result. Happy to be educated to the contrary.

 

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