Anyone used both scanners?

[Jamie Roberts]

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So I've been getting along just alright with a Nikon 4000ED. Nikon Scan doesn't like it much and crashes, the colour management is dreadful, and it's slow as molasses on a FW interface.

 

I've tried the Epson 750 pro and while it's a great flatbed I can still coax more detail and better contrast out of the Nikon.

 

My question to anyone here is has anyone else upgraded from the 4000ED to the 5000? I'm assuming the USB 2.0 inteface is somewhat improved, and that overall the thing is faster (and better?).

 

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[arpey]

I don't own a scanner, but have been doing a lot of research lately in anticipation of a purchase. So far, the best source of user experience that I've found has been the (Digital Darkroom Forum - photo.net) -- there are several sub-fora (available in the column to the right) that deal exclusively with scanners and scanning.

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[Guest Bernd Banken]

give your scanner a last chance, try vuescan:

 

http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html

[Jamie Roberts]

Bernd, I tried VueScan, and SilverFast. And I still don't like the 4000 anymore

[Kent10D]

I second the Vuescan suggestion.

 

I have the 5000 ED and was using Nikon Scan for a while, but when I switched to Vuescan the world became a much happier place. It's worth a try.

[nikau]

I used to use a 5000ED (now replaced by a 9000ED) for several years in a Mac environment using Nikon Scan 4 and had nothing but good to say about it.

[m94me]

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I've now used the v700 and Nikon 9000--- the nikon 9000 is well worth the $$$ over the flatbeds. I haven't used the 5000, but assume its 35mm quality is the same as the 9000. Much less twiddling and much better larger prints when compared to the flatbeds.

[RobMac]

I have a 5000. No experience with the 4000, but running it on a Intel iMac (2Ghz, 4G RAM), it's surprisngly fast (using USB 2) even when doing multi-sampling and I haven't had it crash yet. I'm actually a bit surprised by it's reliability and speed so far - was expecting worse. Vuescan is ok, but slow.

 

Am downloading Silverfast (which does a great job on my Epson 4990 flatbed) to try with it. I use it with the strip film feeder (works very well) and bulk slide feeder (yet to try).

 

I'm actually pondering selling it. If interested, drop me a line. robert.maclellan@sympatico.ca

[Jamie Roberts]

Robert--oops. I just ordered a new 5000 and it's on its way right now!

 

The fact that it specs out twice as fast as the 4000 is very encouraging to me. So we'll see!

[mgcd]

Robert--oops. I just ordered a new 5000 and it's on its way right now!

 

The fact that it specs out twice as fast as the 4000 is very encouraging to me. So we'll see!

 

Jamie - You'll be happy with the 5000. I have really been very satisfied by its performance.

 

Cheers,

[dseelig]

I have used the 5000 and the 9000. Ice with kodachrome works much better with the 9000. B&W is also much cleaner with the 9000. Of coarse no stacking of slides with the 9000 . But it is much easier to get clean results with the 9000. David

[ddp]

I've used both the 4000 & 8000. If you could spring it, do the 9000 or a used 8000 (assuming big batch scans aren't an issue.)

[Jamie Roberts]

@ Hey Conrad, thanks for the information. One question--have you done a lot of BW scanning with it?

 

And thanks Dan and Dave and to everyone else for their comments too. I don't shoot a lot of kodachrome, so I'm not too worried about ICE with that (and it was an issue on my 4000 as well).

 

But I am interested in BW, which I thought was a bit of a problem on both the 5000 and the 9000, which use the same kind of light source?

 

Any additional insight here would be great.

[Guest Bernd Banken]

Jamie,

 

due to the light source of the "cool" Nikons there might be some solution to get the light more soft as Minoltas have.

Here is a link to a Dutch company, mainly involved in Minolta scanners but as a Master of M8 you can modify your Nikon if you feel it's worth a try:

 

Official Scanhancer Site

 

Regards

Bernd

[Jamie Roberts]

Jamie,

 

due to the light source of the "cool" Nikons there might be some solution to get the light more soft as Minoltas have.

Here is a link to a Dutch company, mainly involved in Minolta scanners but as a Master of M8 you can modify your Nikon if you feel it's worth a try:

 

Official Scanhancer Site

 

Regards

Bernd

 

Bernd--

 

It looks like they even have a Nikon "hack"! Cool!

 

Official Scanhancer Site

 

(I don't think I'm a master of anything, except maybe procrastinating, but thanks for the link!)

[mgcd]

@ Hey Conrad, thanks for the information. One question--have you done a lot of BW scanning with it?...

 

...But I am interested in BW, which I thought was a bit of a problem on both the 5000 and the 9000, which use the same kind of light source?

 

Any additional insight here would be great.

 

Indeed I have and you can see the results on the Documentary 2 section of my website. It does the job well.

 

Cheers,

[Jamie Roberts]

Thanks Conrad, and everyone else. The scanner arrived, and hooked up just fine. Since I'm familiar with Nikon Scan, it's been a snap to get it working, and it's oh so much faster than the 4000!

 

The results--even with black and white--are also much better than I thought they'd be!

 

So thanks again.