Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)First of all, let me say I am a neophyte when it comes to scanning. My mother passed away recently and I wanted to go through my father's 20,000 slides and scan the best ones before they, as many before them, disappeared into the hands of one of my 7 other siblings never to be found again.
After culling my father's slides I ended up with about 1000 I wanted to scan. After culling my own slides I ended up with another 250 slides. Additionally, I had about 250 slides from my grandfather slides And after that I decided to go through my color negative collection and scan the best of those as well. A daunting project! But honestly well worth the effort.
Most of my father's slides are Kodachrome. Much has been written about the inability of this scanner to scan Kodachrome slides and said about ICE4 not working with Kodachrome. Well, I have some good news The ICE4 does work extremely well for the most part. However, with Kodachrome slides it does produce minor artifacts in about 5 percent of the slides.I scanned with ICE (not ICE4) always on and then rescanned if I encountered unacceptable artifacts. I did notice that the scanner ICE feature was more likely to be stumped by old Kodachrome slides where subjects were wearing shirts with stripes.
The GEM ROC and DEE (the other stalwarts of the ICE4 other than ICE itself) work on Kodachrome slides as well, but I found that the results were unpredictable and that I could achieve better results myself in Photoshop far more quickly. The GEM ROC and DEE features simply took too long and slowed down the scanning unacceptably. The results, for me, were not worth the additional scanning time. So I never used these features. But the "enhance" feature on the scanner I used nearly 100% of the time with great results - much better than the GEM ROC and DEE features.
The scanner is fast and does produce wonderful wonderful detailed scans, easily demonstrating the grain in the transparancies at 3000 and 4000 dpi. The Kodachrome slides were a challenge to the Dynamic Range of the scanner, but I believe that most of the detail in the shadows that is there was extracted. With dark slides I used the VERY useful gain feature turning it all the way up to 2 in the really dark slides. Unfortunately, Kodachrome, with all of its many attributes, does have substantial downsides including a very narrow exposure latitude and shadow detail is simply lacking. I think the scanner accurately reproduced the information including the colors on the Kodachrome slides, with perhaps a slight bluish cast noticed in some cases.
It wasn't until I was finished scanning all of the culled slides that I undertook to scan my select color negatives.And this scanner really came into its own scanning color negatives. Don't even TRY to scan color negatives without ICE because the results are unbelievably bad. Even pristine negatives have scratches and dust that magically are erased by the ICE feature. What a godsend. The scanned color negatives were just beautiful with very accurate color rendition. But immediately I noticed much more grain in the color negatives (Royal Gold and Fuji Superia Gold) than in the scanned slides.
One note unrelated to the scanner itself. Until you've used a digital scanner to scan your color negatives you can't begin to realize how far superior Kodachrome, Provia, and Ektachrome slides are to color negatives insofar as capturing detail. Even the best color negatives have much more grain that Kodachrome. And the difference in color negatives is substantial too.
The included Nikon software worked fantastic for me. I downloaded a copy of VueScan which according to many reviews is superior to the Nikon software and found that for me the Nikon software was easier to work with and produced superior results.
The software did cause my computer to crash occasionally which was an aggravation, but a minor one when considered against its many attributes.
Setup Summary: I scanned at a 8 bit color depth (to reduce file size to 55MB and because I could not see a difference between 8 and 16 bit depth in the old slides) and 4000 pixels per inch with the scan enhancer turned on and the Digital ICE turned on. I did not use GEM ROC and DEE because of inconsistent results. I turned up the gain as necessary for dark slides and turned it down for light slides. Gain adjustments were only necessary on about 15 - 20% of the slides. The only two variables that I used once I was set up and running were gain adjustment and type of film or slide. All other adjustments were made in PS IF necessary. The scan at these settings took 90 seconds. Setting up the Nikon Scan window was a little tricky too. I placed the tool palette in the far upper right corner of the window with the scan window placed under it to the right. The image window occupied the largest portion space to the left.
I can recommend this scanner without reservation. It is a phenomenal piece of equipment.
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Nikon Super CoolScan 5000 ED Film ScannerA high-performance dedicated film scanner designed for imaging professionals, the Super Coolscan 5000 ED offers high-quality scanning of 35mm slides, 35mm film strips, APS film (with optional IX240 film adapter), and prepared slides (with optional medical slide holder). The Scanner-Nikkor ED glass lens offers a 4,000 dpi optical resolution, while the 3,964-pixel, two-line linear CCD image sensor and 16-bit per color A/D input (8-/16-bit output) provide true-to-life, brilliant results.
Nikon's own LED illumination technology ensures accurate color separation with no warm-up time or risk of heat damage. Scan times are as fast as 20 seconds including image transfer to display, and as fast as 11 seconds in preview mode. Automatic color/contrast compensation helps you achieve accurate results, while the ICE4 advanced digital image correction suite of technologies--including digital ICE, digital ROC, digital GEM, and digital DEE--helps to restore old slides to their original glory. Additionally, the included Nikon Scan 4 software provides a comprehensive and easy-to-use interface for managing your scans.
The Super Coolscan 5000 ED has a convenient, plug-and-play USB interface, while one-touch scan and preview buttons will have you scanning film in no time. PC and Mac compatible, the Super Coolscan 5000 ED also comes backed with a one-year limited warranty.
More Features:
What's in the Box Scanner, power cord, USB cable, MA-21 slide mount adapter, SA-21 strip film adapter, software CD-ROM (Nikonview, Nikon Scan 4), Nikon User's Guide, one-year Nikon U.S.A. limited warranty information
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