Nikon Coolscan IV, V vs 4000ED (or 5000ED)

[stlsailor]

If one were going to buy a used dedicated film scanner for digitizing transparencies and negatives, what are the pros and cons, or your experiences with, the following Nikon Scanners?

• LS-4000
• Coolscan IV
• Coolscan V
• 4000ED

(The 5000ED and 9000ED are remote possibilities because of the price).

Any advice on what I should look for in buying one?

Dale

[creativeretouch]

There is a difference in a bit depth and speed. The newest one works in real 16bit - the older ones are recalculating ... But anyway I have Coolscan V ED and I am happy (not real 16bit) ...

[stlsailor]

Is the order I have them in correct from oldest to newest? Which one is the first 16-bit scanner? Does 16-bit scanning take significantly longer than 8-bit?

I assume if they have the software and film holders there is nothing else I need to look for?

Dale

[mistermonday]

Dale, bit depth should be way down on your list of important factors. The Analog to Digital converters to my recollection on all of those scanners were 12, 13, or 14 bits - you won't be able to tell the difference. All of those scanners produce a 16 bit output because the data width has to be a multiple of 8.
Things you need to be concerned with are scanner Dynamic Range. If the DR is poor it won't matter if you have 16 or 1600 bits - the scanner will not see the shadow and hightlight details as well as they could. ICE s/w will save you many many hours of clone stamping a billion dust specs or emulsion pinholes from older negs and slides. The extra 30 secs it will take to scan will be well worth it.
I do not remember what technology the scan head used in the IV but the V has solid state LEDs for sensors.
Check to make sure that Drivers are available for the operating system you are currently using and make sure the TWAIN driver will work with the version of PS or other editing s/w you are using.
Also note a full resolution scan of a 35mm neg or slide frame will be 24M pixels x 3 channels / pixel x 2 bytes/ pixel = 144 MB per scan. Make sure you have lots of hard drive space.
Regards, Murray

[stlsailor]

Murray,

Things you need to be concerned with are scanner Dynamic Range.

Googling for that, I found the following (density, which I assume is the same) along with the resolution and interface type.

• Coolscan IV ED = 3.6 with 2900 dpi and USB 1.1
• Coolscan V ED = 4.2 with 4000 dpi and USB 2.0
• Coolscan 4000 ED = 4.2 with 4000 dpi and firewire
• Coolscan 5000 ED = 4.8 with 4000 dpi and USB 2.0
• Coolscan 9000 ED = 4.8 with 4000 dpi and firewire

Is there much difference between a 4.2 and a 4.8?

ICE s/w will save you many many hours of clone stamping a billion dust specs or emulsion pinholes from older negs and slides.

Certainly makes sense. It seems I've read that it doesn't work for Kodachrome (which half or more of my transparencies are) or B&W. Still, any time savings would be good.

make sure that Drivers are available for the operating system you are currently using and make sure the TWAIN driver will work with the version of PS or other editing s/w you are using.

Thanks for that tip. A little preliminary checking seems to indicate that they should work with XP which I use now and Win7 which I'll go to. But once I pick out a model to target, I'll double check that.

It seems like automatic feed would be a huge timesaver but none of the used ones have it and it is a fairly pricey option. Does it make that much difference?

Dale

[mistermonday]

Dale,

Is there much difference between a 4.2 and a 4.8?

As long as you have a Dynamic Range of 4.0 or more you get excellent shadow detail. I do not think you will much if any difference between 4.2 and 4.8.

Certainly makes sense. It seems I've read that it doesn't work for Kodachrome (which half or more of my transparencies are) or B&W. Still, any time savings would be good.

That's a surprise. I have scanned hundreds of Kodachromes and it worked fine for me, as it did for Ektochromes and Velvia.

It seems like automatic feed would be a huge timesaver but none of the used ones have it and it is a fairly pricey option. Does it make that much difference?

Unless you have thousands of slides to scan, manual feed is pretty fast and efficient for slides. Negatives go in on film strips of 4 or 6 and the scanner processes all 4 of them sequentially by itself.

You will also do yourself a big service if you wear a pair of lint free gloves (avail at most photo supply stores) and have a set up to air clean your film before insertion. By air clean I mean either an air compressor with a squeeze trigger pointed nozzle or a high power shop vac with the hose attached to the exhaust. In this case you want to be sure you use HEPA filter cartridge in the vac, not a bag. The air will remove any dust and bits of cardboard if your Kodachromes are mounted in the orig cardboard holders.

Avoid any and all liquid cleaners even the ones sold as film cleaneing solutions. And whatever you do, NEVER use those cans of Dust OFF or any other aerosol cleaner.

Regards, Murray

[stlsailor]

Murray, I appreciate the helpful advice. It sounds like any of the following would work for what I need.

I know CreativeRetouch is pleased with the CoolScan V ED. Does anyone recommend (or not recommend) particular models in this list? I currently run XP Pro but will eventually move to Win7 (probably 64-bit). I currently use Photoshop Elements, but plan to use Lightroom also when the new version actually hits the market. I am leaning toward either the 5000 or the V.

• Coolscan V ED = 4.2 with 4000 dpi and USB 2.0
• Coolscan 4000 ED = 4.2 with 4000 dpi and firewire
• Coolscan 5000 ED = 4.8 with 4000 dpi and USB 2.0
• Coolscan 9000 ED = 4.8 with 4000 dpi and firewire

Dale

[mistermonday]

The V has performed extremely well for me - much better than my other brands' film / slide scanners. I don't think you can go wrong with either of the 2 models you selected.
If you want other opinions I suggest you visit one the the Scanner Forums.
Regards, Murray

[spotter]

we have the 5000ED and the 8000ED. The 5000 has a thing that processes the film in strips ,a holder for single slides and a holder for multiple slides but the multiple slide thing relies on your processing a whole batch as one profile so not always useful. They did bring out a roll film holder for it to process the whole uncut roll but we dont have that as we dont work with roll film uncut. The 8000 is much slower but can handle 2.25square and 700ml as well as 35mm.
I think the coolscan 9000 has better firmware and so is faster which would make a huge difference if you batch process all day long.