Nikon CoolScan V ED Film Scanner

I have a collection of slides and negatives that I want digitized so I can enjoy them. I am computer literate and with the purchase of this scanner I now have 3 scanners (flatbed, dedicated document scanner and a negative/slide scanner).

There are 2 drawbacks to this scanner:
a) it's very slow. I recommend multitasking while scanning. (I'm on the internet surfing, but I have 2 Gig of ram on the PC.)

b) if you are going to scan large format negs or want multiple strips, better go look at what Epson has got. I found out later there's a model that has a way of putting in 4-6 strips to scan AND it'll go scan directly into Photoshop.


Would I change? I don't know. I'm satisfied with what I got. It's doing the job and personally I don't want to tweak every negative or slide in Photoshop. I would rather be selective because I'd never get anything done if I didn't. It's a very time intensive process as it is.

I know many photographers who have shot hundreds if not thousands of Ektachrome or Kodachrome slides in the past. Face it, the slides are getting older and you need to convert them to digital images. The Coolscan V will do the job beautifully. You can even retouch them with the included software, or any imaging software (Adobe CS). The process does take time (a couple minutes for a typical slide), but anything worth saving takes time. For the price, it totally beats sending your precious slides out to be processed or renting a unit where you're under a deadline to return it. Besides, you have full control over how you want them to look. Quality product, great outcomes!

All the reviews for this product do a good job of summing up the products strengths, (good quality for the cost) and weaknesses, (SLOWWWWWWW). I bought my unit on Ebay and I intend to sell it there when I'm through with my project. There's no reason to purchase this unit new if you can avoid it. If you look at the contruction of the box, its bulletproof. This thing could survive in the Sarah. The only compliant I have other than its slowness, is the poor user documentation, which I think is typical. Because the doc's are so poor in introducing you to "how" to create scanned images from slides and neg's, it takes time to figure it out. Once you've gone through that process, the real time is consumed in the sheer process of feeding film & neg's into this bugger. I'm using the batch feature, with only IDC enabled, (not ROC or GEM), forget that. At least in batch mode you can stick in a strip of film, scan it in and convert to a file type of your choosing and then walk away and do something more productive with your life than looking at process ribbon scroll across the screen. Check on it through out a day and you'll be surprised to see how many negs you've managed to scan.

I was an avid photographer in the 70s and 80s and have accumulated numerous slides of my family. These slides are now starting to show signs of decay. Using the Nikon Cool Scan V has helped me to restore and retain the beauty of these slides. My only negative comment regarding this equipment is the slowness of the process. I can only scan one slide at a time and it takes roughly 45 seconds per slide. I am scanning them as TIF files and each slide is about 65 MB. The scanner does a great job of capturing all the details of the slides at this level of scanning.

Why spend $500 for a scanner that can only do one image at a time, when you can get an Epson or Canon flatbed that will do a dozen or more, in one pass? Well, because the Coolscan makes surprisingly high quality scans whereas the flatbeds (which were never intended to scan small pieces of film) do not.

In theory, you can get very high resolution files from a flatbed (and if you spend $20,000 on a Scitex, you'll see that flatbed scanners can, indeed make great 35mm scans). But the $300-700 dollar flatbed scanners do not have the optics or precision to get the best from a 1" x 1.5" piece of film. Worse, the quality varies across the bed, with the center usually giving the sharpest scan. These scanners can generate very large files but if the sharpness, detail and bit depth (shadow detail) aren't there, file size does not matter.

I wouldn't recomend the big Coolscan unless you are very serious because you can get pretty good scans of medium format film from almost any scanner that has a light in the lid. But with 35mm the Coolscan rules.

There are two drawbacks, however. While the Coolscan isn't terribly slow, scanning one slide or neg at a time, is. The more expensive model, with the slide feeder may or may not be worth it to you. The other drawback is the NikonScan software which has a unique property--it does not work reliably on a PC and it doesn't work on a Mac, either. True, cross-platform non-functionality! Here, the solution is to use VueScan which can be downloaded for $39 and is trouble-free.