John,
I have a Nikon Super coolscan 8000ED, the model that the current 9000
replaced. I have also used the 9000 a few times, as one of my clients has
one. I got my 8000 when it first came out 6 or 7 years ago. I was using a
really slow Windows computer with a 1.2ghz Celeron processor and only 512 MB
of RAM, and it worked fine. I later bought the computer I still use, a
Powermac G4 with dual 1.25ghz processors and 2GB of ram, and I don't think
the Nikon scans any faster. It doesn't need a powerful computer.
One thing you do need is the glass negative carrier. This is non-negotiable,
as the plain carriers that come with the scanner are less than worthless.
The medium format holder is absolutely incapable of ever holding film flat,
no matter how flat it was before you put it in the carrier. If you want
SHARP medium format scans, spend the money for the glass carrier. There are
two of them, one costs $250, the other $330. You buy the one you can find as
they are imported rarely and dealers never have them in stock. You find
someone who has one in stock, you pay whatever they ask for it. The more
costly one lets you slightly rotate the film in the carrier to compensate
for you not having had the camera level when you shot the photo...in
practice I never use this feature, though its the carrier I was able to
find. My client with the 9000 bought the cheaper glass carrier and had to
wait 8 months for one to be sent from Japan to her local dealer after she
had the store special-order it.
Nikon's suport for scanners is POOR as the glass carrier purchase problem
illustrates. Nonetheless, its a good scanner once you get the glass carrier.
At 4000 DPI it resolves the grain of the film, very sharply. I have made
20x30 prints from 645 negs with no upressing...the native file size from a
4000dpi scan of that film is big enough!
If you do 35mm scans, the scanner comes with 2 carriers. One is for mounted
slides, and works fine. The other holds two strips of 6 frames, for negs or
unmounted transparencies. It sucks. If the film is totally, 100% flat you
MIGHT get scans that are sharp all the way to the edge. Maybe, if God smiles
on you and the moon and stars are aligned. I just use the glass carrier for
35mm too. Its a pain, yes, but worth it if you are on obsessive
perfectionist, as I am.
Nikon's scan software is ok. I prefer Viewscan, but Nikon scan works
fine...its just slower and I don't like its user interface...but the scans
are equally good compared to what I get from Viewscan.
This is really the only medium format scanner still made, except the vastly
overpriced Imacon units that cost 10 times as much. If you can live with the
need to buy a $300 neg carrier to make it work properly, its a fine scanner
and produces quality that is indistinguishable from what I got in the
darkroom when I printed my film by hand in the old days. Dynamic range is
more than enough for negs (they actually scan rather flat because of the
wide dynamic range...use Photoshop to raise contrast to normal). For slides
Dynamic range is bigger than any other scanner I've seen, but slides do scan
in a little darker than they look in reality...that's fixable in Photoshop
too. Scans are never perfect right from the scanner from ANY scanner I have
used....think of them as like RAW files from a digital camera...a starting
point that you refine to get the final image.
Most of the photographs on my website are from film scanned on that
scanner...the rest were shot with a Kodak 14n digital SLR. If you're
interested in seeing some 100% views of film scanned with it, I can post
some tonight on my website and send the list a link.
--
Chris Crawford
Photography & Graphic Design
Fort Wayne, Indiana
http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com My portfolio
http://blog.chriscrawfordphoto.com My latest work!
http://www.plumpatrin.com Something the world NEEDS.
On 3/31/08 12:53 PM, "om4t@xxxxxxxxxxx" <om4t@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> If anyone has experience with using a high end medium format film scanner I
> will appreciate whatever comments they might have to offer including info on
> the minimum computing power required to do justice to the scanner.
>
> In particular, someone has suggested that the Nikon Super Coolscan 9000 ED is
> worth considering.
>
> I know that this subject has been aired before and so to save list space
> taking up old news any off-list responses will be appreciated.
>
> Thanks
>
> John Hudson
>
>
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