i am thinking about buying a nikon ls-30, but am a little concerned about the low bit depth. my main goal is good prints. is this scanner a good buy, or will i wish i had gotten something else (like a minolta dimage scan speed or a dimage elite or a nikon ls2000)? I have the money for any of these scanners, but I'd rather not spend more than nescessary.

-- Joel (jhb01@comp.uark.edu), March 10, 2000

Answers

I have the same question; LS-30 or LS-2000? We produce a short run newsletter featuring fabrics, quilts, kitsets and related items. I recently purchased a Tektronix 850DP (thermal wax) for a color page insert and want quality scans from pics taken with a 35mm Pentax. Color fidelity and a wide tonal range are the key attributes. I have no feel for the difference between these two scanners and seek comments from those of you who have used both in this type of application. (Sorry Joel not to answer your question but I hope the thread will clarify the issues!)

-- John Wolff (dtopcomp@wave.co.nz), March 10, 2000.

It depends. The main difference between a 10 bit scanner and a 12 bit scanner is the ability to pull detail out of dense parts of the negative or slide. This is most notable in scanning slightly underexosed slides or overexposed negatives. The end result is noise and irregular patterns in the dark areas of a scan from a slide or bright portions of a scan from a negative. There is a lot of difference between a 10 bit and 12 bit scanner. The 12 bit nikon, minolta, and canon scanners will provide a better scan than their 10 bit counterparts. The one advantage that the LS 30 has is the ability to clean use digitalICE to remove surface defects from the media being scanned, this feature does not work well with black and white or kodachrome film. Comparison tests scanning the same slide with a canoscan 2710 and minolta scanspeed indicate that the minolta can produce more shadow detail, however the canon scanner is a good scanner for the money. Dark areas were clean and free of noise, however the minolta was able to produce detail where there was none in the scan from the canon. The minolta scanspeed does tend to produce a bit of noise in the shadows using the scanner software provided by minolta. I use the vuescan software produced by ed hamrick that allows mult-pass scanning. This minimizes shadow noise, however dust on the ccd can cause pixel thin lines in the really dense portions of the scan. (I believe this would be a feature of almost any scanner). Comparisons of a scan of the same image made by the scan speed and the ls2000 indicate little difference in sharpness and shadow detail, but some difference in colour rendition. The scan speed is a good value for the money. According to the minolta rep, the dimage elite has the same dynamic range and resolution as the scan speed but the elite software provides for mult-pass scanning. Minolta has also licensed the digital ICE process for removing surface defects from the media being scanned.

The choice of a scanner depends on what you are primarily planning to use it for. If you are working from negatives, you can get away with a 10 bit scanner. If you are working from slides, a 12 bit scanner provides a much better result. I upgraded to a minolta scan speed from a photosmart scanner. I got pretty good results from the photosmart scanner but have much better results from the minolta. If you want comparison photos of the same image from the various scanners, check out some of the pages at www.hamrick.com or on the sample images provided by this site. Download the images, save them, and open them with an image editor. By using the levels or curves command, increase the brightness of the midtones and shadows and examine them closely. This provides a quick and dirty indication of the ability of the various scanners to handle shadow detail. When you actually go to buy a scanner, take a slide or negative with you. Do a scan on each piece of equipment you are looking for and see which one you are happy with. Good luck

-- jonathan ratzlaff (jonathanr@clrtech.bc.ca), March 10, 2000.

I recently bought a Nikon LS-2000 slide scanner to replace my old Coolscan-II (the forerunner of the LS-30). The difference is like between night and day. It took me a little while to calibrate the scanner for my monitor and for the film I usually use (this is the secret to good scanning - calibrate!) but the results are impressive when scanning at 12 bits. The Nikon Color Management System works very well and it is only occasionally that I have to tweak colors (mostly with slides that have large areas of blue).

-- Albert Klee (aklee@fuse.net), March 12, 2000.

I agree: 10 bits bad, 12 bits good (well, better anyway)

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), March 13, 2000.