Hi,

I just got a Nikon LS 2000 Coolscan - it comes with the motorized strip film adapter which seems to work quite well. The software however isn't much to my liking - for example there is NO setting for B & W film (at least I haven't found one) and the quality of the scans is not good. BUT, using Ed Hamrick's VueScan ($40) gives me much better scans - not as good as the Mikrotek 4000 I had for two days before it broke down - and MUCH faster than the Mikrotek. I returned the Mikrotek because it broke but also because the software was REALLY bad (thre are no profiles and it is NOT possible to colormatch negative films - only slides) and it was ABYSMALLY slow. The Nikon is MUCH faster and the film strip adapter is much nicer to use than the flimsy plastic holder the Mikrotek and Polaroid are using. If you have a lot of film to scan, the Nikon is the way to go. If you only do one or a few scans the 4000 dpi scanners are nice - the extra data you get from the extra dpi is quite noticeble.

But - here's the rub - I think the scanner is scratching the film - as far as I can see the film is OK coming out of the lab but one run thru the scanner at 2700 DPI and there are long mostly straight scratches on most frames... The film is drawn thru the scanner and then down at the back and then pushed towards the front of the scanner, after the film is scanned it is run in reverse. At several places there are soft guides above and below the film to hold it in one plane and at the end of the path where it is pushed down and back there are several plastic guides which must contact the film plane on several places across the width of the film...

I blow the adapter with the help of a motorized low pressure compressor so to get rid of as much dust as possible before I start a new roll so I do not think it is dust in the scanner creating the problem..

Any one else had this happening? I've run about 30 rolls thru the scanner so far - mostly Fuji color, Kodak TCN400 and Ilford SX2 Super. The film most susceptible to scratches seems to be the Fuji...

Naturally if I can't get this solved I'll have to return this scanner as well - a pity now when I gotten the hang of VueScan - coming from the PC world it has a different interface. I am very impressed with Ed Hamrick - he has returned my email promptly and keeps updating and adding more features all the time. I asked for scalable thumbs and got a response in a day telling me it is in the next Beta being released Monday or Tuesday!

Anyway, any info on this would be much appreciated!

Christer Rosewell

-- Christer Rosewell (crose@rosewellphoto.com), May 08, 2000