I have an HP Scanjet 5370C, Epson 1270 inkjet printer and a very good 35mm camera (Olympus IS-3). My dilema is that I am interested in buying a Nikon Coolpics 990 Digital camera but I am not sure if I would get better pictures than what I already have. I currently scan my 35mm pictures and print them on my inkjet. The quality is pretty good. Will I get the same if I get the Nikon Coopics 990 Digital Camera?

-- Frank Cerutti (mrfrank@mailexcite.com), August 07, 2000

Answers

Are you scanning prints from your negatives, or are you scanning the negatives? I'm not familiar with the HP Scanjet. If you are scanning the negatives/positives then you are achieving pretty much maximum quality. If you are scanning 4x6 (or smaller) prints then you should get better results from the 990.

-- fred (fdeaton@hiwaay.net), August 07, 2000.

You sound like you need a Nikon LS-30 or LS 2000 film scanner. The Nikon 990 is nice but again your only gathering about 9 MB of data per file. With a LS-30 you could capture 28MB off a slide or negative giving you much more "real" data to work with. The 5370 is doing your work no justice, my experience with that scanner is that frankly, the film scanning capabilities are horrible. I have the Nikon 950 and find it useful in certain situations, it hardly replaces film though. The LS 30 would cost less than the 990 camera and you can really knock out some nice work, otherwise your film camera investment is hampered by the very mediocre 5370. The Nikon will not give you quality enlargements like the film scanner and with the LS 30 you can choose all the great Fuji films like Provia and Velvia to really get the most out of your setup.

-- Cris Daniels (danfla@gte.net), August 07, 2000.

I agree that you'd be far better off spending the money on a dedicated film scanner, but there are other options than the Nikons. The rather outdated LS30 (Coolscan III) is only a 10 bit per channel scanner (with an inherent dynamic range of only 3.0D), and for the same money, or less, you can have your pick of 12 bit per channel scanners from Minolta or Canon, with slightly higher resolution in the case of the new Minolta offerings.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), August 08, 2000.

As a suggestion, why don't you go to this site's "Comparometer", select an image from the Nikon Coolpix 990, download it & print it?

-- George Ayer (grayer@home.com), August 08, 2000.