It's impossible to find a good film scanner in this town!

[@michaeloltman1636]

A clear assessment of a difficult situation. A few Coolscans are out there for $2,500, which will go a long way to buying a good camera scanning operation with similar resolution output. Camera scanning also has the advantage of multi use - you can use the camera for more than just film scanning. I think there’s a strong market for a streamlined hardware and software package to ease the way for camera scanning. But right now it’s a wilderness. Thanks for the video.

[@Michael-w8v]

The DSLR used in the video is an APS sensor, so it has a more diffraction wave than the full-frame sensor.

[@joshmcdzz6925]

@@Michael-w8v you can't be further from what's right.. the sensor size does not matter ( aps-c / ff ) and diffraction has nothing to do with what he's talking about..

[@adriancozma6102]

​@@joshmcdzz6925 the sensor size doesn't really matter as far as diffraction is concerned, but a larger sensor should (at least in theory) have a wider dynamic range, making it easier to push or pull details from a negative. Noticed this after upgrading from a Nikon D5300 to a Nikon D850.

[@ehhhstatic]

I had gotten my CS4000 for nearly a month now and I'd say that my experience is quite the opposite. It was a joy to use and I genuinely did not find it time consuming at all. My setup is quite different where I had bought a $10 firewire card, plugged that into the PC i built a year ago and was getting a 36 exposures scanned in about an hour with vuescan at 4000dpi. The previous owner had modified the SA-21 adapter to allow for a whole uncut strip to be scanned together. I would first preview the entire roll at 500 dpi, align the frames, and then let the scanner scan the entire roll for 40-50 minutes on its own while watching a movie or editing photos during this free time. Vuescan has the option to output in Jpeg, Tiff, or raw. I'd usually save all 3 formats and then delete the unnecessary large size files afterwards to avoid the need to micro-manage every individual frame. The scanner is definitely not the fastest but this workflow allows to me to spend approximately 10-15 minutes "physically scanning" a roll while letting the CS do its thing for the remaining time. I had not used the original Nikon software but I was told that the ICE on that is much more superior at the cost of the slower scanning process you faced; a tradeoff acceptable for me since I am scanning new film rather than old family collections. YMMV

[@adriancozma6102]

Very interesting experience. I don't own a dedicated scanner, so I've been digitising my negatives with a DSRL for the past years. Can admit that in the beginning it was very much trial and error, especially when dealing with lenses and light sources, then conversion settings. But after being happy with the workflow, I managed to get the scanning and converting down to under 15 minutes. With tweaking it can lead up to 35 minutes, but not much else to do after that, the photos are either ready to be posted, printed, or set-up for more advanced retouching, when necessary.

[@dougsaroma]

Excellent video. I have the Nikon LS-2000 that I bought new back in the olden days. It was pretty nice for the quality back then but it required a SCZI card for the input, which became obsolete and unavailable. Tried to figure out a way around it but lost hope. Later got a newer Plustek, which could still work but haven't hooked it up for a couple of years since that PC died and haven't re-installed the software. Both take a lot of time and effort, and collect a lot of dust. Tried DSLR rigs with the Nikon 40mm macro and film dupe attachment, with varying results. It's quicker to scan, but hit and miss with proper exposure if the slide or neg isn't perfectly exposed. Post-scan editing could be a major pain. It's kinda of a pain no matter what you do. But I'm just trying to digitize old film stuff, not currently shooting film. Too much work for me. I still have tons of old slides I want to scan without having to send them off somewhere, which is expensive.

[@BeigeAlert]

I had some favorites scanned by PhotoCD back in the day, which was considered pretty good at the time, nothing like having your medium format scanned on a drum scanner at pro budget, but for 35mm, not bad. I just went and looked, 6 megapixels. They look great, it was good scanning and you got your files on a CD-ROM that was super handy back then, but, yeah, you didn't have a terabyte of photos on your computer and think nothing of it back then!

[@SchardtCinematic]

I had alot 9f my 0hotos scanned to Photo CD as well. The images are around 6 Megapixels at the highest resolution unless you got it scanned to the Master Photo CD that gave you around a 25Mp image. The quality of the Photo CD is still one if the best I've ever seen. Even film scanners I've bought in the past don't seem to hold up. Kodak had it down to a science I think. I now prefer using my Canon R7 to take instant photos of my negatives then use Photoshop to convert them to a positive and they look pretty good.

[@ilsavanhook8193]

PhotoCD was the answer back then. Affordable digital cameras were pretty awful, image quality-wise. I used PhotoCD starting in the 90s until I got my Coolscan V ED in the 00s

[@parkermillican]

I love using my 4000 and vuescan and negative lab pro, it lets me use my 2022 macbook. I think the workflow is pretty relaxed and the coolscan is to thank for that. Thanks for the video!

[@cynaraos]

oh hey! a fellow 40D owner! i got mine from my gadget dad who gave it to me in my teen years and i was never enthused until i rediscovered it in my pile of unorganized stuff just a few years ago and it made me end up properly getting into digital photography with real dedicated cameras

[@adriancozma6102]

Very relevant comparison. Thanks for doing this!

[@Foxglove963]

I use an Epson Perfection V800 Photo flatbed scanner. If you master the programme you can correct or fine tune the colors any way you like it. It can scan 8 X 10 inch film. It can also scan documents. It can detect photos on film looking deceivingly empty with terrific results.

[@milesmonroe65]

I’ve been on a similar journey and had similar frustrations. I had the Plustek 8200 which was very slow and seemed to produce dust and scratches out of nowhere. I had the Minolta 5400 elite scan ii which was high resolution but painful to use through a virtual machine and quite slow. The DSLR option with Negative Supply gear and Negative Lab Pro isn’t bad but quite annoying to set up and get absolutely level. Also that method of colour reversal whilst flexible is perhaps too flexible. It has always been my hope to get a Frontier/Noritsu level reversal straight out the box. I currently use a Nikon 8000 but with Vuescan or Silverfast. Neither of these are perfect colour-wise but at least work simply on a modern Mac. The medium format shots look very good but need a bit of tweaking in Lightroom. The 35mm is ok and also needs colour tweaking. At least the dust is taken care of. I may go back to the DSLR for 35mm if I happen to end up buying a better digital camera. Meanwhile I think there’s a huge gap in this niche market for a modern scanner that’s fast, ‘cleans’ dust, has beautiful colours, high definition and doesn’t need to be fiddled with too much throughout the process. I’d even consider saving up for a Frontier if they were new, with new software and connectivity AND a warranty. If no-one comes up with one I think DSLR digitising will end up being the way to go. Hopefully the conversation software will make progress and maybe dust removal might even become a near automated feature in Lightroom. We can dream.

[@wolfegarden]

What's your setup for hooking up the 8000 on a modern Mac? I tried the 4000 using a PCIe card in a USB-C enclosure and had nothing but problems with it (ranging from "just doesn't work" to "kernel panic the minute I turn the scanner on" depending on host computer).

[@milesmonroe65]

@@wolfegarden Erm… I’m clearly not as technically savvy as you and I can’t quite recall the names of the couple of leads I have connected together but I know it’s a FireWire at one end and a Thunderbolt at the other. Seems to work fine… at least with Vuescan and Silverfast. It’s still ridiculously slow but at least with 35mm I can load up 12 frames, tweak the previews then let it run for about an hour for the full res scans without having to be in the room with it.

[@petepictures]

Quite accurate in your discoveries , i've being through the same. My experience with the drum scanner on top of all others was an ordeal of itself.

[@ocker2000]

By sheer luck I got a hold of a vintage LS 8000 Nikon Coolscan. I found the same experiences as you did with the 4000 model. Mine did not come with the trays. Original trays are hard to come by and are very expensive. These machines are not made for mass throughput. But the results are amazing. If they break it is almost impossible to get service and parts for them. Nikon does not provide support any more. I bought a Plustek 8200 ai scanner for a big job. Yet at 7200 dpi it still takes about 5 minutes to scan one frame...

[@marklsimonson]

I've got a Nikon Super CoolScan 5000 ED. It works with USB and works pretty well for my purposes with my modern Macs using VueScan, albeit without the Digital ICE feature enabled (seems to require the official Nikon software). Just out of curiosity, I installed Nikon Scan 4 on an old 500MHz Mac G4 Cube I happen to have (upgraded with the max RAM and an SSD). You're right that scanning was painfully slow. Not worth the trouble. Judging by the history of the Mac version Nikon Scan, which started out on the classic, pre-OS X version of Mac OS, even when it runs on OS X, it appears to be a Carbon app. In other words, it still uses all the old classic Mac OS system calls, not taking advantage of the more modern and efficient OS X Cocoa APIs. This is also why it doesn't run on anything later than 10.4. Support for Carbon apps were dropped after that. I'm guessing that some of the slowness of Nikon Scan on the Mac is because of this. It's too bad Nikon never rewrote it in Cocoa before they stopped updating it.

[@mrbilllollar]

Thanks for the video. I'm currently considering a Nikon CoolScan V ED that just popped up on my local FB marketplace for $500. After talking with the seller, she agreed to drop the price to $200 and I'm thinking it over. I shoot with a Nikon D7500, but back in the day I had a Canon AE1 and hundreds of 35mm color negs in my office.

[@bernpedit7819]

Confusing at best - I was a drum scanner operator in the Nineties. You seem to complain but are not willing to invest the time and/or money into getting the best digital scans. I still use my NIKON 4000, NIKON 8000, and EPSON V850 Pro with workstations dedicated to each scanner..Quality takes time, for optimum results I fluid mount with a glass holder in my NIKON 8000 and the accessory for the V850.

[@dmburke007]

I would recommend the Nikon Cool Pix 5000, very rugged and produce beautiful scans for films with great resolution.

[@joey.leblanc]

You could probably speed up the scanning on the CoolScan 4000 by using a 2011ish Mac Mini or iMac that still supported FireWire (they have a FireWire 800 port, you'd just need an adapter cable to FireWire 400 for the CoolScan). I'm looking into picking up a CoolScan 4000 in the near future and that's my plan. I'll try to remember to update this comment with my results. Thanks for the informative video, I think you covered this topic exceptionally well, and the comparison photos helped a ton!

[@navidsattorov9509]

You got an update on this?

[@michelleliberty3419]

I’m considering a used 24 mp, full frame digital (Nikon d6). Just as good as the best Eason and now you have a scanner and a camera.

[@randallstewart1224]

For the Coolscan units, he hit the shortcoming. The Nikon software has always been troublesome, often impairing the operation of the unit.

[@tubecorr]

I have a coolscan 5000. Not sure how much slower the 4000 is but I have founds a few things that can probably speed it up. From my testing Mac OS was much slower than windows XP. I run XP on a 2011 Mac mini via bootcamp with pretty good results. Another option would be to switch to vuescan. That way you can run it on much newer hardware if you can get around the firewire issue. You only do the RAW scan in vuescan then convert the image in negative lab pro. This gives much better colours that the vuescan software I find. You don't need to buy the roll scanning adapter to scan full rolls of film. They're a very simple modification you can do to the standard adapter to convert it into a full roll scanner. Should be a few tutorials on how to do it online.

[@diamondfieldmusic]

Oh man, that Nikon reminds me of the Cool Scan LS-2000 I had in the late 90s. I was working on a magazine and rather than send out for scans I thought it would be more cost effective to do my own scans. The LS 2000 was a decent resolution and connected via SCSI. I mainly used it to scan 35mm transparency film which is what I received the most. I also had the 35mm negative adapter. I'd scan (already processed) prints on a basic UMax flatbed scanner. Overall it did save me time and money on sending out for scans but the quality was average (lots of editing in Photoshop to even out patchy color and get things sharp). It was also SLOW. Used it for a couple of years but it ended up in the junk pile with all my other many SCSI peripherals as we moved to firewire and beyond. For a much better solution scanning 35mm negatives I can really vouch for the Valoi Easy35 system. All you need is a digital camera and a 1:1 macro lens and you can get amazing scans quickly. Once set up I can do a roll of 36 frames in about 10 minutes. Then you just use a negative conversion app to process the images and further tweak if you need to.

[@BboyGraphicx]

Thank you, this video was insightful. May I suggest adding a Lomo Digitaliza to your Epson V600 to up the quality. Liked and subscribed.

[@Michael-w8v]

The DSLR you used to take photos of the film reel is technically not a scanner but a copier. Also, your camera has an APS-C sensor, so it will make a more diffraction wave on the photo than the full-frame sensor. A new full-frame camera may solve that issue.

[@SchardtCinematic]

Yes the Optek scanner takes forever to scan and yes it sucks. I prefer to shoot with my R7 at a negative and shoot it in RAW. it gives you the biggest flexibility in adjusting your photos.

[@southbendkid]

If you are in such a hurry why use film in the first place. From the time the film comes out of the camera It's hours before you can see the result, and that's only if you process the film yourself. It takes days if you send it out. It takes as long to dry the film as it does to scan the role. During either process you can go away and do something else. When I got a Coolscan III in 1997 it was a godsend. The digital age had arrived and I had thousands of negatives and slides. I just got a 4000. It was a breeze to set up on my Win 10. Running Nikon software. it scans an image in 80 seconds. I hear the 5000 is much faster.

[@BeytekinConstructionMachinery]

You hit the nerv. Have the same problem.

[@cecilsharps]

Your using inadequate tools for the task. My first thought is to get a digital camera with a few more megapixels than 10. I'm not trying to be a gear snob. but 10mp isn't up to the task you want it to perform. Look for a used full frame body with at least 24 megapixels. If you can't float that get an apsc with around 20 megapixels. the chips and the software on the cameras doubled in capabilities and iq three or four times since 2007. Your asking a super Nintendo to play skyrim. If you start with sup par input no amount of digital magic can fix that and you will get sub par output. My second suggestion is to buy all the toys necessary to scan with the dslr. high cri light source, ball head and a manfrotto clamp. there are plenty of diy solutions on youtube to build an affordable functional copy stand. i just use a c-stand and table. yes it's a pain to tear down and set up but a sensor with adequate resolution gives the best bang for the buck performance. I would say check out cinestill and look at what valloi is putting out but it won't make any difference on a 10mp camera.

[@wolfegarden]

Since this video I've picked up an EOS 5DS R for the purpose (well, and using it as a regular DSLR), plus all the toys for proper digitization. It's a lot better than the 40D, but I still feel like I'm missing out on IR cleaning for color film especially considering that my dust control is not particularly up to par in here (nor is it likely to ever be). I'm actually currently working on a completely different approach to the problem, but it's going well enough that I don't want to spoil the surprise in (hopefully) a few weeks.

[@ReinoldFZ]

Somebody experimented with 12 and 24 megapixels full frame cameras, that person, for his method, found that film looked natural with the 12 megapixel cameras, while with 24 megapixels he perceived it was adding an unnatural rendering of the grain. Ken Rockwell says 35mm film has resolution equivalent to 24 megapixels in Bayer digital, I think he means Velvia. In my country slides aren't processed but outside pro films like Portra, Ektar or ProH I think low megapixel cameras are fine provided the lens is good. My Sony R1 with 10 megapixels was good enough due the fixed Carl Zeiss lens.

[@iM-mf1ke]

So does the 8000 have exactly the same resolution as the 4000 ? Aside from the medium format scanning, can you tell me a good reason why to get the 8000 ?

[@wolfegarden]

The 8000 has exactly the same resolution as the 4000. I don't think there's a particular reason to get an 8000 unless you need medium format

[@Thrice_Greatest]

I’m curious, have you tried loading a VM with 32 bit Windows, or the same Mac OS you’re using in the power pc? May be a work around. You may also be able to try wine on your current Mac with that Nikon software. Let me know what you think, and excellent video.

[@wolfegarden]

I've thought about that, but the difficult part is really more on the *hardware* side. I'd have to virtualize something on my Win11 desktop and pass through its PCIe FireWire card. It's probably doable, but I doubt the juice is worth the squeeze - I have some experience with PCIe passthrough from Linux VM hosts and it's a total pain in the butt Other than that, the only machine I own that's compatible with the scanner at the hardware level is that PowerBook, so nothing going there. I dunno, maybe I'll look at it again later. I've mostly just been shooting B&W these days, so VueScan on the win11 box does fine.

[@Thrice_Greatest]

@@wolfegarden I would say give it a try if you have the time, and in a sense you will have more control. Did you also try running the windows software in compatibility mode?

[@tituslafrombois1164]

Would it be at all possible to set up some kind of virtual machine running the right MacOS or Windows version that this thing's software can still run on? Or at least set up some sort of script to automate the more tedious aspects of running it on an era-appropriate machine. Could make the process a lot less painful. (Approaching this from the perspective of the kind of nerd who explicitly enjoys fiddling and waiting a long time for good results)

[@wolfegarden]

So I have thought about virtualization, but it seems like it would just combine the running-it-on-a-new-machine problems with the running-it-on-an-old-machine problems, or require me to find solutions for really weird use cases like somehow passing a FireWire device through to a pre-Intel Mac OS VM. Also, scripting won't help with having to feed the scanner more film every half an hour or so...

[@mikaelwardhana2839]

Really good content! Thanks for making this video. Im facing the same problem at the moment. Do you think the digital camera solution can produce better result than the plustek? I have a plustek 8200i but recently i saw some people can scan an entire roll of film in minutes with their digital camera and its tempting to me.

[@wolfegarden]

I don't have a 8200i (which I hear is a lot better than the 7200) but I'd guess the results will be about the same, or maybe a little worse if you rely on IR scanning on the Plustek. Assuming you've got a reliable setup for capturing and processing with a digital camera you can absolutely blast through a roll - it's my go-to for scanning half-frame (where I'm not usually trying to extract the maximum possible quality) for that reason.

[@randallstewart1224]

@@wolfegarden The 8200 is the same hardware as the 7200, just different software/

[@tituslafrombois1164]

10:07 is that a Leuchtturm notebook? Great choice of ink too ;D

[@wolfegarden]

Sure is! Been using that journal for about nine months now, it's great (and photogenic!)

[@tituslafrombois1164]

@@wolfegarden I have the same color you've got there, I believe, just in the Pocket size. I've enjoyed it, but found the cover material oddly sticky and the pages easier to accidentally smudge fresh ink on. Still, better quality than Moleskine offers these days!

[@EM-ve9bh]

Film scanning is relatively new in the grand scheme of photography. There aren’t a ton of options because digital took off fast. The best solution I’ve found was after finding a lab scanner for cheap. I can scan entire rolls of 35mm film in 4300 dpi quality in 15 minutes with great color. The software is still updated semi frequently and the scanner works great on my windows 10 gaming pc

[@ChiliMcFly1]

Maybe try square space .