Scanning 35mm Film With a 25 Year Old Nikon LS2000

[@anameofsomesort959]

Very impressed by this old scanner and its capabilities. I spent a fair amount of money on an inkjet printer/scanner that is "optimized" for photos 3 years ago, and this preforms much better. The scanner can only do about 1200dpi, which is serviceable for scanning old photos to post on social media, or even developed film if you have photoshop to finish the work, but that's an extra cost. Great video as always!

[@stereophonicstuff]

Thanks for watching! I’ve been considering getting a newer film scanners, but all the reviews are a mixed bag of causal indifference about the quality being OK or just plain junk. The same is true with all those consumer movie film scanners. For its age, the LS2000 can definitely still hold its own.

[@vwestlife]

Watching this video makes me feel SCSI.

[@TheOriginalCollectorA1303]

Awesome! This is exactly the type of machine I think of for a film scanner, a 90s beige box that just works, and extremely well! I know modern alternatives are available, but this seems to do the job just fine and I wouldn’t be surprised if this outperforms newer ones since it was made when film was still widely used. Very cool to see you got yours to work with just some simple maintenance. Using it on a modern pc is probably better, at least in terms of storage and software (at least now that you got it to work), but it would be interesting to see if the older XP era software has any advantages. I’m guessing probably not, but it’ll probably still work alright. Same goes for older Mac OS and it seems like it would work considering it’s a SCSI based device. (Don’t know about the software side of things though) I don’t really have any experience with film so I’m not sure what settings would work well. You could always do an unedited scan, and then make a new scan to the preset for cropping it, but it’s probably not worth doing unless you really want a 100% archived as much as possible file. Great video!

[@bakonfreek]

Ooh, Digital ICE, my Epson Perfection V600 has that. I imagine it fares better because the resolution is high enough to capture grain on 100 speed film, but at the same time, they made us master meticulous patching on old photo scans in my digital photography class in college like 10 years ago. Also, I need to get myself one of these film scanners with the auto adapter. Reasons.

[@stereophonicstuff]

I’m still tempted to get one of the cheap modern film scanners just to see how they (can’t) compare to something like the LS2000. Maybe even one of those smartphone film scanners, just for kicks and grins.

[@bakonfreek]

Those smartphone ones might not pair well with newer smartphones since they have that weird artifact of a larger sensor (macro haloing), but with the iPhone you have, it won’t have the same resolution, but the quality is definitely serviceable.

[@nicolaykhmirov337]

Very useful and interesting video! Thank you ! I once asked, but I already forgot the answer... The video was shot with hi8 or digital8 camcoder's with deinterlacing in avisinth or i'm wrong?

[@stereophonicstuff]

Thanks for watching. This was actually recorded with an HDV camcorder (HD video to MiniDV tape) and then deinterlaced and upscaled with QTGMC/AVISynth to 4K60. The results, at least on YT, are much better than just uploading in 1080p to begin with. Still, I plan on breaking out the D8 camcorder with more regularity; I always wonder if people are going to complain about the quality, but it seems many actually like the look and 60p makes up for the lack of resolution.

[@edmal5870]

This gives me hope….I still have my LS-2000 that I bought new in 1999 ($1600). Would love to put it back in service but I’m not sure how to go about it. Using Windows 11 on a laptop. Can I simply use a SCSI to USB 2 cable along with some suitable drivers to make this work?

[@stereophonicstuff]

Being totally honest, I had enough trouble getting mine to work under Windows 10 using those modified drivers I showed in the video. Using a SCSI to USB cable MAY work, but may also fall flat on its face similar to those Firewire to USB adapters. Windows 11 also seems to be even more persnickety about legacy hardware and drivers than Windows 10, so YMMV. Though you have given me an idea for a possible video in the future, so stay tuned!

[@groombridge732]

Hey, I purchased a cool scan iii. I have an old dell consumer running xp and it won't connect with VueScan or nikon scan 3.2.1. Any help it won't recogonize the device! Computer does have a scsi cable.

[@misterrocks3035]

I've had a lot of trouble finding a lab that would deliver scans that looked appealing to my eyes, for a price that doesn't break the bank. As it turned out, price does NOT equal quality - some of the pricier labs around are really and truly just taking the piss all the way from development, to printing, to scanning.

[@joecalabresi4072]

I have one but I cannot get it to work

[@joecalabresi4072]

How did you plug it in ?