Note that 2,700 DPI gives a 10 megapixel scan of a 35mm slide or
negative. For most images, this is all that you need or will benefit from.
Nikon LS-2000's (mostly made in 1999, and originally $2,000) are
available on E-Bay at reasonable prices (prices range from as little as
$50 for incomplete units that probably need serviced or repaired (at
least cleaned) to $250-$350 for fully serviced good as new units with
the accessories that they originally came with to scan both negatives
and slides. However, the MA-20 slide feeder that will come with such a
unit is still one-at-a-time manual. There is a 50-slide autofeeder
available (SF-200), but it costs about $400 all by itself and they are
very fussy about their slides (e.g. they jam a LOT with MOST slides; you
can find some "tricks" on the web to improve their reliability, but much
of the problem has to do with the slides themselves). There is a dumbed
down version of the LS-2000 called the LS-30 (or Cool Scan III), it's
largely the same for most purposes but it won't work with the SF-200
feeder (even if you do manage to get one), and it sells for just about
as much as the LS-2000. These have a SCSI interface.
Nikon LS-4000's range from $300 to $500 and are slightly better units
than the LS-2000's. They use the same MA-20 slide adapter (one-at a
time) and, optionally, the same SF-200 feeder. They are higher
resolution (4,000 dpi), but, again, since 2,700 dpi is 10 megapixels,
it's not clear that this buys you much (of perhaps more significance for
some slides is their slightly greater dynamic range and ability to get
more detail out of extremely dark slides (or dark areas of slides)
having a higher optical density). There is a dumbed down version, the
Cool Scan IV, that, like the LS-30, doesn't work with the SF-200
autofeeder. The LS-4000 is Firewire, the Cool Scan IV is USB 1.x.
Nikon LS-5000's, the current products, are going to run you close to
$1,000 (the dumbed down version is the Cool Scan V, and they go for more
like $500-$600). The autofeeder for the LS-5000 (only) is the SF-210, a
very slightly improved version of the SF-200 (the SF-200 will work in
the LS-5000 also (this is a fact of which I am 100% certain) and I THINK
that the SF-210 will work in the LS-2000 and LS-4000, but I'm less than
100% certain of that. Again, the autofeeder won't work with the "dumbed
down" version. These are USB 2.0 devices.
While these scanners without the autofeeders still require 1-at-a-time
slide processing, they are still far easier to use than most flatbed
scanners that have transparency capability. They also have far better
quality than most flatbed scanners, although some of the later and
higher end Epson scanners that have digital ICE can give the Nikon
dedicated film and slide scanners a good match in terms of quality if
not ease of use.
I think that there is a wide, if not universal, consensus that the Nikon
scanners are the best dedicated film/slide scanners and that the later
Epson scanners with digital ICE are the best flatbed scanners that can
also scan slides and negatives.
Norm Dresner wrote:
