Nikon CoolScan V ED Film Scanner

It works rather well, and its not too slow. I do not like the Nikon Software it came with, as it was a little limited. I opted to use Vuescan instead, for its added features. Otherwise If you have any 35mm single frame negatives - best get the extra adapter, as it will not take them otherwise. Good quality scans. Happy customer.

Until now I've been scanning with a flat-bed. I cannot believe how much better the images look coming out of the Coolscan. Someday I may upgrade to a Coolscan 9000, but I will never bother with a flatbed again. And Digital GEM is excellent at removing grain.

My only real gripe is that there is no way to scan an entire roll at a time.

I am pleased with the Nikon Coolscan. It is a good way to turn my slides to digital and it also gives me the opportunity to adjust any colors that have been lost over the years. Good job.

It's not fast, but the quality and ease of scanning color slides and negatives is very good and the results are just spectacular. It's very good at getting a good quality scan from less than great slides and negatives. There are a few negatives, though not enough to make me regret my purchase.

1) Inadequate documentation (John Shaw's scanning article online was very helpful)
2) Most of the special scanning features (DEE, ICE, GEM) don't work with Black and white and you have to figure out how to create your own black and white settings so that you can just specify them once when scanning a negative strip or else you go crazy setting all the buttons and you get posterized black and white.
3)Without ICE in black and white (which doesn't work with the infrared tech they use) you have to have really clean negatives or spend a lot of time spotting. And even when you get good scans, it scans in color so you have to futz with color balance on every negative.
4) You have to cut the sprocket holes on the sides of the first negative so that there aren't any open sprocket holes or else it causes the scanner to error out and you have to open it up to get your negatives.
5) The software crashes occasionally (about 1-2 times per evening) on a modern Core 2 Duo iMac.

So though black and white is a problem, it's not negative enough to detract from a truly great piece of hardware.

When i first tried this scanner i was dismayed by the noises it made, but now after almost a years use and hundreds of negatives later, i am quite used to it. the quality of the scans and software is better than i had hoped for given that many of my negatives are inless than top condition given years of careless storage. it takes a while to do the scans especially if you use the software to its full capability to repair the damages and learning to do batch scanning with autosaving lets me do other things while it works. In the end the quality it produces is worth the wait, and now that i have grown used to its noises i can walk away and hear when its almost done and its time to change to a new set of negatives.