Minolta Scan Elite II vs. Nikon LS IV

I'm going to buy my first film scanner. Cannot choose between Minolta

Scan Elite II and Nicon LS IV.

Minolta has multiscanning feature (Nikon doesn't), but friends say,

that Minolta software is no good.

Does anybody has some comments about it? Both scanners cost

practically the same here, in Russia.

Please, excuse my English.

The Minolta software is quirky, disorganized and just unintuitive. Quality is fine usually, but I would suggest using vuescan (or Silverfast AI if i works, I forget). Vuescan has a fairly bad interface, but it still does a very good job, it just has a steeper learning curve.

The Minolta is better with warped film than the Nikon, but i find the Nikon to be a bit sharper. ICE is maybe a little more effective with the Minolta. You can't really go wrong with either, and Vuescan for example will allow you multiple passes with the Nikon LS40, if you need it.

Software is somewhat of the least of your worries as there are 3rd party alternatives.

Check out this site:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/SCAN1.HTM

I bought a minolta scan elite 2 about 3 weeks ago. I was well happy with it. It was easy to install and the software was extremely easy to use and I found no problems with it. I also liked the ability to scan 4 mounted slides at a time and the multi pass option. I didn't like the film/slide holder loading but it gave me no trouble. Unfortunately after 3 weeks it went to sleep. All I could get was a no scanner installed message despite removing and installing the scanner several times.

I returned it to the shop and as they had no Minolta's in stock I now have a Nikon coolscan IV ED. It's not as easy to install but then again it's not difficult. The software is not as easy to use but hopefully I'll soon get the hang of it. It can only scan one slide at a time and does not offer a multi pass. However although fairly noisy the build quality is much better than the minolta. The slide adaptor (not yet tried negs) has a much more postive feel compared to minolta's 'tray' job. It also scans much quicker than the minolta.

I've only had it a couple of days and have not had much time to use it. I did find the minolta much more user friendly but I hope I'll soon adapt to the Nikon. I've 30 days to make up my mind as the shop stated that if I didn't like it I can bring it back and swap it for the minolta. Would be interested to hear more from either minolta elite 2 users or nikon IV ED users.

After a few days now of using the Nikon I think I'm going to stick with it. The build quality is far better. I love the plug is film strip loader, much easier and faster to use than the minolta. The Nikon also seems to do a much better job of dealing with negatives. I've got used to the Nikon software, it does much the same job as the minolta software but does take just a little bit more time to suss.

The only thing I really miss is the multi-pass scan facility.

Over all though I feel the Nikon is the better product. Bye bye minolta, hello nikon.