Available again(?) Nikon 9000 Coolscan

<p>Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED Scanners seem available, [now in stock, new], at several of the usual suppliers.<br /> <br /> Adorama, B&H, JR's, and Amazon, all list as in stock, and many in the normal $2,199-$2,299 US Dollar, price range, some even with free shipping. I got mine two weeks ago. Now, the learning curve begins. <br /> Just a FYI post.</p>

<p>Low volume items are made in batches.</p>

<p>Either Nikon made another batch; or some new old stock was found and released for sale.</p>

<p>My 2nd Nikon 9000 was bought new in May this year from a midwest dealer at 2499. Its internal box was inside another box from Japan; with a tracking number that it arrived in the USA in late April from Japan. The internal Nikon 9000 bundled paperwork had a contest that had a deadline in Dec 2008!; thus mine was probably new old stock.</p>

<p>Does your Nikon 9000 have coupons inside that expired in 2008 too?</p>

<p>Giant telephotos; weird enlarging lenses; odd ball items have always been made in batches at Nikon; they did this 50 years ago too.</p>

<p>The real question is did Nikon make another batch; or did they unearth some lost or dead inventory from the last batch.</p>

<p>For THREE years on the web folks have been mentioning that Nikon 9000 may or may not be being made!</p>

<p>When I got mine in May there were 9 units being sold new on Ebay; while B&H etc were out</p>

<p> There has never really been a time that the Nikon 9000 has not been available; the minor guys had them while the big boys ran out</p>

<p>Interesting. The 9000 is selling quickly at $2499 on ebay lately. I have a used one I bought for $1800 I'll probably sell when my new one comes, ordered just now from B&H. Thanks for the post!</p>

<p>I have an 8000, bought when it first came out (@ $3k). I also have a Mac system running on 10.5.x. The Nikon scanner (8000 or 9000) has me locked into this system software, which leaves me greatly disappointed. The reviews I've read on 3rd party scanner drivers haven't been too encouraging. I wouldn't mind getting a new scanner (slight upgrade), but I can't see investing in a scanner system that will keep me locked into my present computer system software. The alternatives (individual scans by a lab, Hasselblad X1) are expensive. I guess I keep my fingers crossed that the 8000 keeps on ticking.</p>

<p>Stephen, have you looked at vuescan? You don't have to read reports, you can download a trial and see for yourself.</p>

<p>Stephen, Nikon Scan runs beautifully on Windows XP, twice as fast as on an Intel Mac, because Nikon Scan is PowerPC only, and runs in emulation mode on all the newer Intel-based Macs. I use Windows XP Pro with my Nikon 9000 and it works very well. You can install it on your Mac with Virtual Box.</p>

<p>Hi Stephen, why not buy an old beater PC box and set up your scanner on that? It doesn't need to be anything fancy, cheap works. The nice thing about that concept, is no upgrades, no security patches, no virus malware, no worries, turn it on, scan, dump the output onto a stick and keep your number crunching box current. You could get one for about 200 bucks.</p>

<p>Michael; RE "why not buy an old beater PC box and set up your scanner on that? It doesn't need to be anything fancy, cheap works ..."</p>

<p>Here I just move the "photoshop dream machines" down the foodchain to do scanning; thus the cost is really zero.</p>

<p>Many of these scan boxes have windows 2000; a DVD/CD burner; gobs of ram; usb 2 and also are backups in case others get hosed.</p>

<p>Here in scanning for the public having dedicated computers for each scanner saves gobs of time. Thus a flatbed Epson 1200U 1200 dpi unit is totally overkill for moldly 1950's box camera 120/620 negatives. I do not ruin the two Nikon 9000's with mold. The 1200 dpi flatbed is overkill for a box cameras hokey negatives. This unit is connected to an old photoshop dream machine; dual cpu 333Mhz Xenon/Server Pentium II with 512 megs of ram. this box can rotate one of my 105meg images 90 degrees in 7 seconds.</p>

<p>Most scanners are not slowed down by the computer; unless one has ice on or has a poor settup.</p>

<p>The Nikon 9000's here scan just as fast with a ten year old Ibm Pentium III with 1.3 Ghz cpu with windows 2000 than the current boss hog dream machine with many cores and boatloads of ram.</p>

<p>Here I just make sure the machine is fast enough for the scanner. With the IBM Pentium III box one can watch a video of a file across the LAN during a scan. It only has a 100Mhz bus with 768 megs of ram.</p>

<p>As far as spare machines for scanning; I often buy old IBM stuff off of ebay. A recent buy was 3 units with XP Pro; each with 1 gig of ram for 65 bucks each *with shipping.* These P4 boxes hold up to 4gigs of ram; have six USB2.0 slots; have 3 ghz P4 CPU's; 80 gig hda. If I like a box I buy many of them; sometimes up to 8 to 12. Thus any "futzing" is really only on one unit; thus backs the costs low. Older IBM stuff that goes off lease after 3 years is what I have bought now for about 20 years. Thus I have groups of computers I buy every 3 years. If I really like a unit I buy a mess of them; sometimes a pallet! At this level the cost can be only 30 to 70 per unit; and often one gets keyboards and mice too.</p>