Coolscans now ridiculously priced.

<p>I have been putting this on hold b/c I haven't got my 120 format camera yet. But look at the prices. Almost doubled and this is used. Should of got one 2yr ago, ie $1k for a 8000.</p>

<p>R.</p>

<p>It is simple supply and demand. If you think the price is ridiculous, don't buy it.</p>

<p>A few years ago, I was choosing between the Coolscan 9000 and 5000. Since I have over 30 years of 35mm slides, a 35mm scanner is pretty much a must. Eventually I decided that I don't have enough medium-format film to justify the 9000. Nowadays I use the Coolscan occasionally when I need to digitize some old slide.</p>

<p>And don't forget the time spent scanning film...time is money;)</p>

 

<p>Well I had to import them anyway, used or new. At home they are just so expensive. Actually I think we have new ones still at the shops but they are $6,000US for the 9000 :D Film gear has always been expensive for us, for some weird reason now digital is more aligned, perhaps just 20% more than USA. A new F100 was like $2,000US.</p>

<p>Has anyone just used flatbed scanners for proofing but outsourced scan jobs when you required? Taking its original price. Maybe an amateur (me) might not spend even just $1,000US for outside scan jobs.</p>

<p>How do you justify it, even with the old prices? Do you really scan that much and end up requiring those better scans ie., printed/matted up for whatever your purpose? Speaking for advanced amateurs of course. </p>

 

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<p>How do you justify it, even with the old prices?</p>

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<p>I justified my little Coolscan V, at the old prices in the U.S., because I knew I would be careful with my slides and the scanning. But that takes a lot of time, and I often find the time difficult to justify.</p>

<p>While you can scan them all right. Financially speaking, wouldn't it be cheaper to use a consumer scanner. How much of those scans are actually printed up or matted up largely? If an amateur runs an exhibition and puts a few images thru a camera club competion, maybe 20 images a year. Is a $1,000US scanner make sense if you get my drift .....</p>

<p>I got my printer used at a unbeliveably price, an Epson 2200 which is hated by many. I had to get it custom calibrated locally. But at its market price, an amateur like me just wouldn't get back the purchase price between the difference of lab price vs paper/ink cost. </p>

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<p>Financially speaking, wouldn't it be cheaper to use a consumer scanner.</p>

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<p>No, it would not. Leslie talked about the value of time first, and I put it in a slightly different way. The time expenditure in scanning is very high. Time is valuable even if you are an amateur. I don't want to waste time with a crappy scanner.</p>

<p>I meant that you could just outsource the scan jobs. An amateur might only do 20 meaningful prints a year if that .... Would that work?</p>

<p>I don`t justify that silly prices. And with such inusable old software on current computers. Hiperexpensive drum scanners are not an option to me.</p>

<p>And I still don`t understand why film scanning has to be such big pain this times. For less than $1000 I can have an incredibly capable camera, to achieve whatever I want in PS or NX2, but only to use a crappy tool with a crappy software like Silverscan or EpsonScan (amongst others) to hardly get mediocre results.</p>

<p>Camera manufacturers have won the battle. Good for them... ;P</p>

<p>I`m decided to support film and to keep traditional printing. Long live to my enlarger! :D</p>

<p>I think in a few years we will all have access to sufficiently high resolution digital cameras that with a suitable lens (i.e. 75mm Apo-Rodagon-D) we can get very good results with a slide copying setup. And the exposure times will be fractions of a second, so ... let's not worry too much about the future of scanners.</p>

 

<p>Yeah cos I thought, the manufacturer has discontinued them. Other than Imacons and above, too expensive for the avg amateur. So when Windows 9 come around, what happens to software and drivers? And what about if Firewire is significantly updated or that a complete new technology replaces it? No warranty. So do they pick up another used one, maybe 10yr used ......</p>

<p>God willing, Ilkka...</p>

<p>I think Ilkka is correct NOW! A D3X on Manual with a 105mm macro at f8, ISO 200, Auto bracket +1 , 0, -1.. with maybe a touch of Auto HDR, will provide as good a result as a consumer level scanner. To get the best from a dedicated slide scanner is a steep learning curve and is never a quick process.<br>

I don't know whether dust and fluff removal is quite so easy, as I believe ICE technolgy involves an IR scan (?) aswell.</p>

<p>Ray, I have an Epson V700 and a Nikon 9000. The Epson, used with a glass holder from betterscanning.com, gives quite good results with medium format film, though not as good as the Nikon. (And an Imacon is better than a Nikon, and a drum scanner is better than an Imacon). Using something like the V700 (or maybe a V600) to make scans for the Web and smallish prints and sending out for better scans for your very best images seems like a viable plan.</p>

<p>I got the Nikon a few years ago and am glad to have it but wouldn't pay today's prices for the reasons cited by other posters.</p>

<p>Kent: The Epson V600 hasn't been out that long, and it is now less that $200 US. Look at the specs ... generally, it seems, the res and specs are going up, and the price down. You are exactly right ... useful for the day-to-day, and send out for material you are really going to work up.</p>

<p>The coolscan is worth its price at the old price not the now inflated price. While was expensive, I do need a good scanner to know how good my film is. The scanner is for digitize my negative to use with digital process but it's primary function is my negative viewer. If I got a good negs and want prints. I would go in to my darkroom and make them.</p>

<p>If you're interested in MF, you should keep in mind that other prices have FALLEN, in many cases more than balancing out the inflated cost of a Nikon scanner. Consider both Mamiya RZ and Hasselblad equipment--both can now be had for a fraction of their new prices. For example, you can get a new V series back at Freestyle for over $1000, or buy one in great condition for $200. You can get a lens for $400 that cost $3000 new. It's the same for lots of other MF gear which can be had for pennies on the dollar.<br>

Also keep in mind that, for the foreseeable future, you probably won't lose money on a Nikon, should you buy one and chose to sell it later. Sorry, MIke, you probably WILL be losing money on that D3x in a couple of years...</p>

<p>I think there is a new film scanner coming out in July made by Pacific Image for 35 mm and 120 film. B&H has it on their site for under $2000. I am waiting for the review from some first users. Looks like a good substitute for the Nikons.<br>

I currently have the Coolscan 5000, not that much for digitizing old negs, but for new ones from my film cameras. I don't usually scan more than a couple of frames from a roll so the time issue is not too bad, but it allows me to use all my 35mm film gear and do digital post processing. If the Pacific Image is good, my Hasselblad pictures can go the same route to digital.</p>

<p>Usually, acccording to the received "laws" of Capitalism, low demand equals low price.<br /> However, scanners and some other things are cases where low demand makes the few surviving producers less and less able to have economies of scale, resulting in essentially handicraft production with high labor costs, among others. And as pointed out, even with low demand, the supply may be even lower.</p>

<p>So, yes, you should have bought a few years ago.</p>

<p>People are absolutely right about one thing -- get the fastest scanner you can afford. I made the mistake of getting an excellent quality, but slow speed (SCSI) film scanner and I paid the price of a faster scanner over and over again with my own time.</p>

<p>I bought the Nikon V when it came out as I was still shooting an F100 then. I still it use to scan 35mm slides, although I don't shoot 35mm at all now. I recently bought an Epson V700 with BetterScanning holders and VueScan. Why? Last summerl I began to get tired of the uniform look I was getting from my Nikon DSLR bodies. I bought a couple of historical cameras, a 1914 Kodak Special and a 1937 Voigtlander Bessa, both 120/6x9. I also began using my 4x5 field camera again weekly, and bought several historical lenses dating 1860 to 1900. I'm having a blast with these! To digitize the images the V700 does fine for up to 16x20 enlargements. The price of earlier drum scanners like Howtek has come way down, but I have no interest in those big cumbersome things. The scans I get from the V700 are good enough for most of what I do with the images, but if I printed a lot of them then I would buy something like the Nikon 9000. Eventually I too think technology will come up with another answer.</p>

<p>Kent in SD </p>

<p>@Scott. cannot look at it from that way. If it wasn't for digital, I just won't be owning a FM2N, F100 or the expensive MF cameras. I would probably be shooting with a F80 or one of those basic Mamiya 645 manual focus units. I don't make any sales from my hobby. It's just camera club exhibition and interclub competitions.</p>

<p>dumb question, but i will go ahead anyway! has anyone tried projecting slides and re-shooting them with a dslr on a tripod?</p>

<p>Indeed I have, about 25 years ago as a poor-mans slide copier!</p>

<p>By using 2 separate optical systems you double your glass based errors. On film, the contrast seemed to go up aswell, blacks darken and whites blow-out simultaneously! Also the screen material is never truely white or clean!</p>

<p>Cheapest way to go is to put the slide to be copied on a lighbox, mask off the surrounding bright area, pop on a standard 50mm lens with a set of manual extension tubes, point it straight down (tripod or copystand) focus manually to fill the frame and shoot away. Use the histograms to get the exposure perfect. Job done.<br>

You can selectively crop if you can go beyond 1:1 optically for FX or use DX (1:1.5)</p>

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<p> has anyone tried projecting slides and re-shooting them with a dslr on a tripod?</p>

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<p>Clearly that is technically possible, but why do you want to get the projector lens involved in this process? Generally speaking, projector lenses are not of very good quality, and even though some are good, getting more optics into this process will only degrade the image further. And any screen you project the image onto is not necessarily flat and the projector lamp is not necessarily evenly illuminating.</p>

<p>If we do switch to useing a high-quality DSLR to digitize film images, I would imagine the set up will be similar to the old-fashioned slide/film dupication process in the old days where you place the film in front of the camera with some set up and use some macro lens to capture the image. You need a good light source to evenly light up the film.</p>

 

 

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<p>Cheapest way to go is to put the slide to be copied on a lighbox, mask off the surrounding bright area, pop on a standard 50mm lens with a set of manual extension tubes, point it straight down (tripod or copystand) focus manually to fill the frame and shoot away. Use the histograms to get the exposure perfect. Job done.</p>

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<p>I have done this, but with a Nikon 55/2.8 lens, and it works OK. As Illka has suggested, add a sizzlingly sharp repro-quality lens and the results from a good quality DSLR(I've used a D2Xs and D3, but not D3X units)should be quite good. To date I've only made about 6X size prints from a D3; I don't know how big they could be enlarged without either the lens or the 12mp sensor showing it's limitations.</p>

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