Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED & SF-210 - Setting up, workflow and troubleshooting

<p> <strong>Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED and SF-210</strong></p>

<p ><strong>Setting up, workflow and troubleshooting</strong></p>

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<p >After using the Nikon Coolscan 5000 and SF-210 for a 3,000 plus image scanning project, these notes have been compiled from experience to assist those using this equipment for the first time and with some suggested solutions to common issues. </p>

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<p >Please note that these notes are not designed as an comprehensive guide for the operation of the equipment, or an exhaustive list of all possible issues. Any implementation of any of these suggestions, particularly with regard to resolve mis-feeds for the SF-210, must be considered carefully and the author cannot be held responsibility for any damage caused or warranty invalidation.</p>

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<p ><strong>Set up</strong></p>

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<p >Install software and 4.02 update for XP or Vista version and restart computer.</p>

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<p >Chose appropriate workspace with sufficiently large desk area.</p>

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<p >Set up scanner, remove single slide adaptor and insert batch slide adaptor, <strong>taking care in handling all units, especially the hinged dust cover of the SF-210 which is very flimsy.</strong></p>

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<p >Familiarise yourself with all software settings, including those in preferences and tool menus. Experiment with different settings to get optimum or desired result. Scan a control image and test each new setting individually for objective comparison and time taken. Note each process added will increase overall scan time. Also, be aware that image libraries and other end users will have specific requirements, e.g. bit depth, resolution, colour management and digital ICE.</p>

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<p >Personally I chose the following settings to produce a file of around 112 MB, taking approximately 1 minute to acquire and save to an external hard drive.</p>

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<p >16 bit depth (maximum quality, to be converted later in Photoshop as necessary) </p>

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<p >4000 dpi (as above) </p>

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<p >ICE – normal (fine produces a softer image that some libraries will not accept) </p>

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<p >Adobe 1998 RGB (as stipulated by an image library, however, sRGB seemed to provide a more vivid and accurate representation of the original image)</p>

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<p >Multi sampling – 1x (Higher settings increased scanning time without noticeably different results)</p>

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<p >Unsharp mask disabled (as stipulated by image library)</p>

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<p >DEE and other image manipulations disabled (on experimentation, all gave results that moved image away from original and increased scanning time markedly. My view is such image manipulation, if required, is better completed post scanning in Photoshop)</p>

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<p >TIF file</p>

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<p >auto focus, auto exposure, scan log, save to disc and stop on error enabled on batch scanning</p>

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<p ><strong>Workflow</strong></p>

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<p >Open Nikon Scan and switch on Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED with SF-210 attached. Await for Scanner to be ready (steady green light) and click scanner button to display main control window and also tool palette with scanner extras displayed.</p>

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<p >Check preferences and settings are correct and select an appropriate number in the feed images box of scanner extras to equal or exceed to the number of slides in the loader. To initiate a batch scan this must be greater than one. Consider a quick over-estimate to save time. If over and the batch scans successfully in one go, the scanner will stop and report a no slide dialogue box at completion.</p>

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<p >Remove slides if in transparent sheets, replace into suitable containers ready for batch scanning, removing any obvious dust prior to loading into the adaptor. This will ensure most efficient flow and minimise dust going into scanner unit and onto mirror.</p>

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<p >Place an appropriate number of slides into loader, but don't overload. Allow an appropriate space between the last slide and spring loaded plate if using the alternative gravity based system suggested to present slides to the feed mechanism in the troubleshooting section below.</p>

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<p >With the slides fully butted up to the feed mechanism end, adjust the slide thickness plate to align with the middle of the second slide to minimise risk of feeding more than one slide at once. </p>

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<p >Press the preview button and adjust the crop accordingly. It's advisable to perform a new preview with each batch of slides and essential when a different slide format is loaded. For this reason and to reduce risk of mis-feeds, never mix different formats of slides in one batch.</p>

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<p >Note file number to be saved next, if appropriate.</p>

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<p >Ensure affect of ambient light is reduced and when ready, select scan.</p>

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<p >When the feed image value is more than one, a new window will display with a number of options (if the value is one, the default, an individual scan will be initiated), including scan log (useful for monitoring scan times and performance), file location and file name/digits. Select the most appropriate options and click ok. The batch scanning process will commence.</p>

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<p >Constantly monitor, listening out for any prolonged periods of silence or strange noises. Inspect and reload next batch if completed, or troubleshoot and take appropriate action (see section below).</p>

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<p >While scanning is in operation, return completed slides to their original file systems, extract new dusted slides in batches ready for loading.</p>

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<p >At appropriate intervals, perform quality check of all scanned images, place into sequential directories and back up onto secondary source, e.g. DVDs. One 4.5 GB DVD will take at least 35 112 MB files, a reasonably round number for ease of naming.</p>

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<p >Repeat process until all images are scanned, moving onto post scanning processing, including orientation, crop, colour balancing, retouching and key wording, as necessary.</p>

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<p ><strong>Troubleshooting</strong></p>

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<p ><em>External light pollution</em></p>

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<p >Some online forums report image output can be affected by external light sources. To eliminate this, recommend a darkened room, and/or a box or heavy cloth over the scanner and batch adaptor, being careful not to obstruct air flow around the ventilation grills of the scanner.</p>

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<p ><em>Slide mis-feeds</em></p>

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<p >Issues with slide jams are well reported online, certain forums suggesting several solutions for the SF-200 and SF-210. This includes using a plastic card for the SF-200 to prevent multiple slide loads. This is unnecessary for the SF-210 due to the addition of an adjustable side plate to adapt to different slide thicknesses. With a number of slides inserted in the loader and after ensuring they are fully butted up to the feeder end, ensuring the front of the adaptor plate is about half way along the edge of the second one, should prevent multiple feeds occurring.</p>

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<p >Other jams caused by excessive pressure of the spring, have lead to some forums suggesting solutions including filing parts of the slide feed mechanism and also extending the length of the spring by dismantling the lower part of the adaptor and adding a paper clip. Personally, I did not want to alter or risk damage of the adaptor and also found this unnecessary, electing to implement an alternative suggested. This involved placing the scanner and adaptor on a slide gradient right to left and using an AA and C battery behind to provide a constant pressure to the slides. With some experimentation, this worked fairly effectively and together with a good side plate setting, minimised jams and mis-feeds. All my slides were labelled, which had been suggested would cause an issue due to friction, so this was a positive outcome, having the least intrusive affect on the equipment. </p>

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<p >In employing this method - pull the spring loaded back plate of the 'to do' side back and retain on it's catch – load with slides, but do not fill the loader completely, leaving about an inch between the last slide and back plate. Ensure the AA battery is closest to the final slide to focus weight lower down on the batch to encourage slides to butt up to the feed plate. This is also crucially important to preventing the larger C battery catching and potentially damaging the feed mechanism, after the last slide is returned to the done pile and the feeder tries to load the next one. </p>

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<p >If there are numerous no slide found errors, it's likely the pressure needs to be increased to ensure the front slides are fully butted up, by either increasing the gradient, or adding more batteries behind the slides. Finally, remember to remove all batteries after use and replace the spring loaded back plate to it's default position next to the feeder mechanism.</p>

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<p ><em>Nikon scan errors</em></p>

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<p >The instability of the Nikon Scan software is also well reported online. One suggestion has been to use an alternative package Hamrick software's VueScan which can be trialed and purchased at <a href="http://www.hamrick.com/">http://www.hamrick.com/</a>.</p>

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<p >Personally, I preferred to persevere with the Nikon Scan software to ensure full control of the preference and batch scanning settings as well as use of ICE to ensure maximum compatibility for image library specifications. While VueScan seems to be a functional piece of software and reported to be more reliable than Nikon Scan, it appears to use it's own dust and image manipulation software, as well as different settings. </p>

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<p >The following are some observations and suggestions in order to better manage the various errors that can be experienced with the Nikon Scan software when used with the Nikon Coolscan and SF-210.</p>

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<p >As well as recording mis or non feed errors dealt with in the above section, Nikon Scan often hangs mid scan, occasionally freezes completely, or reports a data transfer error. While sometimes it appears worse than others, as a general rule, I might expect one software issue every ten or so images. Investigating this, I found that the CPU use was around 60% during the actual scan, memory use was fairly low. Therefore, I consider my laptop specification with a did a 3.2 Pentium 4, 2 GB memory and ATI dedicated graphics card to be powerful enough. However, it's possible a more recent computer with a twin core CPU, larger memory and more powerful graphics card might fare better. </p>

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<p >That said, in both inputting from the scanner and simultaneously outputting to an external hard drive via USB may well be putting additional pressure on the system resources in that area, encouraging crashes. Saving to the internal hard drive and removing my USB mouse, however that did not eliminate crashes and of course increased work flow time in having to transfer scanned images to the external hard drive afterwards. Due to the length of inactive screen time, I did want to protect my monitor and experimented with both screen saver and the laptop screen deactivation. What I did find is that when either kicked in during the main scan (as opposed to slide recycling, autofocus or preview stage), it did seem to cause a hang up.</p>

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<p >Therefore, with further experimentation, I have found that the best compromise personally to balance work flow efficiency with system hang up is to – minimise unnecessary applications, disconnect internet connection, and temporarily disable virus applications (which can be very hungry on system resource). If in doubt, check your windows task manager to see what's running. Obviously, do not stop anything you are not 100% sure about. – ensure exact moment of monitor shut off or screen saver activation does not occur during main scan or save phase. - output to external hard drive if that is where you want to save, consider disconnection of any other USB devise that might cause conflict, e.g. printers, mice, etc. </p>

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<p >That said, nothing can replace monitoring the operation. You can perform other task, just keeping an ear out either for any strange noises, or extended periods of quiet that might indicate a mis-feed or a software hang up.</p>

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<p >Important to note is that when a batch scan is interrupted either for a mis-feed or software error, on recommencement, where using the auto save function with sequential file numbers, Nikon Scan will generally indicate a digit or two in advance of the slide currently in the scanner or the next one to be loaded, if one is not present already in the scanner, or feed mechanism. Therefore, it's crucial every time prior to recommencement of a batch scan, looking at the front slides in the done/to do piles that you check what slide is in the scanner or mechanism and ensure the correct number is input in the batch file save window that pops up after you hit the scan button. Doing this will save you a lot of time afterwards renaming the saved files!</p>

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<p >Where there has been an error during a scan, the slide in question will need to be rescanned regardless of whether it is still in the scanner or whether it has been ejected, which sometimes happens or will happen automatically if you switch the scanner on and reboot it. Sometimes, on ejection of the 'error side' the adaptor will try to reload a new slide. If this happens, while you are on hand, make sure you move the slides to be done away from the feeder temporarily. If there is a slide in the scanner that you want to eject, either do so from the scanner menu in Nikon Scan or by switching off the scanner and on again. Replace any slides ejected after an error to the to do pile to be rescanned. </p>

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<p >If it doubt, rescan as any saved file after an error will more than likely be corrupt. Inspection of these images will show one or more lines making it unusable. Important to note is that when an image is rescanned, assuming the same settings are chosen in terms of file name and location, Nikon Scan will save this with the prefix 'D1_<em>filename</em>'. If multiple errors have occurred in scanning a particular image, Nikon Scan will save subsequent images with the prefix D2, D3, etc. Clearly any preceding image will be likely to be corrupt and the last image will likely be the one that was the result of a successful scan.</p>

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<p >Therefore, <strong>do not delete</strong> these files. After double checking the original and rescanned file in an image viewer, replace any corrupt duplicate with the appropriate D prefixed file.</p>

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<p >In summary, the most common reported errors and suggested actions are:</p>

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<p ><em>Data Transfer error:</em> Check to do/done slide pile to confirm slide number in feed mechanism, click scan and ensure correct slide number will be saved.</p>

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<p ><em>No film reported: </em>Load more film if batch complete, or resolve mis-feed errors, as discussed above.</p>

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<p ><em>Nikon Scan freezes mid scan:</em> disconnect USB cable from scanner at PC end for a few seconds and reinsert. Nikon Scan should reset, set up batch scan again ensuring an adequate number of slides selected in the fed image box in the scanner extras of the tool palette you should have displayed permanently.</p>

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<p ><em>Complete Nikon Scan hang up:</em> Close Nikon Scan completely and set up batch scan as above.</p>

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<p ><em>Hardware failure errors:</em> switch off scanner and after a few seconds switch on again, if necessary close/open Nikon scan. Set up batch scan again.</p>

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<p>I pretty much gave up with my 5000ED with Kodachromes. The lens flair was unbearable on high contrast slides, this has been mentiioned in previous posts, but there seems to be no 'cure'. Standard, well exposed E6 slides seem OK. I've taken to using my D300 with a 55mmon f2.8 AIS macro at f5.6/8 in 16bit RAW etc doing a 5 shot bracket and HDRing the result in PS4. Not as many pixels (must buy a D3!), but good enough quality, certainly better than the 5000. Agreed much more 'spotting' with no Digital ICE available, but correcting bad flair in post is virtually impossible. And yes, mine crashed about as often as that too, despite dual core with 4gb of RAM etc. I found doing single-scan as opposed to 2x or 4x multi-sample cured most of the problems. If that failed resetting to factory settings works for me. This was all with the single feeder and not batch loading with an SF-10.</p>

<p>Thank you so very much, Bruce. This is very helpful. Certainly save me a lot of time.<br>

I was wondering if you find the Ice GEM (the grain control) helpful. And at what setting?</p>

<p>I don't use a 5000, but on Vista I think you need to use the 4.03 version of NS.<br>

Well, I do on my 4000.</p>

 

<p >Thanks for the comments guys.</p>

<p >Mike - Like you, aside from taking a lot longer, I also found that Nikon Scan crashed a lot with multisampling without noticeable improvement. While most of my film scanned has been Fuji Velvia, I did use some kodachrome, without inspecting the scans in detail, I haven't noticed any real issues yet. </p>

<p >Raymond - thanks, hope your project goes well. I seem to remember having a look at the grain control, aside from the extra time, I believe I decided to avoid it as I prefer to use Photoshop for any image manipulation, aside from using ICE to remove dust. What I found useful though was to peform a series of tests prior to deciding on all the settings with a control image on basic settings, to compare extra time taken per individual setting and also to compare the image results.</p>

<p >Richard - you're right, Vista uses 4.0.3, xp takes the 4.0.2 update.</p>

 

<p>I bought my 4000ED and SF 210 about 5 years ago and decided to get going on the family slide collection. I forgot how frustrating the jamming was on the SF 210 until I read about the "AA battery", "tilt your scanner" fix. So far so good.</p>

<p>Another good tip Bruce mentioned was to scan at a high resolution. I found that it let the ICE do it's magic properly. Then reduce the image size as necessary afterwards. In my case, a 480x480 JPG for my 720p TV.</p>

<p>Here's why: I found that if I scanned at my final res (say 2MB TIF), the ICE feature was way too noticeable. It blurred and caused a ghosting effect in some cases. Then it dawned on me that the ICE feature was a post-file-creation feature and not a pre-file-creation feature which meant the ICE feature didn't have much to work with only having 2MBs of data.</p>

<p>So I cranked up the res to a 50MB TIF and, voila, the ICE worked the way it should. Now I may have to go out a buy 1.5T drive. My 500GB drive is getting full. lol</p>

<p>Has anyone used HDR with slide scanning? I may try it out because some of the shadow detail on the 126 slides I have are pretty much black after scanning. Otherwise, the results are good.</p>

<p>Thanks Bruce for the tips.</p>

<p>My scanner was down for several months because, as it turns out, I had replaced the mirror poorly after cleaning it, and it generated error messages.<br>

Anyway, in the mean time, I forgot a bit of the functionality using Nikon Scan 4.x -- right now I am getting bad previews every time. I have to go to each dialog/palette and had-reset each to "default settings," then prescan, then make all the adjustments, and scan. It's taking 5 - 10 moinutes per scan.<br>

I seem to recal being able to load in a slide or neg and clicking preview and it would do a pretty decent scan-and-adjust automatically, even if the slide was a little dark. Is there a setting i am missing somewhere that sets it to auto-mode so that it will adjust itself for a "pretty good scan" right away, and reset back to normal/default when a new slide or neg is inserted?</p>

<p>Hi there,<br>

i'm new with film scan so i need some help.<br>

i followed this guide and tried to scan some films but what i get when scanning is a distorted image that present an amount of yellow that the real image doesn't have. Sometimes nikon scan tells me that scanner gave an hardware error and suggest me to contact the nikon support.<br>

anyone could help me? why all this yellow in the pics?</p>

<p>thanks to anyone could help me</p>

<p>An excellent primer, Mr Mackie, for one such as I with a recently acquired 5000ED and SF-210.<br>

Transitioning from the Konica Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400 II, which of course I had become comfortable with, I was disappointed by the Nikon's focussing ability. It is better now that its had a service at Nikon UK. The Nikon is also rather noisy in comparison, but like many with thousands of slides gradually deteriorating, the SF-210 capability is the reason for the acquisition.<br>

One query springs to mind though - are<em> Intensity</em> and <em>Halo Width</em> in the USM the same as <em>Amount</em> and <em>Radius</em>? Are the units/ gradations the same?<br>

Many thanks - Doug Green</p>