Comparison test of Nikon V and 5000 and Minolta 5400 - in Norwegian...

[jos_roost]

I found a possibly very interesting comparative test between Nikon

Coolscan V and Super Coolscan 5000 and Minolta Dimage scan Elite 5400

at "http://www.akam.no/art.php?artikkelid=8227".

 

There is only a slight problem: the text is in Norwegian.

I can grasp a few things from the pictures and some words, but still:

Is there maybe a Norwegian speaking/reading person here at PHOTO.NET

who could translate the most important findings of this test into

English ?

 

I, and certainly others also, would be very grateful.

[oskar_ojala]

Well someone who actually speaks Norwegian (my native language is Swedish) can fill in the details, but the conclusion says that the LS-50 and LS-5000 have similar image and construction quality, but the 5000 is clearly faster. Scanning times varied a lot between the models. The LS-40 was inferior in image quality due to poorer contrast. The Minolta 5400 did not seem to present a resolution advantage over the LS-5000 and was slow (up to 8 1/2 min for a scan), but it produced a very natural color rendition of the night shot.

 

I must read the full article; there are some interesting points, but I'm not sure how thorough/good their testing methodology is.

[og]

You can also have a look at this <a href="http://www.jamesphotography.ca/bakeoff2004/scanner_test_results.html">competition thing</a> (Scanner Bake-Off 2004 Results). Interesting results :-)<p>

 

Olivier

[jack paradise]

Oskar,

 

French magazine Chasseurs d'Images arrived at about the same conclusion in their January-February 2004 issue. They tested the three Nikon scanner (Coolscan 4000, V and 5000) and the Minolta 5400. They gave 5 stars to the Nikon 5000 and V, four stars to the Nikon 4000 and Minolta 5400.

[jan_brittenson]

They all seem to do a terrible job with Provia 100F. Abysmally poor in fact. Is this because the slide is mounted instead of part of a strip?

[mendel_leisk]

In what way, Jan? Focus?

[Craig_Cooper11664875449]

Jan,

 

Its unfortunate that this is your experience. In practice I have found Provia 100F to be very consistent in delivering *good* scans that require minimal work in PS - Nikon 4000ED & Vuescan. This has been both mounted and as strip film.

 

regards

Craig / Beijing

[jan_brittenson]

I thought the RDP3 scans in the comparison look soft, out of focus, and with a yellow-orange cast. I think that's odd, because I think it's one of the easiest films to scan with good results.

[pcnilssen]

OK guys, returning to the original question .....

 

Please forgive me if my English is not perfect. The highlights and conclusion of the article are as follows:

 

Oskar, you have translated and summarized the review very well.

 

The reviewer finds that the quality of the two Nikon scanners (LS 5000 and LS 50) are similar in picture quality. "A user relevant difference is that the LS5000 has a higher speed, due to the double CCD-row making the scanning faster". The LS 5000 also has more equipment.

 

The LS40 is a discontinued model and only reviewed for the comparison. Especially the contrast is richer and more powerful in the newer scanners.

 

The Minolta Scan Elite 5400 is a scanner with an exeptionally high resoultion. However, the results does not show that Minolta is capable of bringing out more details from the films. Qualitywise, on the image from the main card it seems that the Nikon-readers totally were somewhat ahead, however, the image from the Minolta scanner was most natural in the exterior color shots by night.

 

The reviewer is critical to the slowness of the Minolta scanner, taking up to 8,5 minutes for a scan.

 

The reviewer's conclusion is that all 3 scanners will give a high quality results for the demanding user, but in total, the Nikon scanners are ahead of the Minolta with a good margin.

 

 

The reviewer then proceeds to discussions on buying a scanner or digicam, and on reliablilty .

 

 

--

If you want more specific translations of the article, send me a mail!

 

 

Greetings from Norway,

Per-Christian Nilssen

[jos_roost]

Thank you all for your translations and replies.<br>

This more or less confirms what I already thought from looking at the pictures and some words in the text.

[oskar_ojala]

Thank you, Per-Christian. Norwegian is an interesting language, but unfortunately I haven't had much exposure to other Scandinavian languages than Swedish recently.

 

The yellow cast is apparently due to the uncorrected tungsten lights (still haven't read it, though) so it's pretty much normal. The only doubt I have is that the images tested alone do not form a very comprehensive test, but the points about times, contrast and accesories were interesting (the 5000 has some useful accesories available.)

[damocles]

Although one problem seems to be that he only uses the AF on the Minolta. Ive seen several tests where it doesnt work all that good, but going over to manual focus raises the details quite a bit.