Minolta 5400 poll/survey

[les_lammers]

How many of you that have this scanner would purchase it again? I'm

getting the hee-bee gee-bees after reading about problems with the

unit. Mine just arrived from B&H and is unopened. Should I send it

back an get a Nikon?

 

Les, the Nikon v. Minolta scanner mess

[neil_parker]

Les. make up your mind!:)

 

I love mine that I've had since Aug. 03. I definitely believe it is capable of getting all the

detail and sharpness that I am w/ my Nikons and Leica. At the time it seemed a way

superior unit for $825 w/ full 16 bit and 5400dpi. versus the then current Coolscan 4000

with 14 bit and 4000 dpi at $1100. That said I am sure the 5000 is equal or close in

quality and MUCH faster in operation.

 

The pros are superb quality that can only be attained by monitoring focus and histograms

and compensating when necessary.

 

The cons are slowness and noise (as in loud!). Some early purchasers had some QC

problems, I didn't (fingers crossed) and have made many hundreds of scans. I would buy

the nikon if I could afford it and the bulkloader, but am satisfied with the quality and the

6-up neg or 4 up slide holders work pretty well for unattended scanning, albeit w/

occasional film flatness problems, (like most film scanners).

[bill_tuthill]

You do B&W (I could tell because you own a Leica, which are incapable

of color photography ;-) so I would not recommend a Nikon scanner.

[les_lammers]

O.K. the 5400 stays. It's not that I couldn't make a decision, the 5400 is here. Just the old bugaboo called buyers remorse. Like the Leica and color. I'll get over it. I was hoping I could get more out of a negative with the 5400 and those lousy Leitz lenses.

 

I have no room for a wet darkroom and will be printing B&W only with an Epson 1280. I realize I am in for a big ride on the learning curve woo-hoo! It takes a lot of work and skill to get good results regardless of the method.

 

Thanks guys, gonna go take my meds now.

[andreas_t]

Les,

I had read for about 3 weeks about the two, including you Q's and comments. Then I tested both scanners.

I ordered the V, that should be here tomorrow.

Reasons: Concerned about the Minolta built quality, the autofocus inaccuracy, the stripes syndrome. Vuescan makes up for some of the coolscan probs (multiscanning). I do 90% B+W, but most is C-41.

Finally I scanned 10 B+W negs through both and the results were better with the V. Mix of XP2, HP5 after DR5 and FP4.

The Minolta did not have the stripes problems, but I had to adjust the focus on 2/10 to get sharp scans.

 

One probably would be happy with both.

[martin_shakeshaft]

I have had a 5400 for almost a year now. There is no way in hell that I would be parted with it. The results are excellent.

 

I use it to scan B/W negs mainly. Then digitally print using a Epson 2100 (2200 in the US).

 

If you read all the forums you would never buy anything, there is always someone with scare stories. I teach photography and at the college I work at we now have 4 Minolta scanners, all have worked flawlessly.

 

Some of my work can be seen at www.strike84.co.uk

 

If I can be of any help let me know.

 

Cheers

 

Martin

[robert goldstein]

I love my 5400, except for its sluggishness scanning negs, especially with ICE engaged. The output is exceptionally fine. I have never used any of the Nikons, but from what I have seen on the Web, they are certainly not superior in terms of scan quality. In any case, operator skill is of foremost importance.

[jpursley]

Only those people with problems will be motivated to come to a board and discuss those problems. The other 99 people with this scanner (or any other product, for that matter) will remain silent. FWIW, my Minolta 5400 is 16 months old and has performed about 1000 scans flawlessly.

 

Your knowledge of using Photoshop will have a far, far greater impact on your scans than which scanner you're using.

[mendel_leisk]

I've had my 5400 for about 2 months now. It's slow but not intolerably so, with my workflow.I wish it had a little more depth of focus. It's enough for corner-to-corner sharpness with strip film but, but not for slides.

 

There's an occasional error in the holder transport, resulting in mis-aligned scan, up to now quite infrequently.

 

I suspect the built-in grain dissolver and the light source make it superior to the Nikons for artifact-free scans of Kodachrome.

 

My workflow, with slides, is to output 16bit linear with ICE and GD on, through the Minolta software, use this as a Vuescan Raw file, outputting a very flat, normal gamma image, then work it with levels (or curves), in Photoshop.

 

Good luck with yours!

[robert goldstein]

Mendel,

 

I do not understand the intermediate step of using a Vuescan RAW file. Why not just open in Photoshop? Please explain.

 

Rob

[costas_lymbouris]

I have had my 5400 since summer of 2003. I mainly scan colour negatives and a few slides and a bit of B&W. Never had the problems that pop up here regularly. With the current version of the drivers it works just fine with the Minolta software.

 

Whatever you are scanning, you need something like the built in light diffuser Minolta called the grain dissolver to deal with grain when you scan at high resolutions.

[p.s.]

My 5400 has been great for over a year. One annoyance is that the scans are usually tilted about 1/4 degree from horizontal. It could be faster but the newer Nikons weren't out when I purchased and when they did arrive were too expensive. All in all, I think the Minolta is a great deal.

[les_lammers]

Thanks again,

 

I realize the scanner is but a tool but it sure seemed like there were

a lot of negatives on the web about it. Since I have a lot to learn I did not want a dubious box to be a problem.

 

PS,

 

Didn't you post about the tilted scans before? Some posted that a forumer had developed/produced a glass negative carrier for the 5400.

[constance_cook]

Mine is great and I'd buy it again. It does need the newest software but I downloaded that with no problem.

 

Minolta also has a newer carrier that is a heavier, denser plastic that you want to get. I didn't have the focus problems noted but I did get the heavier carrier.

 

I use PS instead of the Minolta, Vuescan or Silverfast. I bought Silverfast but don't like or use it.

 

Conni

[wilfred_van_der_vegte1]

Conni,

Can you tell me more about this new carrier? I've been searching Minolta's web sites but I couldn't find any info about it.

BTW, to answer to the poll: I have my DSE 5400 for over a year now and I do not regret my decision to buy it. There is even no newer scanner that I think I should have bought instead. However, I've no experience with Nikon scanners and it is very well possible that a Coolscan V would have its advantages. The fact that Ed Hamrick seems to use a Coolscan V for his own film scanning leads me to believe that VueScan should work flawlessly with it, and that's certainly an advantage.

[constance_cook]

Wilfred:

 

I found it here in Japan and the lad who fetched it for me said it was new. I didn't open the box until later and found it contained two of them. The plastic is very stiff - seems to have little to no flex and is textured which my original carrier isn't. Although they look alike in shape, they are different in strength as well as appearance.

 

When I get home, I will give it a try and post about how it works. It seems quite a good?@improvement.

 

Conni

[graham_binns]

I have had a 5400 for a while now and i am also very pleased with the results so long as you take care with the focus as expained above.

 

One thing you should be aware of is that if you are scanning mainly B&W the minolta scanning software when scanning B&W print film gives pretty poor results mainly as a result of noticeable posterisation in shadow detail. If you scan as a colour positive and work in photoshops to convert to B&W you can avoid this but you may want to consider purchasing vuescan which promises more control and better results for B&W.

[markus_ehrenfried]

"One annoyance is that the scans are usually tilted about 1/4 degree from horizontal." --

I also had this problem, it happens with framed slides when they are not properly aligned

inserted in the slide holder; this can easily happen. If you close the slide holder not 'flat'

on the table but in an almost vertical position the slides are usually nicely aligned.

[bill_tuthill]

Les asked me, "Got any explanations, examples, observations why you

would not recommend the Nikons for b&w?"

 

Sorry I went overboard with my joke. Let me just say that the 5400

produces low-grain scans from B&W and Kodachrome more easily than do

LED-based Nikon scanners. Some Minolta owners report success with

ICE on Kodachrome, whereas few Nikon owners do. Mike Nunan has an

online page comparing the 5400 and LS-30 for Delta 3200 and Kodachrome II.

[wilfred_van_der_vegte1]

Not Mike Numan, but this might be interesting too:

<a href="http://www.photozone.de/2Equipment/reviews/elitecoolscan.htm">http://

www.photozone.de/2Equipment/reviews/elitecoolscan.htm</a>

[robert goldstein]

The Photozone review is quite interesting, but I do not totally agree with the conclusions.

Clearly, both scanners give excellent results, but the manually focused Minolta scan is

significantly sharper and has more shadow detail than the Nikon scan. It is also a bit

lighter, but I do not believe that explains all of the differences. Too bad they didn't try

manual focusing with the Nikon.

 

The major advantage of the Nikon is speed, which may be an overriding factor for some

users. For pure scan quality, I will take the Minolta 5400.

[dean_erger]

The Photozone article is helpful, but I would have preferred to see the results if the scans from the Nikon were up sampled to equal the Minolta. By down sizing the Minolta scans, it seems that the review is eliminating a POTENTIAL advantage of the Minolta. I don't know if there is any advantage to scanning at 5400 dpi vs. 4000 dpi, but it would be interesting to see a comparison at 5400 dpi. In any event, the real test would be to compare large prints made from the two scanners. Maybe in prints at 16x24 or larger the extra dpi of the Minolta would be noticable. Maybe not. I've never seen any such comparison.

[vito]

I am saying good-bye to my 5400. Scanning just isn't worth it anymore.

 

First, I had no image defects or mechanical problems. I was disappointed in the following:

 

Focusing: you can never get the whole picture in focus, you have to compromise less important areas and manually focus on whats important. Defeats the whole purpose of scanning above 3200 dpi.

 

Color and saturation are going to be off no matter what.

 

Nearly impossible to penetrate thicker emulsions like Velvia, especially if it is a little underexposed (to increase saturation, not accidentally). No, multi-scanning doesnt help.

 

Files are huge, but thats a minor issue.

 

Having to deal with corners cut off by slide holders.

 

 

I am sure some of these problems are inherent to all scanners, so take this with a grain of salt.

[bill_greineisen]

Les,

Not too long ago I was in the same boat you are in. At the time my biggest decision was, what would give me more satisfaction.. to shoot it with 00 buck shot or blow it up. But after several posts to this site I received some great advice, now I love it. My 5400 works better than I could have ever wished for.

It, like anyother tool takes some time to master, but once you do you easily become very proud of your work.

Don't give up, pose every question you have here and you will get a solution to it. Don't be afraid to ask questions, we all are learning to one degree or another. OH, and one more thing, you might want to keep a few shots of Jack Daniels on hand. Bill

[melmann]

Les,

I'm into my first month using this scanner, my first film scanner, and I've found it easy to

set up and use, giving the results I need as an amateur. I'm archiving Kodachrome slides

and purchased the 5400 for the high DPI and other features. Most of the month as been

learning new terminology and how to apply the knowledge I'm finding in this forum,

primarily to develop a workflow I'm pleased with. For the one I've settled on I find the

5400 to be just what I wanted. You can find many comments about speed comparisons,

software comparisons, resolution, etc. but for me it's come down to whether I can see on

my screen what I see on the slide. The 5400 is doing that for me.

 

I've also scanned some color negatives (Fuji NPS160) and found the 5400 to give very

good results with little adjustment needed.

 

By the way, it comes with Photoshop Elements 2.0 which is a pretty nice way to learn the

fundamentals of photo manipulation, but since I want to scan at 16bit color depth (one of

the new concepts I've learned) I've upgraded to Photoshope Elements 3.0. I downloaded a

try-out of 3.0 from Adobe before buying; the try-out works for 45 days before it stops.