Question about Nikon Scanners

[bruce_t]

I'm thinking about purchasing a Nikon Coolscan V. The main issue of concern for

me is if the scanner can do other 35mm formats. I often use a 35mm camera with a

square format instead of the more common rectangle. Will the nikon handle this?

I don't doubt that it can handle the odd format with a lot of extra manual

control, but can it be set to do it with the automatic efficiency it would with

the regular format? Thanks.

[radfordneal]

As far as I can tell, the Nikon Scan software assumes standard

36mm wide frames. You could indeed handle frames smaller than

this with manual intervention, but not automatically, if you use

the film strip reader. If you use the attachment for slides,

there wouldn't be much difference, since it only does one at a time

anyway. The optional FH-3 film holder has physical divisions designed

for 36mm wide frames. You'd need to reposition the film in the FH-3

for each frame, unless the width was a half, or a third, etc. of a full

frame.

 

It's possible, however, that other available scanning software can automatically handle any size frame with the film strip reader,

since there doesn't seem to be any hardware constraint for that.

[howard_owen]

I think you can set a crop size and run your strips through without a problem. The crop should be retained from one frame to the next.

[richam]

Agree with Radford. I believe Howard's reply assumes that your camera makes the same

36mm frame spacing as standard film formats, with blank areas between the frames to

make up the format difference. If you have contiguous square frames with only a small

divider between strips, the frame spacing would be less than 36mm, and the Nikon

software won't handle it automatically.

[jtk]

Interesting question.

 

The standard SA-21 motorized carrier advances by optically reading framelines, not by measurement...so maybe it would do fine with half frames or other odd formats, so long as there's a frameline and so long as the film's C41 color or E6.

 

Unfortunately SA-21 doesn't advance correctly by frameline if you're scanning silver B&W film...it reverts to measurement, like Vuescan.

 

I'm not sure about C41 B&W...

[bruce_t]

The realist I shoot with only has a very thin frameline, so that probably wouldn't work. I just found from someone who uses the same type of camera that Vuescan can make the Nikon work with odd formats, so that's probably the route I'll take. Thanks for the responses.

[plasma181]

The automatic negative feeder may have a problem. But the manual strip feeder will work nicely. You just have to put your square frame in the middle of the rectangular space in the holder, and then crop manually using the software.