Direct comparison Coolscan 4000 ED with 5000 ED?

[pburke]

<p>I've been googling and seraching for a while and can't find a direct matchup of those two scanners. I would like to know what I am missing out by not going for a 5000 ED.</p>

<p>Background - I recently got a 4000 ED from a friend, was at first very disappointed when my SprintScan 35 Plus produced better images, but then found the reason for the "flare" problem - I cleaned the 4000 ED throroughly and finally got some scans from it that clearly are better than what the SprintScan does.</p>

<p>It's not a drum scanner, but better, mostly in color accuracy and shadow detail, plus combined with Vuescan, I can get near perfect scans each time without any adjustment (Vuescan crashes with the SprintScan), which is what I really need to batch process my collection of slides. But before I scan 15,000 slides, I want to make sure I am not creating junk that one day will have me repeat the job with a 5000 ED. </p>

<p>So, I'd really love to see side-by-side comparison of the image quality difference between these two scanners. The speed difference betwen the scanners doesn't bother me much - once I plug the bulk feeder in, it really doesn't matter if a batch takes 24 or 48 hours. There's no deadline for this.</p>

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[lars_bell1]

<p>One of the technical differences is that the AD (Analog to Digital) converter on the 4000 is only 14 bit. The 5000 has a 16 bit converter.<br>

The 4000 can save as 16 bit color, but it is 14 stretched over 16 bits.<br>

If you are just going to be saving as 8 bit jpegs all of that doesn't matter.</p>

<p>Lars<br>

owner - <a href="http://www.slidescanningpros.com">http://www.slidescanningpros.com</a></p>

[rob_wall]

<p>I bought a used 4000 and was pleased with it but upgraded to a new CS 5000 when I needed greater speed -- I was shooting weddings and even with the roll film adapter the 4000 was taking 3 hours per roll, which with 20 rolls in a killer.</p>

<p>I found not only was the 5000 a lot faster (one hour per roll) but the images were sharper (I know, it's not in the specs) and had less noise. Definitely worth the upgrade in my view.</p>

[leicaglow]

<p>A friend of mine upgraded and said the newer version is much faster.</p>

[pburke]

<p>like I stated, speed is not relevant unless there's a clear gain in image quality. The "sharpness" difference could easily be related to how much dust is on the mirror in the scanner. The 4000 ED was completely unacceptable when I got it, and my buddy who owns it thought it was just a bad scanner. 30 minutes later I had that mirror cleaned and what was fuzzy and diffuse before suddenly was crisp and constrasty. Same scanner, same slide, same settings. The difference was huge, because there was a lot of dust on the mirror, but even small amounts could cause flare and reduction of detail.</p>

<p>Anyone got a 5000 ED in Madison Wisconsin? I'd love to do a shootout after cleaning both. </p>

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[pburke]

<p>I finally found someting:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.pbase.com/palmbook/4000vs5000">http://www.pbase.com/palmbook/4000vs5000</a></p>

<p>now, this is neg film and a lot may have to do with the presets for the film, but wow - are they really THAT different? I get much better scans from the 4000 than this example suggests, but then I use Vuescan and E6 slides.</p>

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[david_seelig]

One big difference if you shoot kodachrome digital ice works with the 5000 and kodachrome the 4000 does not.

[pburke]

<p>I may have five rolls of Kodachrome among 15,000 E6 slides - I can clean those manually.<br>

again - image quality differences. Looks like I will just have to buy one and then run my own tests. Luckily you can"flip" a 5000 ED on ebay pretty easily.<br>

If I decide to do that, I'll post the test results online. Meanwhile, I gotta check into the wet mounting stuff to scan the "good stuff" extra nice.</p>

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