Nikon 9000 ED Scanner

[mike_kiser]

<p>Hi, my name is Mike and I am addicted to old medium format cameras. Mostly Bronica and Mamiya models that are mechanical in operation. After getting horrible scanned results from local labs, I decided to take a chance on a Nikon 9000, knowing full well that 64 bit drivers were not available from Nikon at that time. Surprisingly, it arrived about a month ago. I really thought that Nikon might have discontinued it. Still no 64 bit drivers of course.<br>

Meanwhile at work, I got a really nice Lenovo W700 laptop that is the hottest laptop I've ever seen. It has a great monitor (with automatic color calibration!) and video card, 4 GB memory, a fast processor, big hard drive and ........... Vista 64!<br>

There are postings on this forum and elsewhere about using the Vuescan drivers with NikonScan to allow operation on 64 bit systems, but I don't have Vuescan. It seems like a waste to buy Vuescan just to cannibalize the driver. Is there any other way to make it work?<br>

Thanks</p>

[stwrtertbsratbs5]

<p>I haven't tried this myself, but this may help:</p>

<p>http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/coolscan-vista-64.html</p>

[philip_wilson]

<p>The 64 bit driver issue is one of my concerns with the Nikon scanners ( I won both the 9000 and 5000 - long story). I tried the 9000 on a vista machine and it did not work very well - kept crashing. I thus went back to the XP machine. I have one question which is what sort of laptop takes the firewire card as all the ones I have owned are too small for a card of that size.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

<p>If your laptop doesn't have FireWire built-in, you can get PCMCIA or Expresscard FireWire adapters for not too much money.</p>

[mauro_franic]

<p>I tried a few of the solutions out there but did not work for me.</p>

<p>I have a separate XP machine dedicated to the scanner in addition to my Vista 64 main system.</p>

[robert lee]

<p>That's right. Easiest thing to do is to pick up a refurbished Dell desktop with XP Home for about $200. Install the firewire card that came with the scanner; make it the dedicated Nikon station. Don't ever touch it again - no Microsoft automatic updates, no other software, nothing. </p>

<p>Scan to your storage mounted on the network.</p>

[jens_g.r._benthien]

<p>Before I'd invest into another piece of hardware I'd purchase VueScan. It is a lot better than NikonScan and works with **any** scanner you'll ever connect with one single licence. For US$ 79.95 you get the best scan software money can buy - with free updates for the rest of your life.<br>

As a professional analog photographer I run the Nikon LS 5000 and the LS 9000 with - you've guessed it - VueScan. It's the only software that delivers perfect scans for books, magazines, large format printing - you name it.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

<p>Will VueScan be able to 'run' the Nikons under Vista (32 and/or 64 bits), without support of (lacking or failing) Nikon drivers?</p>

<p>My computers still run under XP, so no problems with the Nikon scanners yet.<br>

The next step up will be to Windows 7, and who knows how the Nikon software behaves then. So i like the idea of getting a refurbished XP machine now, for scanning only.</p>

[mike_kiser]

<p>I thought I posted earlier, but it doesn't show here. I'll try it again.<br>

My laptop has Firewire built in, so that is not a problem. The 64 bit thing sure seems to be though. I have read in several places that people are using the Nikon on 32 bit Vista machines. Any experience with that? If it won't work on Vista 32, then the idea of a workable patch for Vista 64 sounds a little far fetched.<br>

Robert Lee, I haven't ruled out the idea of a dedicated XP 32 machine, it just seems so inelegant. Another possible downside is hardware obsolescence. If it breaks down in five years, will parts be available? The death of a five year old desktop's $90 motherboard is how I ended up with this laptop. We could not find a motherboard that would accept the video card and memory from five years ago. even with all that, it might still be the best answer though.<br>

jens, Is Vuescan that good? It was my understanding that it worked best in conjunction with an editing program like Photoshop. is that not necessary? <br>

Here's hoping that my post shows up this time!</p>

[mauro_franic]

<p>In my experience, Nikon scan produces sharper scans, better contrast and superior dust removal than Vuescan.</p>

<p>Jens, can you explain why you think Vuescan is a lot better than Nikon Scan?</p>

[robert lee]

<blockquote>

<p>Another possible downside is hardware obsolescence. If it breaks down in five years, will parts be available?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Good point, but probably. The component at highest risk of obsolescence is the PCI slot for the firewire card. This shouldn't be an issue if you can find a PCIExpress firewire adapter. </p>

<p>Keep the XP media in a safe place of course. The OS itself will likely install and run just fine on the current PC's of five years hence.</p>

<p>Virtualization (on your Vista/Windows 7/MacOS/Linux host) is another option to try. The VMware products is the obvious and first candidate. The only gotcha might be whether the VM can be granted access to the physical firewire port.</p>

[andre_noble5]

<p>I have a 64bit Vista Dell system. My Nikon Scan 4.03 software and ED5000 scanner work perfectly by using the Vue Scan driver. You dont have to buy viewscan. Download the trial. the driver for it will stay installed, even after the trial period ends.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

<p>Good tip, Andre.<br>

Worth a try. Thanks!</p>

[gerber_van_der_graaf]

<p>I am a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) addict. So here we go again: I am asking Nikon to publish the protocols for their scanners. So any skilled programmer will be able to write a driver for them, and maybe even better than Nikon can do and on any platform (there is more in life than Apple, Intel--386 and MS-WIN). These drivers than can be used, now and in the future, even when the scanners (or even Nikon itself) will have been discontinued and not supported anymore, by existing software (like OpenOffice, Gimp, Sane), or by any future software of which we don't have any idea now what will show off.</p>

<p>So, please, Nikon, give free your protocols for controlling your electronics. There is nothing to loose, only to win: namely more attraction of enthousiastic users (and programmers who will take a lot of cumbersome coding work out of your hands) and clients who do not want to be restiricted by program X running on OS Y during period Z.</p>

<p>Thank you very much in advance. In name of many (enthousiastic, future) users, among those of SANE:<br>

http://www.sane-project.org/<br>

Gerber</p>

<p>In contrast to FOSS, closed software does not give any insight or idea about the processing of our own images. Also, by using closed software one gives away the control of the device (ie computer and scanner) that belongs to you. Using FOSS gives back the control and generaties creativity.</p>

[guido_h]

<blockquote>

<p>I am asking Nikon to publish the protocols for their scanners.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Hamrick's Vuescan software has supported the Nikon scanners for some time now, therefore obviously the protocols are already available to developers.</p>

[alanbrowne]

<p>The absence of 64 bit drivers should not make any difference at all as long as the OS will still run the 32 bit drivers (eg: this is not an issue on the Mac under Snow Leopard).<br>

Windblows, eh?<br>

(Guido: Hamrick back engineered his interface to just about all the scanners he supports).</p>

[gerber_van_der_graaf]

<p>Hamrick´s Vuescan is closed software and therefore the drivers it uses are not free available. Probably Vuescan bought the driver from Nikon in some way.</p>

[Dave Luttmann]

<p>Will using Silverfast solve the problem? I'm not using Vista 64 so I'm not certain.</p>

[stratvio]

<p>Regarding Guido's response, the fact that other programs support the scanner doesn't mean that Nikon has made the protocols available for open source. Often, companies will arrange license deals that allow one company (Vuescan) to use another company's protocols (Nikon) for a large fee or a percent of the sales. Companies like Nikon claim that if they released the protocols without non-disclosure agreements, it would give away company secrets to their competitors. A lot of programmers feel that this is nonsense, as they're all likely doing similar things anyway, and it's trivial to reverse engineer the code even without actual access. The benefit to consumers if companies released more of their protocols would be that their devices that they paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for would no longer become obsolete when they update their computers (e.g. to vista 64). Of course, the downside for companies is that consumers would no longer be forced to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to replace their "obsolete" devices...</p>

[greg_peterson3]

<p>I'm using a CS 9000 on Vista 32 with no problems at all.<br>

I did have to download a copy of Nikon Scan for Vista, but it was free.<br>

- Greg</p>

 

[walt_neuman]

<blockquote>

<p>Will using Silverfast solve the problem? I'm not using Vista 64 so I'm not certain.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes, SilverFast is working with the LS9000 under Vista 32/64 (Win7 32/64 also).</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Is Vuescan that good? It was my understanding that it worked best in conjunction with an editing program like Photoshop. is that not necessary?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It's matter of taste, if you like VueScan or not. I'm going best with SilverFast. Yeah, it's expensive, but wasn't the scanner as well ? (You wouldn't buy an exclusive car and run it with cheap gas :)<br>

If you go for a version that includes SilverFast HDR, you don't need any additional editing program like Photoshop.</p>