Minolta 5400 Software on Snow Leopard

[malcolm_denton]

<p>Apologies to those who've seen this question posted on another site,but I'm trying to reach as many users as possible.<br>

Is anyone running a Minolta 5400 scanner using the last update of the Minolta software under Snow Leopard ?</p>

[wgpinc]

<p>I gave up on the Minolta software for my 5400 scanner back on Windows XP and have been using Silverfast successfully ever since. I just upgraded mine to Silverfast 6.6 for use on my new iMac with Snow Leopard 10.6.5 (just upgraded to 10.6.6). It works extremely well with my Minolta 5400. I still have a lot to learn because Silverfast is such a feature rich program. So far I'm just doing transparencies on the new computer. Good luck! Here's an old Kodachrome slide from the 70s that I just scanned with the 5400 on the iMac. I just had to tweak it mildly in PSE 9. <br>

<img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/12246074-md.jpg" alt="" /></p>

[michael mccann]

<p>Vuescan works perfectly with 10.6.6 and the Minolta 5400.</p>

[rishij]

<p>I second the use of Vuescan. Man it's great to see people still interested in scanning 35mm film on desktop scanners... the Minolta 5400, w/ some modifications, is the best 35mm desktop film scanner out there IMHO.</p>

[.th]

<p><em>"the Minolta 5400, w/ some <strong>modifications</strong>"</em><br>

not to hijack the thread, but would you care to elaborate?</p>

[rishij]

<p>It's a long story. I tore my 5400 apart & modified the light source. I then poured my own mould to make a new film transporter that could accomodate glass to flatten the film. The DOF is unacceptable on the 5400 (& most desktop film scanners), leaving something like 25% of the frame on either side not as sharp as the center if you focus on the center. You could use techniques like finding a point of focus that is the average of focus measurements over the entire frame, but nothing's as good IMHO as flattening the film itself. But then I ran into another problem where the plane of the film wasn't always completely perpendicular to the optical path (the entire holder was somewhat slanted) & haven't had time to remedy that problem. Still the scans I get even without fixing that problem certainly beat the original performance of the 5400, put the Nikon LS-4000/5000 to shame, & IMHO put the Imacon 949 to shame b/c its light source is so harsh that dust & pepper grain is severely obtrusive. Probably the newest Imacon/Hasselblad X1 or X5 would put my 5400 to shame, but at $13K & $20K for a glorified enlarger, <strong>no thank you</strong>. Also, the drum rotation ends up uniquely distorting each frame of film just enough so that you can't stack them to do your own film HDRs. Not so with desktop film scanners.</p>

[.th]

<p>Rishi.., Thanks for the detailed answer. With my ten thumbs I think it's best I do <strong>not</strong> attempt any such thing :-)</p>