BobbyS

It is quite some time since the last posts have entered this thread. Nevertheless, the problem still haunts us. And the discussions in this forum have helped me to solve the problem. Thank you all that did contribute. I have a Nikon Coolscan 5000ED, and have been plagued with flares all the time, see the photos below. The flares are with any type of slide film, but are seen better with Kodachrome as this film has the better contrasts. Here I want to say that this is not a Kodachrome issue, but a scanner issue. I had Eureka in Germany replace the shielding glass on my sensor by anti-reflection coated glass, and this was a big success; the flare is gone. To be sure I have to mention that the replacement had quite a considerable price, but it was worth it. Of course there is the risk of destruction of the CCD when removing the glass; its internals include ultra-thin gold wires that are easily broken. As there are no such CCD any more available for replacement, it is a good idea to have this job done by very professional hands. In the attached photos you see a picture before and after upgrading the CCD. The flare is gone. Also attached is a graph with a profile at a sharp cut from full black to full white, the right graph is a closeup. CCD (A) is the old, CCD (B+) the upgraded CCD with the anti-reflection shielding glass. You find more details to this story here: https://www.filmscanner.biz/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=38926#p38926 (it is in German, but has more photos and graphs)