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Hi! Have any of you had any experience with the following scanners, the Minolta 5400II or the Nikon 5000ED. I am undecided which to purchase,and your comments on your experience would be extremely helpful.
Kind regards.
 
Hi,

I also am looking for some advice on a relatively inexpensive film and transparency scanner, simply to digitize some images from my film gear. I need one that will accomodate 35mm and medium format. I've been seeing a lot about the Minolta Dimage Scan Multi II, and there are a number of them for sale used. Does anyone know anything about these units? Are there others I should be looking at?

Thanks!
 
I had the Minolta Elite ll, the result was definitely not as good as 5400II. No matter how hard I work with Elite II, the result with making prints is not as pleasing as 5400II.
Multi II is more or less the same as Elite both being 2800dpi. You need at least 3000dpi to make good decent large prints like 8X10.
5400 is more expensive but it definitely worths it. I think Elite II is a bit waste of money and time if you are talking about large prints.
 
I find the Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400 to be good. I haven't tried the Mark II version. My only problem with it is that if you use Digital ICE which I find to be pretty well indispensible, it is slow and scanning a roll takes ages. The previewing is a slow process too. I think this may be because the light source takes a while to warm up whereas the Mark II uses a different light source LED's but I could be wrong on this.
John
 
I echo John's findings on the original Dimage Scan Elite 5400, my first step into the digital world.
It gives amazing results and can drag every detail out, but, like living in Cornwall, you're not going to get anything done in a hurry (it's worth the wait though).
 
A German photo magazine (Naturfoto) published in the January edition the second part of a scanner test. They wrote that the Nikon 5000 and the Minolta 5400 II are the top end of scanners which are "affordable". They tested the Nikon to be much faster, but the Minolta has the better depth of field and allows batch scanning (4 slides or 6 negatives) without the need of accessories. Unfortunately showed the published pictures only a comparison of Minolta 5400 II and Nikon 8000 (and some Epson flatbed scanners). But this was not the disadvantage for Minolta.
 
Now that they have left the photography world and sold their assets to Sony, I wonder if Minolta will continue making film scanners? They no longer make a MF film scanner.

The 5400 is slow, but if you have enough RAM in your computer, you can be doing something else while it scans.

I am to see a demonstration of a Imacon 646 next week. It will be interesting to see it's speed and quality.
 
You might not care, but the Nikon crops off the edges slightly. With the 5400, you can scan the edges of the frame. When I print negs I've scanned full frame, I get the "decal" edge as the different emulsion layers trail off.
 
Yes, you do have to have lots of RAM and general power. My last computer just froze up if you tried to do anything other than scan. Even email was impossible. I bought a new one with a faster processor and so on and it made a big difference. I already had 1GB of RAM as has the new computer but I'm thinking of getting more as even now Outlook doesn't like to be opened while I'm scanning.
 
John!

I think in this photo.net tread you will find answers why Dimage Scan 5400 (original version) with Digital ICE takes ages - and why this may be a better scanner for B/W. Lots of good info on scanner lightsources.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00EiGI&unified_p=1

Look for Erik's big posting down the page. Erik is the "author" of scanhancer. You have to be careful trusting anyhting on the net, but I tend to believe this guy :)
 
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