| How long have you used the product? |
Less than 1 month |
| Which similar products have you used? |
Canon flatbed scanner |
| Functionality |
 5.0 / 5 |
| Quality |
5.0 / 5 |
| Value for money |
 4.0 / 5 |
| Title of review |
Professional kit |
| What are the strengths? |
The Nikon Super Cooscan 5000 ED is designed for the professional or serious amateur who needs to scan a lot of film, either negatives or slides. It is similar to the Coolscan V ED, differing mainly by having a two-line CCD scanning head, plus facilities to add optional automatic slide and roll-film feeders. These make the machine far more productive if you are digitising your old film library.
So far, I have been using it to work through my vast collection of slides which date back to the 1960s. Slide (transparency) film is not tolerant of incorrect exposure and consequently many of my slides are either over-exposed (too thin) or under-exposed (too dark). I wanted a scanner that could make a good fist of handling these errors. The Coolscan 5000 does this - it even has a control that lets you alter the gain (sensitivity) of the CCD amplifiers to cope with very dense slides.
However, the best features is probably the Digital ICE, which uses an infra-red LED to detect and eliminate dust and scratches. This works like magic.
|
| What are the weaknesses? |
So far I have not discovered any major weaknesses. It has been able to pull out detail from slides with a huge contrast range, and has coped well with slides in every type of mount from cardboard to glass.
The automatic settings work very well, but if you need control over any aspect of the scanning process - even the colour space - it is there. Inevitably, this is highly technical.
If you are content to use automatic settings and do not need to scan vast numbers of slides, you will be just as happy with the Coolscan V, and you will save about 50 % on the price. |
| Summary |
The Coolscan 5000 ED is an excellent scanner for the professional or serious amateur who needs to scan large numbers of slides, since it can take optional automatic roll-film or slide feeders.
The automatic settings give excellent results. Whilst there is a huge range of manual control for difficult images, you need to be an expert to do better than the automatic system.
If you are not scanning your back-catalogue of slides, you may find that the Coolscan's smaller brother, the Coolscan V ED will meet your needs equally well and save you 50 % of the price. |
| Do you recommend this product? |
Yes |
| Overall rating |
5.0 / 5 |
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Review by
grandfire,
submitted 8/17/05
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