I am now the proud keeper of a Nikon 8000 complete with NikonScan 3.1 ... And why did I choose this particular bag of spanners, over any other rattler?
The Minolta Multi Pro - I faced another six weeks wait as 'allegedly' the Pro's are being trickle fed once a month into the UK from Germany. The Polaroid SS120 (according to some Polaroid dude) will be obsolete as soon as the last remaining units are sold. Get one while you can. They don't seem to have any plans for a replacement model either... can this be true? So I felt obliged to stump up the extra loot and go for the Nikon. So far with the Nikon ... The Nikon software needs windows 98 Second edition or later. Seems to be to do with the firewire card and drivers. Lucky for me I had an XP disc lying around. Don't laugh, I like w98 (first time round). I have seen the banding coming from transparent areas of b&w negatives if you turn up the brightness a long way in whatever image manipulation package is used. It can be 'got round' by using the fine scan switch in the extras section. Mr Hamrick's Vuescan seems to do a 'fine scan' anyway, but that makes the previews <seem> to take an age. I suppose it would be nice if it were switchable. I have not seen any misalignment of rgb layers, but then Art said I wouldn't. I have seen the dust and scratches. But... I've seen the stuff before on my previous film scanners, a Canon FS2700 and a Microtec Artixscan 4000T. I have become quite a good little spotter. Maybe the 4000T isn't a proper Polaroid machine. Or maybe I haven't developed the knack of removing the dust problem at source, like having clean negs. The infra red cleaning is an eye opener for me. Mind you, for the money, it ought to be. Instead of spotting, now I can twiddle my thumbs and wonder if I should have waited 6 weeks or just got an SS120. Nikon Scan 3.1 niggles - I can't quite see how to save/recover all the settings in one go : some one mentioned the variable offsets on 120 roll film (camera to camera variations) and how they had to keep setting the offsets. This lives in the Extras area. I'm not sure how to save/recover all the options for all frames - all at once. Anyone any ideas? Quite easy to scan 6x17 images (did one for a friend, yer 'oner) - have to use the offsets to scan two frames of 6x9, don't do any automatic exposure on the second frame - use the automatic exposure for the first frame. Use an image editing program with layers and they match very easily, a bit too easily, must have done something wrong. Much harder to get a 24mmx65mm image for various reasons - Using the standard roll film holder I couldn't fathom how to get Nikon Scan to auto expose for just the cropped area. I need to understand how to manually set the 'exposure'. The 35mm film is only clipped into one side of the holder, but would yield one image file. If I use the 35mm holder with Nikon Scan then I get different exposures for each half image, because I don't know how to save all my settings between successive insertions of the film carriers. Got to move the film. Using Vuescan and the roll film holder allows me to expose for the cropped area but working out the offsets (for the first time) takes ages as the previews are slower coming to the screen (fine mode). I know I could always get one of those carriers that handles anything, but that would spoil the fun. On the whole - it does what is says on the lid. Which is useful. Apologies for that slightly rambly account of my first week of married bliss, me and my scanner. Mental note - must get W98SE, there's a lot less going on in the background as compared to XP. P.S. Any one know how to completely turn off the auto insert business on the cd in XP? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
