[Leica] B&W Film Scanner

[hartzell at kestrel.alerce.com (George Hartzell)]

Nick Hillyer writes:
 > I am looking for a film scanner to scan my Tri-X negatives, and an curious
 > what others are getting good results with.  I tried a Minolta Scan Dual 
 > IV,
 > but couldn't get it to work with my Mac, and ultimately returned it.  I 
 > have
 > been thinking about the Nikon Coolscan V with Vuescan (which seems to be
 > highly recommeded), but I have not found a lot of info on how it handles
 > silver based B&W film.  Anyone using this combo?  What are your thoughts?

I'm using an LS-5000 on a Mac running OS X.  I use both the Nikon
software and Vuescan.  The scanner is OK, but has a couple of
drawbacks:

  - the light source (led's?) seems to accentuate the grain in silver
    films.

  - the scanner has a very shallow Depth of Field, so getting wavy
    negs sharp can be touch.  Using the one-frame-at-a-time holder
    instead of the 6-frames-at-a-time slurper often solves the
    problem. 

  - [only applicable to color negs...]  The Nikon software has a
    characteristic behaviour where it clips the shadows and then puts
    the darkest value at abot 225, wasting dynamic range.  The
    solution is to scan as a positive and reverse/color correct it
    yourself.  Sigh.  Better solution is to use Vuescan.

All of that said, I wouldn't actively advise against the scanner.

If you can find a used Polaroid Sprintscan 4000, it might also be a
nice choice.  Apparently it uses a diffuse light source that doesn't
accentuate the silver grains.  It's missing Nikon's digital ICE stuff,
but that doesn't work on silver films anyway....

g.