This is a final colour corrected and sharpened scan from the Nikon. I don't want to rehash what everybody else says about the scanner. I shoot 6 x 7 slide film, often with very contrasty images and every time I get a scan that I can use to get a perfect print. made the fatal mistake of touching the film tray and it jammed up and wont reset. SLOW. However, there is a check box in the scanner extras section that will force the scanner to perform the scan using a single linear CCD instead of the tri-linear CCD. The ICE output is smooth and clear. I get very occasional banding, which seems to only occur during very hot days. This would produce a 28 X 40 print from the Nikon at a printer resolution of 240 DPI. carreview.com | after execution of our test will not be maintained automatically. Since there are three separate CCD lines in the LS-8000 (theres only one on all other CoolScan scanners), any small difference in sensitivity between the Nth CCD pixel in each of the three CCD lines can cause streaking when the same calibration data is used for each of the three CCD lines.I solved this problem in VueScan by only using one CCD line. Stop cheaping-out and hire professional translators. It took, from sticking the film in the scanner to saving it, roughly an hour-and-a-half to scan a 6x7 at 4000dpi, single pass, 8-bit color depth, with Digital ICE, ROC, and GEM turned on (just wish these things worked with black and whitethey''re supposed to, but trust me, they don''t). I use a Nikon 8000ED at work to produce custom prints. Overall, I am beyond impressed with it. Luminous-Landscape is a membership site. Straight out of the Nikon, both color negs and slides have excellent color and contrast, while the Epson produces very low-contrast files that only guess at the colors. But I havent heard the word Brownie used in photography for about 40 years. Colour management is the only issue, as with any in house scanner.but works great with my A3 epson -. I was curious, of course, to see how the Nikon would compare and so this test includes a comparison with a scan of the same transparency on both the Nikon and the Imacon. One of the most read user forums on the internet. Who would want one? My issue though is with the 120 holder, though the 35mm holder had a somewhat similar design. Haven't tried the GEM yet, I should - some of my Widelux negs are grainy (possibly because I took them to poor out-of-town film labs on my photo trips). Silverfast is expensive. Nikon states that the banding occurs in these situations due to the way its tri-linear CCD scans. What would the Nikon 8000 be like? I have compared my images scanned from the Canon FS4000 and the Nikon 8000 scanners; I find that while the canon was just a tad sharper ( with less shimmering around edges) it was also very contrasty at the highlights compared to the Nikon. The primary quandary that I faced in doing a comparison with the Imacon was that the Nikon is a 4000 DPI scanner while the Imacon Photo is 3200 DPI. The unit ships with holders for mounted 35mm slides, uncut 35mm film strips and Brownie (oopsmedium format) film. Hillers in southern Utah was taken in April, 2001 with aMamiya 7 IIand 65mm f/4 lens on Provia 100F. It is in multiple languages. ice is great but takes too long. These two frames are crops at 100%; Actual Pixels. Dont use shaprening, curves (unless absolutely necessary, or any other settings except ICE) This gives you a high quality raw file that you then use in photoshop to get the best detail from. I''m using a 500MHz Pentium III, 768Mb RAM, 40Gb drive, Windows 2000. However, the Nikon 8000 far surpasses the Epson when it comes to color. Digital ICE does not seem to take much longer, I don't know what people are talking about. This 50% price reduction is dramatic, and brings theFlextight Photointo the price range of a much broader range of prospective users. It keeps wanting to scan medium format film instead of 35mm film. I use the basic Nikon software that comes with it. Software, though buggy, has many nice features. Having tried the Hamrick Vuescan software, I have returned to the Nikon 3.1 scanning program. Otherwise, stitching software could be used instead to combine two seperate scans. The 8000 is certainly no speed demon, but let's face it: it's much faster than mailing out your valued negs to a service bureau (one of which sends them on to India). This software isnotincluded in the Canadian package. Despite being years out of production, large, noisy, and slow, it still beats everything else for the money. You can read them by going to theNikon siteand clicking ondownload specs. In short, I''m pleased with this purchase, and am looking forward to delving into my archives for the good images I never did anything with. No problem. I dont know at this time what Nikons plans are for Europe, Australia and elsewhere. In regards to the banding that was mentioned in the readers comment, I have very seldom encountered this problem. Please use your browser's BACK button to return to the page that brought you here. photographyreview.com This represents about 75% of the full frame as shot. {"modules":["unloadOptimization","bandwidthDetection"],"unloadOptimization":{"browsers":{"Firefox":true,"Chrome":true}},"bandwidthDetection":{"url":"https://ir.ebaystatic.com/cr/v/c1/thirtysevens.jpg","maxViews":4,"imgSize":37,"expiry":300000,"timeout":250}}. If youre looking for a very high quality medium format scanner at a reasonable price and can live with a maximum 6X9cm film handling capability, the Nikon Super Coolscan 8000ED may well be the scanner for you. One thing you will notice is that there is lot less noise in the blue channel. 2) I had an LS-8000 and was probably one of the first people in the US to take delivery of one (#2 on the waiting list at cameraworld.com). Very occasional banding (due to hot room?) To refer to what essentially is a professional format film size as Brownie says something very curious indeed about Nikon, a company with pretensions of being international in their marketing. So, given its abilities, I''d have to say I do recommend this scanner to anyone who''s serious about being able to control every aspect of reproduction of their valuable slides and negs. The banding problem appears to be due to Nikon using the same 10000 element calibration data for each pixel position in the CCD. 120 film is loaded into a channel that is secured on either side by folding gates. Two appreciated design features of the holder are rubberized edge strips that nicely hold the film in place during loading, and a sliding mechanism that applies tension to 120 film, stretching it width-wise to reduce buckling and improve overall focusing accuracy. However, the holders will actually hold at least 612 (cant remember if 617 would fit). Took awhile, but I would rather have it right than rushed. On the other hand the Nikon is not as heavy as it looks, though the weight isnt really an issue unless one is planning on moving it between locations frequently. These are just some comments you might find useful. The software was installed and the scanner connected to a Mac via the IEEE 1394 connection (Firewire). I recently ''risked''supplying a ''hi res'' (70mg) file for a front cover of a magazine and the (talent shot) image came up really well. (I''m sure the 4000 ED would offer the same results if all you do is 35mm or smaller) It IS rather slow to scan, especially on medium format with all options turned on. The key points are that the scanner will handle film up to 6X9cm in size, including 35mm. Overall, it's a great scanner, and a great investment. Digital ICE (Digital ICE cubed), Digital ICE, Digital ROC and Digital GEM are trademarks of Applied Science Fiction Inc. But as the latest generation, the 9000, climbs past $4000 and even $6000, expect the 8000's value to rise as well. This is a solidly built unit that is giving me good results. Warranty repair went well. And the glass holder comes with lots of masks. It cost 2,400 UK pounds from Digital First in the UK. ICE works to remove scratches from film. it has taken me a whole day to figure out how to get it to scan my 35mm film. The Imacon isslightlysharper and hasslightlymore shadow detail.Slightly! NIkon Scan, while it has the most control, especially for batch scanning, constantly crashes and is no longer supported. Ian has reported that the Polaroid 120 competes quite nicely with the Imacon but that the Imacon pulls ahead in ultimate quality. Didn't try calling. The other contender is, of course, thePolaroid PrintScan 120. Scan with the Nikon at 3200; res-down the Nikon 4000 dpi scan to match the Imacon; or compare scans that had a 25% difference in resolution. Once I got that set up, then the machine and software worked fine. You just can't get the larger films flat for accurate focus, it's a very stupid disappointing device. Software, though buggy, has many nice features. I run a photography business, I don't have time to play with features. Nice product so far! Changes in configuration, specification, hardware, software etc. Each month more than one million people from every country on the globe visit LuLa. If you would like to see the German version of this test report, please, click at the German flag at the top of the page to open it. not that quick, fiddly med.format holder,Black and white film seems to be grainier . The software could use some revamping, but I''ve seen worse. There is a bit of a learning curve. The color reproduction of this little workhorse (and it does work hard, make no mistake) is really very impressive, as well as its clarity, especially when you consider it costs less than $3,000.00. The Nikons preview was much slower though. As far as desk space is concerned, yes it is bulky, but I simply spent $30 to put in a sliding tray under the countertop, and it is now completely out of the way! if any, its an older model, so parts and service may be hard to come by. There are too many features you simply have to play with for yourself. Yes, there is a lot of work in getting a print that matches a slide, but this is what you have to do, what photographers have always had to do. After the better part of an afternoon testing the unit, here are my initial impressions. Michael Reichmann is the founder of the Luminous Landscape. Other Web Sites in the ConsumerReview Network: mtbr.com | I do caution people to download the lastest scanner driver if they run Windows XP. I also think I detected some softness at the edges - There could also be some truth in that the edges are also a touch soft. The biggest one was that I was getting banding in scans. photographyreview.com and the ConsumerReview Network are business units of Invenda Corporation. If I ever scan at higher res, it is to get some extra color or shade detail in a difficult negative. (C) Copyright 1996-2018. Please note that thats all these comments areinitial impressions. I had various software bugs also but I was able to overcome those. Otherwise they have been scaled to the same resolution. It took 1 minute and 20 seconds to do a preview while the Imacon took 10 seconds! And when using the glass holder, the software remembers my previous settings! Our membership model is simple, a Dollar-a-Month ($12.00 USD a year). The Imacon on the other hand is tall rather than deep, so it fits on a desktop with a bit make alacrity. On the Canon, Anything that was white was just pure white with no details. In conclusion, while the canon was sharper, I don''t think I could have lived with it losing details in the highlights, so I would have chosen the nikon for its greater tonal ranges. Theres no question that Nikon has a winner with the 8000ED. And of course faster than darkroom work. It''s big and heavyhave plenty of room set aside for it. You can download VueScan 7.1.11 from:http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html. At this point, there is nothing left to replace the Nikon scanners. If you get lines in the scan, go to fine mode - 3 times longer - big deal - you get a perfect scan. Many have said the glass MF holder is necessary--I'm still determining that. I have no personal experience with this unit, though as I mentioned at the beginning of this reviewIan Lyonsrates it very highly. I''m using it on a PowerMac G4 850MHz dual CPU with 1.5gigs of RAM, so it''s not the computer that gets bogged down when trying to run the scannerthe scanner and software themselves are just slow when handling such complex algorithms (it''s always about all the algorithms used to process information). If you are not already aware of it you might be interested in finding out about my latest publishing venture,The Luminous Landscape Video Journal, a quarterly video magazine on DVD, featuring travel stories, product review like this one, and tutorials and interviews with famous photographers. The Nikon is the winner in terms of scan speed. Dont buy a scanner based on reading the spec sheet!). Very straightforward. Unfortunately, the thing was riddled with bugs. The most glaring issue with the documentation, which had me and everyone atVistekchuckling, is that the manual calls what we refer to in the English speaking world as medium format, as Browniefilm. However, it's only available in German. Currently Im waiting for another LS-8000 which I hope works better than the first. I can compare the 8000 to two other scanners: the Coolscan V, and the Epson V500. this thing is VERY sensitive so watch it. I''ve yet to do a 6x7 with ICE and multi-sampling -- I think it will take an evening. Copyright 1995-2022 eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved. I really need straight forward information from the start. Bottom line? I read your review of the Nikon 8000ED, as well as the readers comment posted below your review. Warranty work done well. He also explains below why the scanner is limited to a maximum of 6X9cm scans and also the reason for some banding problems that have been reported.