filmscanners: Nikon 8000

["PAUL GRAHAM" <peegee@btinternet.com>]

>Is anyone using the Nikon 8000?
>How does it handle those big floppy 6x6 and 6x9 films?
>Any other comment or link appreciated.

Hi. I got one the other week
good machine in general.

following on from other postings I was wary of Nikonscan software, but it
turns out to be extremely powerful and intuitive. very good with negs, which
is all I use.
It does crash from time to time, but otherwise a good interface and simple
controls. I was expecting to use Vuescan, but haven't felt the need to
change yet.

The neg holders are good enough in my opinion. the 120 holder does have a
facility for tensioning the film after you have locked it in place, works
quite well and removes most of the flop/ focus shift. I have had no focus
problems to speak of and I am pretty critical about it, but then my negs are
pretty flat. There is always a glass holder for those awkward negatives
anyway, which I will be getting soon. Only annoying thing is that the normal
holder is designed for singles and strips of two, but not threes, (for 6x7)
which is standard for me - all my negs are cut that way (neg file holders
hold 3's etc) but they dont fit and get damaged by a badly placed prominent
screw if you try to squeeze the strip in. (it actually does fit) so I have
the choice of cutting them or... ?

The banding reported by Lawrence and others is indeed there in normal mode
with specific dark blue colours, no question. It's very fine, and only if
you have a very dark blue sky (heavily polarised or storm clouds) and look
in the blue channel you'll find it. to stress this, you dont find it in most
pictures, just certain extreme blue colours. Switching over to 'super fine
mode', which uses one set of sensors, rather than 3, solves this, but your
scans take 3 times as long. a full 6x7 scan this way is about 10 mins, for
500Mb,  rather than 3mins. Nikon UK (where I am) know about the banding, and
say it is a product of the scanner being so incredibly fine it is showing
the limits of this CCD technology. I don't believe them, but thats what they
say. They are also very convinced of their superiority over the Polaroid 120
by the way, true or not. Polaroid 120's are cheaper here - around GBP 1800
rather than GBP 2200 for the Nikon (ex sales tax)

Scan sizes are an issue - even with a high level workstation (I have dual
1Ghz processors with Raid system etc) things slow down dramatically with 530
Mb files (48bit 6x7's) - working in Photoshop takes careful use of
resources. I have 1.75Gb RAM, but go over it in 2 quick moves and a couple
of history states, so writing to disk is inevitable and of course that slows
everything down. just bearable though. Trouble starts when you exceed 2Gb
during a large save. things seem to freeze, as  I think you are exceeding
the OS limit per app. (I am W2K, but Mac is the same or less I believe).
maybe curable though with tweaking.

Any tips/ tweaks for handling these mega-files would be gratefully received.
I have the scratch disks on the RAID of course, OS and PS6 are on a regular
drive, but sizes? settings? I also have pointed NS to store on the RAID, but
is this a mistake?

If you use normal mode (not super fine) and it is lightning quick, but thats
not my M.O. - fewer, better, is what I want.

UK bundles do not come with Genuine Fractals which is a shame and they dont
tell you that on the box. As usual you pay more for less in the UK.

Otherwise I think I'm keeping mine. will compare with some drum scans soon,
but for now, its a quality product. a bit pricey, but very sharp. I have
never used ICE, not needed so far, my negs are clean enough. tried GEM for
grain in skies, but very little effect for a much much slower scan. so that
will stay off too.

oh, one last complaint is that it is noisy! I can't help but believe that
the scans would be even sharper if they could cut the stepping motors noise
and vibration a bit. It clicks whirrs and thumps while in motion quite
alarmingly

paul