[filmscanners] RE: Sprintscan Died...Replace it with What?

["Patrick M. Florer" <pmflorer@swbell.net>]

Brad,

My Sprintscan 4000 developed a problem about 6 months ago - it was dropping
pixels - Polaroid wanted about $650 to fix it - I gave it to a friend to
scavenge for spare parts for his Sprintscan 4000.  I got three years of
service and many thousands of scans for the $500 I paid and figured that I
had gotten my money's worth.

I replaced it with a Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED and am very happy.  The base
unit comes with a mounted slide loader that holds one slide at a time, and a
filmstrip loader that can process up to 6 images, positive or negative, on a
single film strip.  Bulk loaders are available for film strips and for
mounted slides - cost is about $500 each.  I think about buying them from
time to time, but am sitting on the fence for now.

The scans are better, and I get the job done much faster.  The unit just
seems to scan faster than the Polaroid, it has a USB 2.0 interface, and you
just insert the film strip directly into the unit without preloading it into
a carrier.

In addition, the Coolscan has infrared dust removal capabilities, which I
have found, in most cases to be very helpful without causing too much image
degradation.

The software that comes with the Coolscan is interesting, but, most of the
time, I use Vuescan (hamrick.com).  If you don't have Vuescan, I would
encourage you to take a look at it.  It has been the most cost effective $40
that I have ever spent on software.

Regards,

Patrick Florer

-----Original Message-----
From: filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk] On Behalf Of Brad Smith
Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 11:48 PM
To: pmflorer@swbell.net
Subject: [filmscanners] Sprintscan Died...Replace it with What?

My Polaroid Sprintscan 4000 Plus has died.  Polaroid has quoted up to $650
to repair it.  I'm strongly considering buying a new scanner but don't know
what the prime contenders are (non-flatbed).  Seems that I've not paid any
attention to prior posts for 35mm scanners since I got this one when it
first came out.

Regarding my uses - I'm printing these 35mm images on an Epson 1280, mostly
at 13X19 size.  I shoot a lot of 4x5 also and have an Epson 3200 for those
chromes.

Which scanners should I consider and if it were your choice today, which
$400 - $1000 dedicated film scanner would you purchase?

thanks
Brad

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