If you've ever printed color negative you can appreciate how well this scans negatives on different emultions with different histories.

limited unattended scans
would like a slide stack loader or a roll film loader

Well worth the money.

Customer Service

excellent, needed and got the updated driver for W2K pro in a few hours.

Similar Products Used:

older cool scans, Agfa Duoscan, HP scanners

decent scans for 8X10 prints
2900 dpi entirely adequate for my work
I like the removable film holder modules cause if one breaks you could get a replacement fast and not have to send the whole scanner in (unlike the Polaroid or Canon).
good resistance to dust with the sliding dust cover
USB port may be a bit slow but its convenient

Nikon Scan 3.1
won't output a scan with a pixel depth of 12 bits (only 8 bits)

I bought this scanner to do some digital darkroom manipulation in my spare time. The way I figured it... I wasn't going to print out 16X20s and most of my prints were going to be 8X10 with minimal cropping so the 2900 dpi was fine for my purposes. The LS 4000 was a little overboard in terms of budget. I do not forsee any batch scanning so the lack of a slide feeder and roll film feeder is not a problem. Like other reviewers I also have a problem with Nikon Scan 3.1 not recognizing the Coolscan source. I think the problem is at the hardware end because if I remove the S21 and replace it a few times eventually the software will recognize the scanner. I've had the scanner for 2 days now and already Nikon 3.1 has generated several Windows 2000 errors. I think the hardware is great BUT I'm upgrading to Lasersoft's Silverfast 5.2. I hear that software is phenomenal. The Nikon LS 40 came with Adobe Photoshop LE which gives you just a little "taste" of what Photoshop is capable of. I will upgrade to the full version of Photoshop 6.x to get the latest in web editing and filters.

The LED array is a great idea because they have a stable user life that is 10X greater than the cold lamps in the majority of other scanners... that and their colour temperature is extremely stable with little or no warm-up.

If I want 16 X 20 prints then I'll work with a darkroom guy at Westlabs to get what I want but a print that size is a rarity... unless I really have a 1 in a million shot.

The Nikon gets 4 stars for overall because of the crappy software.

Customer Service

I've emailed Nikon USA several times BEFORE I bought the scanner and they were always very quick to answer abeit not that detailed in explanation. Oh, well... better than Canon!

Similar Products Used:

none.

Wonderful scans when it works.

Sofware does not seem to like Windows 2000 Pro very much. A bit noisy.

If you don't mind restarting the software about every other scan, it's great. I am waiting for the next iteration of the nikon scan software with my fingers crossed. I am using a Dell Latitude with 512 ram and 850 pentium. I had to get an Orange firewire card to accept the 6wire cable. Nikon helped me through the install and disable of the exisiting drivers to get it to work. About every 2-3 scans I get a crash and have to restart Nikon Scan. Given the time required for 14bit 2X scans you can imagine the frustrations. When it works it's wonderful! The quality of the scans is worth the wait. Fix the sofware and it's a 5. Until then we're looking a 3.

Customer Service

Available but unable to resolve my crashing issue.

Similar Products Used:

Too many to list...

Accurate colors
100% Dust removal
Sharpness and overall quality of output pictures

Scanning is very time consuming indeed: 36 exposures in best quality ~2 h 30 min (PIII 450 MHz 384 MB ram)

I'm very happy with my scanner. I have had it for 2 months now and I just wish I had time to scan all my pictures from before I got it. I have heard that Nikons own scanning software is very unstable so I use another brand with no problems.

Similar Products Used:

None

Well built. ICE removes scratches and particles VERY effectively. Easy to use. Slides and negatives, no problem.

Noisy. GEM seems to blur the image.
Previewing with ROC and GEM take forever and then you have to do it again when you scan...SLOW

Great investment..I've got old b/w and color negs and slides going back 25yrs (mostly family, concerts, landscapes) that are slowly fading away. I got this scanner to archive the pictures for my kids but am finding that it is taking a long time to get through even a single roll of film. I was naively hoping I would just scan the pictures in and maybe do some minor adjustments and move on to the next one....as it turns out, I end up spending 15min. to 2hrs on each trying to get it just right in photoshop (maybe it's because I'm just learning that program too). I admit I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist and spend too much time trying to fix a picture that was bad to being with.

What I like - ICE works great...although the one time I tried it on old b/w negs, it turned
the image almost black. Couldn't figure out why and haven't tried again.
I scan directly into PS 6.0 with no problems.

What I don't like - Loud and slow.
ROC does a good job correcting color shifts but still needs to be fine
tuned in photoshop.
GEM I'm not so sure about. The only thing I've noticed that it does is
blur the image.

Overall - I like it, but it has now got me sitting at the computer ALL night. If you start with a sharp, well exposed neg, the results are great...this fact has prompted me to get back into more serious SLR photography (that's how I found this GREAT site..to look for a new camera/lens/etc).

Customer Service

Error in manual (pg25-26) for registering in windows98. Manual says to Specify Location, but it wasn't working..called customer service and they promptly got me going (ok..so I'm a computer dork and couldn't figure out for myself to click CD-Rom drive instead)

Similar Products Used:

None

Great scans and res. Good software for advance scanning. ICE, GEM and ROC are great for punching up older slides.

None found

If you want great scans without spending a ton of money, you can not go wrong with this scanner. If you need higher res then look at the 4000 but for all of my work this is all I need. 2900dpi is good enough for 11x14 prints and higher if carefull.

Customer Service

Not needed

Similar Products Used:

Prime Image 1800 (broke down after 4 months use), Microtek 3700 (Slide adapter is worthless)