Nikon CoolScan V ED Film Scanner Reviews

• Great alternative to more expensive Coolscan 5000

  
  By A3IPSECQAUAT8V on 2004-07-10
  The Coolscan V is an excellent cheaper alternative to the Coolscan 5000 which I have also owned. My immediate project included about 1500 slides from my own collection, my fathers collection, and my grandfather's collection.
  
  Most of my father's slides are Kodachrome. Much has been written about the inability of this scanner to scan Kodachrome slides and said about ICE4 not working with Kodachrome. Well, I have some good news The ICE4 does work extremely well for the most part. However, with Kodachrome slides it does produce minor artifacts in about 5 percent of the slides. I scanned with ICE (not ICE4) always on and then rescanned if I encountered unacceptable artifacts. I did notice that the scanner ICE feature was more likely to be stumped by old Kodachrome slides where subjects were wearing shirts with stripes.
  
  The GEM ROC and DEE (the other stalwarts of the ICE4 other than ICE itself) work on Kodachrome slides as well, but I found that the results were unpredictable and that I could achieve better results myself in Photoshop far more quickly. The GEM ROC and DEE features simply took too long and slowed down the scanning unacceptably. The results, for me, were not worth the additional scanning time. So I never used these features. But the "enhance" feature on the scanner I used nearly 100% of the time with great results - much better than the GEM ROC and DEE features.
  
  The scanner is fast and does produce wonderful wonderful detailed scans, easily demonstrating the grain in the transparancies at 3000 and 4000 dpi. The Kodachrome slides were a challenge to the Dynamic Range of the scanner, but I believe that most of the detail in the shadows that is there was extracted. With dark slides I used the VERY useful gain feature turning it all the way up to 2 in the really dark slides. Unfortunately, Kodachrome, with all of its many attributes, does have substantial downsides including a very narrow exposure latitude and shadow detail is simply lacking. I think the scanner accurately reproduced the information including the colors on the Kodachrome slides, with perhaps a slight bluish cast noticed in some cases.
  
  It wasn't until I was finished scanning all of the culled slides that I undertook to scan my select color negatives. And this scanner really came into its own scanning color negatives. Don't even TRY to scan color negatives without ICE because the results are unbelievably bad. Even pristine negatives have scratches and dust that magically are erased by the ICE feature. What a godsend. The scanned color negatives were just beautiful with very accurate color rendition. But immediately I noticed much more grain in the color negatives (Royal Gold and Fuji Superia Gold) than in the scanned slides.
  
  One note unrelated to the scanner itself. Until you've used a digital scanner to scan your color negatives you can't begin to realize how far superior Kodachrome, Provia, and Ektachrome slides are to color negatives insofar as capturing detail. Even the best color negatives have much more grain that Kodachrome. And the difference in color negatives is substantial too.
  
  The V was slower than the 5000, but honestly the difference for the non-professional scanner, to me, was not worth the additional investment. The V represents a superb value giving you nearly all of the advantages of the 5000 other than speed for a substantially cheaper price.
  
  The included Nikon software worked fantastic for me. I downloaded a copy of VueScan which according to many reviews is superior to the Nikon software and found that for me the Nikon software was easier to work with and produced superior results.
  
  Setup Summary: I scanned at a 16 bit color depth and 4000 pixels per inch with the scan enhancer turned on and the Digital ICE turned on. I did not use GEM ROC and DEE because of inconsistent results. I turned up the gain as necessary for dark slides and turned it down for light slides. Gain adjustments were only necessary on about 15 - 20% of the slides.
  
  Setting up the Nikon Scan window was a little tricky too. I placed the tool palette in the far upper right corner of the window with the scan window placed under it to the right. The image window occupied the largest portion space to the left.
  
  I can recommend this scanner without reservation. It is a phenomenal piece of equipment. If speed is not a paramount consideration and you are not a professional scanner needing the options (the auto feeder) offered by the 5000 then, in my opinion, the V represents an absolutely tremendous value.
  
  

• First personal transparency scanner

  
  By A23XT9XFLX6OQF on 2004-04-01
  Having worked with professional drum scanners (Hell Graphic Systems), I know a little about scanning. This Nikon Coolscan V ED is the first personal scanner I have worked with and am pleasantly surprised. I have inhereted the old familly slide collection and several of the slides are grossly underexposed, or darkened with age. The V ED has the sensitivity to pull out more image than I had hoped for, with very little noise. The provided software is no replacement for Photoshop, but can go a long ways to giving acceptable results without other image retouching software. I am eager to see SilverFast for the V ED however!

  The only problems I've encountered is unexpected termination of the program, and mis-judging frame boundaries of negative strips. Negative scanning is a snap, an unexpected pleasure as thinking color in reverse is painful (on German drum scanners).

  For the price, this is a very highly capable scanner worthy of your consideration. If your scan rate needs are high, consider the faster version, and a FAST G5 Macintosh. A 1.25 GHz G4 gets a workout on the tougher scans.
  
  

• Scanner does not disappoint

  
  By A7QT04TT3PXOP on 2004-04-28
  Decade's collection of fading film this COOLSCAN can handle. You can obtain detailed images that are truly vivid, sharp, and better than the original then technology. Just remember to use DEE correctly. Read below for further details on DEE.
  
  Batch scanning can be done with one click on the Scan button in Nikon Scan 4's firmware. The maintenance free red, green, blue, and infrared LED light source is gentle to film. The 4000 ppi optical resolution is an ideal start for outputting A3+ prints on the new crop of large format bubblejet and inkjet printers.
  
  Reading the Nikon Scan Reference Manual in the Nikon Scan Reference Manual/Easy Scanning Guide CD would be your best learning tool to get the most out of your scanner. For the most accurate results, the first thing to do before scanning is to set your preferences by clicking on the Prefs button in the Control Area of the Scan Window.
  
  When enabled, the Digital ICE quad Advanced software works well with most film. The Manual will explain that ICE, ROC, GEM, and DEE will not operate with the optional FH-G1 Medical Holder.
  
  ICE will not work on monochrome film unless the film has been developed in colour. ICE will not work properly on Kodachrome, but will work on other brands of slides. Noise may appear if ICE is used on overexposed or very vivid images. ICE will reduce the overall sharpness of the image. ICE is not not designed nor does ICE advertise itself to remove all dust and scratches from film. ICE will reduce most of the dust and scatches, however. You will have to use a third party application like Adobe Photoshop to remove the remaining dust and scratches. ICE alone will double the scanning time of 38 seconds.
  
  ROC may add colour to monochrome or grayscale images. ROC is not necessary for properly exposed colour images. ROC alone will almost double the scanning time.
  
  GEM will remove most grain and soften the image. Best to just use the default setting of 3 for a balanced smooth-grained result and to elimate any annoying hot pixels provided you haven't oversharpened or overused DEE. GEM alone will almost triple the scanning time.
  
  DEE works best when the image is cropped to exclude other unexposed areas of the film. Don't get me wrong, DEE does work beautifully! If Unsharp Mask (UM) is used incorrectly prior to processing the image, DEE will mainly show hot pixels in mid-tones and shadow areas effectively ruining the print. To avoid hot pixels in most photographs, either sparingly set the UM in Nikon Scan to less than 25% Intensity/25% Halo Width/0 Threshold Level or set the UM in Photoshop to about 125% Amount/1.5 Radius/1 to 3 Threshold. Depending on the image, using the default setting of 50 on DEE and adjusting the highlight lever from 190 to 255 will produce smooth and pleasing tones. Turning DEE off and using Photoshop CS's Shadow/Highlight tool sparingly on the processed image in LAB Lightness provides similar manual control of shadows and highlights. Also, remember to set the resolution output to your printer by clicking on the Custom button and select your printer in the Crop Menu. Also it's usually better to crop the image to the desired output dimensions to ensure 100% coverage (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) on your bordered prints. DEE alone will almost quadruple the scanning time.
  
  When enabled, Scan Image Enhancer (SIE) will automatically adjust hue. It does not work with darker images. In fact, the scan produces darker images. You are better off using DEE to pull out hidden detail in the shaded areas.
  
  ICE, ROC, GEM, DEE, and SIE together will almost quintuple the scanning time. While waiting for the breathtaking results, you can spend the next few minutes to contemplate on the next advanced Nikon or Canon DSLR to buy to release you from ever having to scan 35mm film.
  
  UM can be created to all colours, or individually to red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, or yellow colours in the image. Deselect blue if you do not want to emphasize the grain in an image with blue sky. Remember to use UM at the end before scanning the negative to output the final image.
  
  The SA-21 strip-film adaptor only works for 2 - 6 frames. To save money by not having to buy the optional 1 - 6 frame FH-3 film holder, place a 1 frame negative into an empty cardboard slide holder and insert into the MA-21 slide holder. Remember to select Neg (color), and Calibrated RGB in the Control Area before scanning.
  
  Along with a short USB 2.0 cable, included in the package is a Nikon View 6 CD, which is an application, used to organize saved pictures in TIFF and JPEG file formats only. According to the Manual, large files created in Nikon Scan may not show on Nikon View slide shows.
  
  Before clicking on the Scan button, press Ctrl (MS Windows) and the Autofocus button. Then left click on a focal point in the preview image to ensure accurate focusing at that point. You can always change the focus point using the same method, or by using the Focus Tool in the Layout Tools palette. The palette can also be customized to suit.
  
  If you have to use the Analog Gain palette to correct or adjust the colour values for each of the elements in the scanner's light source, your LED's may require repair. The probability of repair to the LED's is not specifically discussed in the Manual.
  
  If desktop or cubbyhole space is an issue, the scanner can be placed with either the top or side vents facing up. Remember to provide the minimum clearances to the scanner for ventilation. The dual wrap around band of rubber feet will ensure a cushioned slip resistant footing.
  
  After processing the image and for most situations for the various film brands, Photoshop gives you better fine-tuning control of the scanned image because of their larger selection of imaging enhancing Tools.
  
  Compared to filmstrip scanners that come with flatbed scanners, COOLSCAN has more options and is by far the better equipment to use to obtain satisfying scans, especially at 14-bit depth. Practice and patience will make perfect photographs.
  
  

• Excellent Scans, Horrible Software.

  
  By A3QGZDYIBW3V22 on 2006-05-09
  BOTTOM LINE: If you are not familiar with Photoshop tools and aren't ready for a user experience that frustrates a professional and burns out amateurs, I'd steer clear for now. If you know your way around and have patience, you will get very satisfying results from this machine.
  
  I am told the Macintosh version of Nikon's scan software is pretty good. The Windows version of the utility however, is ALMOST the worst interface I have ever used. Why does this matter? I found VueScan and SilverFast to be lacking in their implementations of "Digital ICE" so I stuck to the awful Nikon interface for that reason alone. If you don't need ICE, these are both great alternatives to Nikon Scan. If you use Nikon Scan, you will be frustrated and thwarted by it.
  
  I won't go into too many details because there are so many complaints already circulating the net, but this is a crash-happy unintuitive user-defeating piece of software. What's more, and you should love this-- it says right there in the manuals NIKON SCAN IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH PHOTOSHOP. Go figure.
  
  Settings aren't sticky, controls aren't sensibly located, and the interface obscures the tools. Too many simple changes cause the scanner to restart the prescan process, and that can be as time consuming as an actual scan. Closing the wrong window at the wrong time crashes any open documents and kills scans still floating in RAM without warning dialogs.
  
  I find myself taking up to 30 minutes per scan at times with this scanner when the frustration slider is set to max. Best times are around 4 minutes for slides in good condition.
  
  Remember this scanner only scans standard 35mm slides and negatives, and only one at a time. Batch process at most can handle six-frame cut strip negatives, and you can purchase an external slide feeder designed for another model, but I have never tried. Scanning uncut strip negatives is not recommended, but if you must you can disassemble the scanner to allow feed-thru.
  
  The scanner can be rigged to use an adapter made for a different Nikon model if unusual 35mm strip film is encountered (IE Kodak Safety Film), but the results are unpredictable and dangerous to the film because of the way you have to fool around with it. I have found the film shifts around in the holder or the frames are often cropped at top and bottom.
  
  As of May 2006, an Epson V700 has finally bested my Nikon Coolscan V. Never thought I'd see a flatbed scanner with dead-on focus and resolution capable of rendering 35mm transparencies and negatives properly, or beating out a dedicated slide scanner, but this thing actually came through. Not only that but it has higher resolution, IF you have sharp enough film. Anyway that's another review. The Nikon still wins in scanning severely underexposed film, and handles Kodachrome a bit better, but both by a small margin. It definitely loses now for its strict limitation to standard 35mm. Consider the V700 as an option if you're not sure about this purchase.
  
  

• The best affordable film scanner

  
  By ACXPRSPIVAS6H on 2005-05-02
  I have a ton of negatives both black and white and color and simply scanning the prints wasn't always satisfactory. So I shopped around and found this particular scanner to be the best for under $1000. You can only scan 35 mm slides or negatives not medium format. The scanner has functions which cleans up dust and scratches, restores color, reduces grain among a number of functions but turning these functions on will prolong the amount of time it takes to scan the negative. However, the wait usually the longest being 5 minutes is highly satisfactory. The ED glass in the scanner and Nikon engineering has a lot to do about this. You have your choice of destination file types but generally given the very high resoluton you can have files up to 60 MB or more which I reduce to around 1-2 MB. The product was ready to use within minutes after installing the software and taking it out of the box. It's competitor Minolta Dimage IV was plagued by setup problems and also lacked the digital clean up of negatives. If you have a box of 35 mm slides or negatives and want to archive them digitally or restore then I highly recommend this product.
  
  
• Fantastic scanner!
  By A1F7C7GSKX7QVG on 2005-10-17
  Four words: This scanner is great!
  
  What makes it great is the combination of Digital ICE and Digital ROC.
  
  1. I've used a film/slide scanner without digital ICE and for each slide I scanned, I would need to spend 1/2 to 1 hour manually removing dust spots. The Digital ICE built-in to the scanner driver is fantastic. I never see dust spots anymore and the scan is as sharp as ever.
  
  2. Digital ROC (Restoration of Color) is fantastic. I have scanned ancient slides from the early 60's through the mid-80's and the Digital ROC compensates for the fading color in an amazing, adaptive way. I don't know how it does it, but it works!
  
  Finally, when I first bought this scanner, I wondered if the fact that there isn't a slide carrier that allowed batch scanning of slides would cause a problem. It turns out that the opposite is true. I have found that it takes more time to position a slide in a carrier and then feed the carrier into a scanner (the way I used to do it) than to simply slip a single slide into the slide reciever that comes standard with this scanner. Even factoring in scanning multiple slides, I prefer this scanner to one that uses a multiple slide carrier.
  
  I have noted some quirks with the software: All occur when batch-scanning color negatives (scanning multiple images on the same filmstrip). However, if I manually "preview" each frame and then setup the crop and scan parameters for each frame the scanner software works great and I can walk away while the scanner does its thing on several images, unattended.
  
  This scanner is fantatic. I highly recommend it.
  
  
• Excellent scanner at an affordable price
  By A2FBHZUEK35JBP on 2004-12-26
  I've had this scanner for 6 months, and am very impressed with the results. Before this, dealing with dust, scratches and the like was a real pain, but with ICE I hardly need to bother looking for blemishes in scans. And DEE is able to pull detail from seemingly hopelessly underexposed parts of a slide. GEM is slow, but good when every last detail counts (for large enlargements). The resolution is wonderful, still better than any digital camera I know of. With this scanner and a bit of digital artistry I've been able to resurrect photos from the dead. I am fully satisfied; the only thing more I could ask for is speed, but not at this price. A great way to retrieve those prized photos for digital archival and I'm still sticking with this scanner and a film camera for pictures I take now.
  
  
• Cool but Slow
  By A1ATDVZ2O6JYY9 on 2005-10-21
  The claim made by Nikon regarding the speed of the Coolscan V ED scanner (14 sec for preview and 38 sec for scanning) is just a sales pitch. It takes the scanner nealy five minutes to preview and scan a slide at 2400 dpi with functions such as ICE and DEE on. The end product is a well-exposed image and the Image Correction Enhancement (ICE) works wonders in cleaning the tiny particles which cannot be brushed off even with a $ 25 static free brush. As a comparison my 6 year old Epson 1240 U flatbed scanner will scan at the same resolution in two minutes but it lacks features such as ICE and DEE.
  The Nikon Scan 4 software is problematic. It does not work through Photoshop even though Nikon recommends to install their Nikon Scan plug-in file in the application's plug-ins folder. I tried this and my computer had the tendency to freeze. Something which did not happen during the two years since I have been using my Mac G-5 machine. When I called the Nikon technical help support I was told Nikon is aware of the problem and they recommended that I launch the scanner through the Nikon software only. Their software works fine most of the time but will not respond from time to time and the only way to quit the program is to force quit the application. This of course is problematic to say the least. Nikon said at this time they do not have any update to resolve the problem.
  So I have to scan the slide, then open the file in Photoshop and crop and enhance it. This means spending more time in processing a slide.
  Other than this the scanner works like a charm, focusing is sharp and its optics are great. The machine is quite noisy though. It is an excellent machine but Nikon definitely needs to improve the software. Given the quality of the scanned slides the Coolscan V ED is well worth the price of $ 547 including shipping.
  
  
• Excellent Slide Scanner
  By A3P82ZMSDPHY0G on 2006-10-13
  This is an excellent slide scanner and does exactly what it is supposed to do very well. Yes, it is somewhat slow, but only in comparison to regular flatbed scanners. I have the slides scan at maximum resolution, but have the final image resized to about 20%. This keeps the file size manageable (about 5 MB per scan) and still provides an image that fills the screen. With the digital corrections on (which does make a huge difference on old family slides), and some minor post-processing, it has been taking about a minute per slide.
  
  As for the software, while it can be very complicated, most of the settings are fine in the default mode, and I would say the learning curve to get started is minimal. Yes, you can spend hours and hours learning all the histograms and curves and other manipulation features, but unless you're a professional, there's really no need to mess with all that.
  
  So all in all, I think this is a great scanner and it is providing me with digital captures of my family's 30 year old slides that otherwise would have remained unviewed in their vintage carousels.
  
  
• Very good Product
  By A2NGJZLL9BUP14 on 2006-04-17
  I got the Nikon CoolScan V 2 months ago. My aim is to be able to digitize all 15 years worth of films and store the pictures in my digital picture library that I started when I moved to Digital Photography.
  I have digitized so far about 1500 pictures with no problems at all.
  I strongly recommend practicing on a few negatives and adjusting the various controls that are inbuilt in the software.
  1-The ICE feature is key whether used on fine or Normal, it will enhance the picture by getting rid of all the imperfections found on the negative.
  2- Brightness level is a control that will be used depending on the exposure quality of the original negative.
  3-The color balance can also be used to adjust some lighting conditions and can dramatically improve the quality of the picture.
  4- Other functions are also very useful and can enhance the picture quality.
  
  The scanner operation is very silent and its setup was very easy. Just remember, drivers first then plug the scanner ( like most USB devices).
  
  As for the scanning speed, it varies depending on the image processing applied.With ICE being a minimum requirment previewing, cropping and scanning of 4 shots can take up to 10mn.
  
  The storage requirement is another parameter that needs to be set. Because of the shear amount of pictures that I have I chose high compression which results in 1.0Mb pictures for every negative. Left alone the size could go up to 16Mb for the raw data. This is too much in storage!!!!
  
  I am about a quarter of the way to the finish but I can now enjoy my old pictures instantly thanks to Nikon CoolScan V.
  
  
  
• Quality Scanner with minor software glitches
  By A18G1CTDYC0EC2 on 2006-02-25
  I won't expound too much on what others have written as to the quality of this scanner. It really does create quality scans of negatives and slides. I've been using it on the family photos (in my case a shoebox full of negatives) and haven't been disappointed.
  
  My only real issue so far was with the bundled Nikon Scan software crashing. In particular which using the GEM/ROC on more than one frame at a time. It seemed to only apply GEM/ROC to one frame before crashing.
  
  Turns this is a common problem caused by an incorrectly versioned DLL in the windows\system32 folder. Replacing the DRAGNKL1.dll file in system32 with the DRAGNKL1.dll from the Nikon Scan folder in Program Files solved the problems. (Note, if you haven't installed Nikon View, this may not be a problem.) Remember, always backup the files before you make any changes.
  
  
• Good results
  By A2W358JV3G3XP8 on 2006-07-25
  It takes a lot of time to scan each slide and then improve the old dark ones in PhotoShop Elements (much better than the picture editing software that comes with the scanner) but the results are worth it. I get some reading done while doing the scanning, then run all the images through Photoshop. It's great that I can set the scanner to output in almost any format--.tiff, .jpg, etc. The "ICE" works great at removing the dust and age marks. I'm digitizing a huge collection of family photos, some more than 50 years old. The digital images look better than the originals and will print better, too.
  
  I had a little trouble at the beginning, but starting over and re-installing the scanner software solved the problem--must have been an error on my part. Unfortunately, you do have to install the Nikon photo-editing software as well as the scanner software even if you use only the latter, but today's computers have so much memory that it's not a problem.
  
  
• Not Worth the Aggravation
  By A1800GD0RHAXR6 on 2006-01-23
  I wanted a straightforward slide scanner to scan my 6000 slide collection, and from the reviews, this appeared to be a slam dunk. Perhaps I was pre-disposed to this being a great product. But after several hours of trying to get the software set up and multiple crashes of my standard Windows XP system, I'm giving up. This is going back to the dealer. The software is not at all intuitive, and is very clunky. My one last effort of scanning a slide resulted in a "post-processing error" and terminated the slide scan.
  
  Maybe if you're a professional and/or have all day to tinker, this it can be made to work. But I have a day job, am very computer literate, but can't devote 30 or 40 hours to getting this up and running without crashing my system (assuming that it would eventually run properly).
  
  
• Nikon Coolscan V
  By A3DZ6ADTJU10SX on 2006-06-29
  I purchased this scanner to do a few lingering slide projects. I veered away from the 5000 model because I could not justify the extra $800 to get a 50 slide hopper. In the reviews, people complained that the pricy hopper was cheap, and prone to jams, or failure. As it turns out, Nikon has included some useful manipulation software. I just preview scanned then tightened up the histogram. On the final scan, when the photo is larger, you can play with the curves adjustment and RGB levels. No real need to open up Photoshop unless you really want to get into it. It moves pretty quick, figure about 4-5 minutes a slide at 2000ppi. I am very impressed with the quality of the scanned images.
  
  
• Bob King
  By A2PJCFUE5QKE53 on 2006-09-06
  Slow but professional quality. Not simple. Huge learning curve. Scanning is an art and craft. You don't learn it overnight or even after many weeks. For the money, this is an outstanding choice. Remember, this is only good for slides and negative............not prints
  
  
• Excellent!
  By AVFSBQPKATH2M on 2005-09-30
  Installation and operation were flawless.
  
  I had no problems digitizing over 700 old slides. The maximum resolution of this scanner is overkill for my purpose. I used 2000 dpi at most.
  
  The hardware adjustments to exposure intensity and color were very handy for badly exposed slides.
  
  I plan to resell this machine on Amazon when I am finished scanning some negatives. All my cameras are digital now, so there is no point in keeping it.
  
  
  
  
• Good Choice!
  By A8KWRTNPJ6CQ2 on 2006-02-20
  I purchased this scanner after researching a number of slide scanners. While the price was higher than some, the Nikon reputation for quality, and the fact that I have thousands of slides to scan caused me to make this choice. I have been very pleased with the scanner. It came out of the box, plugged into my USB port, and with the software installation done immediately started scanning slides. The quality has been everything I expected. The images are very very good, and the software to process the imagery during scan works very well. I store my images using the JPEG2000 format, and the only criticism I have is that the scanning software does not support that format, forcing me to always go to PhotoShop Elements, even if I don't need further processing, in order to store.
  
  All in all, an outstanding value for the dollar, which produces exceptional scanned slides.
  
  
• Awesome
  By A2B40QQALLN0I2 on 2005-07-28
  I have used this scanner for about a month, during which I have scanned about 200 Fujichrome slides and a few Kodacolor negatives. I am thrilled with the performance of this scanner! The color rendition is flawless, and the ICE scratch and dust removal is amazing.
  
  It takes about a minute to scan each slide and this unit does not have an automatic slide loader (nor is one available, as near as I can tell). Therefore, it takes a little practice to where you can sit and read a book while hand-loading slides. Once you have that figured out, the time passes pleasantly.
  
  By Japanese electronics standards, I would say the user manual is quite helpful and gives useful guidelines for scanning for different purposes, e.g., printing, web posting, etc.
  
  
• Great Scanner but software could be better
  By A3823YE6JB1MDF on 2007-01-12
  I purchased my V ED scanner through Amazon about 2 years ago and have been extraordinarily happy with it. While slower than professional-level scanners the quality is sooooo far above the 100$ film scanner that I first attempted to use that I can't imagine getting a better deal. As far as the hardware goes I can think of anything substantial to complain about. The software that is included was ok - though I found it to be really buggy when I tried scanning B&W film. I actually downloaded and purchased a license for VueScan (I use a Mac - not sure if there is a PC version) that really lets me drive the hardware to its full potential.
  
  
• Good equipment
  By AZPQHQRQU4NUV on 2005-09-07
  The scanner is a great product. Only thing I regret is that it doesn't have the multiple pass scanning like the Nikon CoolScan 5000 has. But other than that feature, the two scanners are pretty much on par with the 5000 only being a few seconds faster. The V ED is great, though, good quality scans and quick. Well worth the money.
  
  
• If the software is bad, it doesnt matter how good the hardware is
  By A3TJX1R1WQPP18 on 2006-08-25
  I am not a techie but I have installed enough hardware of all kinds to know what it involves. I am also pretty handy with Photoshop and photography.
  
  This scanner may scan reasonably well, but the software kills off its usability. There are two pieces of software (one to view,one to scan) with overlapping functions ( eg resolution) and they do not seem to communicate well with each other.....no problem, I changed the settings on both pieces of software. I try scanning at maximum resolution and the file size turns out to be about 130 mb for a negative. I try lowering the resolution but it wont allow it. After countless hours of trying to figure it out, I am defeated....I'll wait for something better to come along.
  
  
• INCOMPATIBLE WITH NEW MAC'S!!!!!!!!!!!!
  By A2AC6194SIHLUA on 2007-08-23
  I have been a Nikon Super CoolScan 4000 user for years and those years have been filled with anxiety and pain.
  The reason? I choose to use Mac computers. I hear the same from Mac Users who have made the mistake of buying the CoolScan V. Take my informed advice Nikon could not care less for us. They have never had a driver for the Mac that works well.
  
  SUMMARY: NIKON HAS NO COMPATIBLE DRIVER FOR NEW MAC COMPUTERS (as of 8/2007). AND ANY PAST DRIVERS WERE ONLY PARTIALLY COMPATIBLE WITH NON-INTEL MAC.
  
  CONCLUSION: DO NOT BUT THIS PRODUCT IF YOU CHOOSE TO USE MAC COMPUTERS.
  
  
• Great Results using the Coolscan with iMac.
  By A1RAYG1UAGCMIA on 2005-08-07
  I have an extensive 35mm slide collection spanning the last 20 years. Have decided to digitize it. I doubt one could find a better system for the money. I use the Digital ICE on 99.9% of slides, it works very well removing scratches and lint. The Digital DEE can produce excellent results on underexposed photos, I am finding it works very well in recovering "almost" good pics (remember the days of the Canon AE-1?). I use the ROC and GEM sparingly. The ROC can be useful for those "blue" pics.
  
  I highly recommend this product. You will see details in these images you have never seen using a slide projector! Note: Have at least 512Mb of RAM, the images are big.
  
  
• Excellent scanner for APS films
  By AI3JCBK66OQXR on 2005-04-28
  After researching the best way to scan APS film, I purchased a Coolscan V scanner from Amazon and IA-20(S) APS adapter from Adorama thru the Amazon site. I never really found any reviews concerning scanning APS film, so I stuck with the scanner that had the best reviews and bought the APS adapter to go with it.
  
  I found that these units were bid up on auction sites to within fifty dollars of the price of a new unit. My plan is to scan all of my film, then sell the scanner and adapter.
  
  The film scans are beautiful! Much better than scans of the prints and much quicker and simpler. The software has many nice tools, especially Digital Ice, which eliminates all dust and spots with no apparent effect on the scan quality.
  
  This is an excellent way to scan APS films, which are much easier to scan than 35mm strips. You just put the roll in the adapter. You click one button in the Nikon Scan software and it displays all 25 or 40 thumbnails in a minute or two. Since I had around 100 APS rolls to scan, I set up the defaults so that it would automatically have the normal parameters set when I scanned APS films. Then I just had to rotate the images to the correct orientation, select all of the thumbnails and hit the scan button in the software. It asks about the file name structure and the folder they will go into, and presents a few other options, then it spends about an hour to scan a roll of 25. I go do something else during that time. I haven't had any computer crashes during scanning, even while browsing or running other software on my computer (a low-end 2004 Sony VAIO desktop) simultaneously.
  
  You can preview all of the frames and adjust all of the scan parameters for each individual shot before the final scan. I found this to only be useful on films with mostly dark shots. It takes about 15-20 minutes to preview a roll of 25. It is time-consuming to correct each shot. If there are only a few dark shots on a roll, then I preview and fix the ones I am sure will need additional software cleanup. Then I scan the whole roll. After scanning, I reopen the files, perform auto contrast on most shots, make any other adjustments, then resave them. Very efficient.
  
  The APS adapter worked flawlessly for me for about 3 weeks, scanning about 55 APS films, mostly with 25 exposures but a few were 40-exposure rolls. Then it failed. I have returned the adapter to Nikon for warranty service. See my review of the adapter under "Nikon Coolscan IV APS Film Adapter"
  
  There are a couple things they should add for simpler APS scanning:
  1. A reader for the APS film's embedded magnetic strip. Inclusion of the date as data was one of the advantages of APS film. This data could be used to adjust the file date or included as part of the filename. This would make sorting easier.
  2. A "Select All" button for easier selection of a whole roll.
  
  Nikon Coolscan V is an excellent scanning system for APS film as well as 35mm.
  
  
• A scan of Old Memories
  By A2H67DUBG9JWG3 on 2005-08-28
  We have been trying to scan and save our old slides and negatives to dvds for quite a long time.Our nikon V ED scanner is perfect for the job. I have slides that that I took in Korea in 1952 and the Nikon does a great job in restoring them. We have negatives of our children, Grandchildren and old friends and bringing them to light has been beautiful. We have several thousand of them and it will take time but well worth it. Our Thanks to Nikon for making it possible. Ted and Eleanor Gawaylak, Long Lake NY
  
  
  
• Poor Support
  By AKCDCAR7DEJL2 on 2007-04-10
  My new Nikon Coolscan V ED worked very well for the first six hours after I put it in use. Then the film strip adapter which is needed for most of its operations broke down. I shipped it overnight and asked for a replacement under the one year warranty. They have had it in their shop for the last three weeks, but can give me no estimate of when they might be able to ship me a replacement. I would pay the another $160 for a new film adapter if I could be sure that it too would not be likely to break down. Not my smartest purchase.
  
  
• Pretty amazing
  By A15G70V9OBTOVO on 2007-11-28
  Why spend $500 for a scanner that can only do one image at a time, when you can get an Epson or Canon flatbed that will do a dozen or more, in one pass? Well, because the Coolscan makes surprisingly high quality scans whereas the flatbeds (which were never intended to scan small pieces of film) do not.
  
  In theory, you can get very high resolution files from a flatbed (and if you spend $20,000 on a Scitex, you'll see that flatbed scanners can, indeed make great 35mm scans). But the $300-700 dollar flatbed scanners do not have the optics or precision to get the best from a 1" x 1.5" piece of film. Worse, the quality varies across the bed, with the center usually giving the sharpest scan. These scanners can generate very large files but if the sharpness, detail and bit depth (shadow detail) aren't there, file size does not matter.
  
  I wouldn't recomend the big Coolscan unless you are very serious because you can get pretty good scans of medium format film from almost any scanner that has a light in the lid. But with 35mm the Coolscan rules.
  
  There are two drawbacks, however. While the Coolscan isn't terribly slow, scanning one slide or neg at a time, is. The more expensive model, with the slide feeder may or may not be worth it to you. The other drawback is the NikonScan software which has a unique property--it does not work reliably on a PC and it doesn't work on a Mac, either. True, cross-platform non-functionality! Here, the solution is to use VueScan which can be downloaded for $39 and is trouble-free.
  
  
• Beautiful Results
  By A2YS46W9S4SKXB on 2005-12-20
  OK OK its a little slow, and a little noisy when scanning strip negatives. But the results are spectacular!!! Careful what you wish for...the file sizes can be HUGE. Digital ICE4 is a God send...and well...its a Nikon, it just doesn't get any better. I still using my black body FE2 I bought USED in 1984. Highly recommended.
  
  
• Gets the job done - but...
  By A1BXL4HWBDRTM0 on 2008-01-18
  All the reviews for this product do a good job of summing up the products strengths, (good quality for the cost) and weaknesses, (SLOWWWWWWW). I bought my unit on Ebay and I intend to sell it there when I'm through with my project. There's no reason to purchase this unit new if you can avoid it. If you look at the contruction of the box, its bulletproof. This thing could survive in the Sarah. The only compliant I have other than its slowness, is the poor user documentation, which I think is typical. Because the doc's are so poor in introducing you to "how" to create scanned images from slides and neg's, it takes time to figure it out. Once you've gone through that process, the real time is consumed in the sheer process of feeding film & neg's into this bugger. I'm using the batch feature, with only IDC enabled, (not ROC or GEM), forget that. At least in batch mode you can stick in a strip of film, scan it in and convert to a file type of your choosing and then walk away and do something more productive with your life than looking at process ribbon scroll across the screen. Check on it through out a day and you'll be surprised to see how many negs you've managed to scan.
  
  
• Counting On The Learning Curve
  By A1GGP4DA4A9BYJ on 2007-10-04
  I purchased the scanner to convert approximately 5,000 slides, shot over 30 years, to digital format. A necessary project as I work to share our pictures with our adult children.
  
  Scanning alone takes about 1-2 minutes per slide. Editing the result adds to that. Other than being caught off guard by the time it will take, my initial reaction to using the CoolScan V is positive.
  
  Packaging is functional but the box is quite large for what turns out to be a fairly compact scanner. The scanner is well-secured in its package but packaging is not intended for transporting/portability.
  
  Initialization and hookup were straightforward. The instruction manual is not easy to follow but at least seems to have the information I will need. By my count, the instructions include 9 different languages (all on the same sheets) so you will need to sift through to find yours. Finally, a "quick start guide" was included but addressed only scanning film strips, not slides. My initial reaction is it will take a while to figure out the most efficient way to complete my project. I'm not particularly patient with poorly written or confusing instructions and I get really annoyed when the instructions put all the language options into one sheet or document (prevents me from discarding what I don't need).
  
  Finally, the Nikon Scan software looks like it opens at least 3 windows to get one slide previewed, edited, and scanned. The windows overlap and makes it hard to manuever.
  
  At this point, I am counting on the "learning curve" to help me as I dive into this project. I can foresee a lot of trial and error effort coming but am optimistic the scanner will eventually get me where I need to be.
  
  

• Belkin F3U134-10 USB Extension Cable (10-Feet)
• Canon 1029A004 Photo Paper Pro for BJC-8200 (8.5inx11in, 15 Sheets )
• Spikemaster SM-BG8 8 Outlet Block, Standard Protection Surge Protector (White)
• APC BE350U 350VA Back-ups Es
• Epson Premium Glossy 8 1/2 x 11 Inch Photo Paper, 50 Sheets (S041667)

• Scanning Negatives and Slides: Digitizing Your Photographic Archives
• Nikon 35MM FILM STRIP HOLDER - SPARE ( 9170 )
• Nikon Coolscan IV APS Film Adapter
• Mastering Digital Scanning with Slides, Film, and Transparencies
• Nikon EN-EL3e Rechargeable Li-Ion Battery for D200, D300, D700 and D80 Digital SLR Cameras