Amazing! So cool to see these getting used! 30 years ago yesterday, my dad (and his business partner) sold their invention, what would later be branded the cool scan, to Nikon in Tokyo. It was a pivotal moment for my dad and also for our family. Cheers!
@@Julien.Lacombe what would you like to know? For several years back in 1990 or so my dad (an electrical engineer who worked in image processing and computer graphics for years) focused on building a scanner which could achieve high image quality with far fewer parts (and lights) internally than conventional designs had required. Once this technology was proven via iterations of various prototypes, they filed their patent and sold the rights to Nikon who then designed a product around it and branded it as the coolscan.
Man, those scans look so good. I’ve tried scanning on my school’s Epson V750 and could never get results I was happy with. Having that extra resolution would be so nice to work with. Congrats on the purchase!
I can see the excitement in your eyes, I used one of these in the mid 2000s at a studio I worked at; shopping out Newton rings used to be the worst. I'm now mirrorless scanning my film with a a7riv and a 2:1 macro and I can't be happier.
If you shoot 135 much, pick up also its little brother the CS5000. There's a simple mod you can make for the roll film feeder that removes the 6 exposure limit. It'll let it scan an entire 40 frame roll unattended. That's how I use mine. I bought both the CS5000 and CS9000 new many years ago. Still have the pair. I've scanned thousands of frames with both.
Love how excited you get from the results you are getting haha. Very interesting video, my lab owns 4 scanners and the Cool Scan 9000 is one of them. I've never bothered to try since they have the Hasselblad Flextight X5 but I'll try it out just to see!
We had one of these beasts in our pc-lab in the university when I was a student. I absolutely have no clue why they even bought it. I was the only one using it and scanned my whole film archive. It was a dream for a poor student to have free acces all the time to such a beast of a machine.
I was able to pick up a Coolscan V recently after I became sick of the Epson V600's soft results. The workflow with Negative Lab Pro is so pain-free, which is about the best thing you can say about any home scanning workflow really. And you really can't beat the feeling of getting such wonderful colours right out of the conversion. A serious game changer when it comes to home processing
I bought a Coolscan 4000 ED when they first came out, along with the automatic slide feeder. It has been leant out several times to friends who, like many, have thousands of slides. It still works perfectly after all these years. However, the file sizes on 35mm are already enormous, so a full MF raw scan must be simply enormous. It's not even like a Bayer array raw. With this beast you get full colour sampling at each pixel.
Love, love your excitement, as I would be too :). Great scans, and isn't NLP just the thing, love that plug-in, nothing like it. Thanks for a great video, those scans look amazing.
I bought one of these used about 10 years ago via a lucky eBay find (and it was quite pricey even then), due to my extreme disappointment with the quality of medium format lab scans at the time. I've been extremely happy with it overall, and still use it to this day. I actually do also have the glass holder, and I honestly don't like it very much. The results aren't quite as sharp, and I constantly get Newton rings (despite it technically having ANR glass). I really only use it when trying to scan film that's too warped to get flat in the glassless medium format holder.
Interesting to hear about your experience with the glass holder. I really thought it was a must. But maybe I'll work on perfecting my use of the stock holders first.
There's also someone who makes/sells 3D printed holders that are supposedly really good. ua-cam.com/channels/8xfhR6kI9IzuyBN2GUW8Mg.html They're modular, so you can use them as a glassless or glass holder for any format. I haven't tried them yet with glass. With glassless, my main issue is that they can only mask a single frame at a time, so "scan the whole roll" would be way too tedious for me to even want to try.
4 роки тому
I also have the glass holder, and I don’t use them because the newton rings and it’s a lot more work if you try to use film masks. I follow this workflow and works great themachineplanet.wordpress.com/2018/02/24/maximizing-your-nikon-fh-869s/
Congratulation - you're the lucky one to get this beast !!! Right in time for Canada Day... I enjoy my Coolscan V ED for 12 years now and I'm still happy with it for 35mm and slides, thanks to Nikon (then...)
I had a 9000 for many years, right up until my house caught fire. Sadly, the scanner didn't survive. Thankfully, all my negs were fine. Man, that's a GREAT find. The scans you will get out of that machine are bested only by an Imacon or a drum scanner.
@Pete Melon you are right! Think we got it just before grad in 03. Might have been an older model, although we had pretty dope equipment like a whole hall of g3s, which was pretty dope at the time for a school to possess, let just one program in one 😂 didn’t realise how spoiled we were until after.
Congrats on the scanner! These scanners have a legendary status and when you learn the tricks for the negative holder you have a great friend there! Keep up the good work!
It does, but the process is pretty annoying. First, you have to make sure none of the Nikon drivers are installed when installing SilverFast or it won't load its own drivers correctly. Second, every single time you want to eject/insert the film holder SilverFast needs to be restarted.
A full license of Silverfast for this scanner is over $400 (probably $300 if you upgrade). Silverfast is nice software but the license is too much. I have SF Ai for a PrimeFilm XA, and Epson 4490. I recently found a great deal on a v700. Had I cross graded to SF Ai (which you will need if you want RAW scans and other advanced features) it would have been a bit over $200. I opted for Vuescan Professional and ColorPerfect. VS is about $100 and CP about $70. SF licenses are specific to the type of scanner and VS works on every scanner you have. Both Silverfast and ColorPerfect render very similar colors. SF if you want to go straight from negative to a color corrected scan, VS+CP if you want to scan a HQ RAW file and convert in post. You can also scan RAW files with SF but VS has a few advantages (you can do multiple samples to improve you scan and you can also use infrared dust and scratch removal on your RAW files [so modified RAW] which SF8 removed as a feature). Since I do have SF for my 35mm scanner I will use it for making batch proofs of my film then I will make high resolution scans of select frames with VS. Scanning is a slow process.
Nice. I have the same scanner I bought 2nd hand a few years ago. It was mint from a person who took care of it, but it still was substantially expensive. A bonus he had the glass holder so that was part of the package.
Two weeks ago I was extremely lucky to get my hands on a brand new Coolscan 8000, until then I was scanning with an Epson V850: the experience of opening one of these high-class scanners for the first time has been absolutely satisfying (you only have to look at the holders and you quickly realise that the quality of this line of scanners was far superior to current flatbeds) But if I took the step to update my Epson, it was because of the quality of the results: in medium format it's much better than the V850 (in my case 80% 6x6, 20% 6x7), in 35mm the comparison is absolutely unfavorable for the Epson.
Epic. Found one on ebay and googled it and saw you video. Does this give more quality than DSLR scanning? Flatbeds suck balzz. For now I have a lab do it. But the DPI is limited. And a friend of mine used his A7RV for it.
Remove the film tensioners on the standard holder, buy some ANR glass that's the same length as the film opening and as wide but a tad smaller, put neg in holder then lay the glass on top of the neg, makes a big improvement to edge sharpness.
That's the plan. Going to try that today. I have some ANR glass from an Epson Better Scanning holder. Width of it is perfect, but it's a little long, but looks like it'll fit if I remove the screw from one of the tensioners.
Wow, what a great find! You look super excited and I don't blame ya, i'd be too. Enjoy it! and looking forward to seeing some scans. I use a Dimage Scan Elite 5400 II and found that using it Vuescan software gave me better results than the stock software (20 years old?). I now use Vuescan to output RAW TIFF and convert using NLP for the best of both worlds: high resolution + accurate colors.
I have Minolta DiMAGE Scan Dual II (which I believe is quite similar to the Elite) which I got for 120€ on eBay. It's really good and easy to use with Vuescan (have to factor the price of the software in of course). Highly recommended as an affordable alternative. It only scans 35mm though.
Sometimes with images I am really curious the aperture used as well as the focus point in the image itself. A lot of photographers don’t share this but I am so curious as to what the person’s eye is actually shooting for to get the desired image. Secondly, LOVE the Neg Lab Pro plugin. I am glad to see others using it as well!
I have one of these scanners. It's been a workhorse for many years. The weak point in these is the obvious compatibility of the Nikon Scan 4 software and it's compatibility with current operating systems, and the holder motor gear teeth will eventually strip and make it so the scans are out of alignment with the lens.
Wow! Super cool find (no pun intended) I used to use one of those like 10 years ago when I worked at a photographic archive... I had forgotten how massive it was. I remember that it took a while to scan a film strip, but the colors were amazing, specially for slide film. I had been wondering what it could do in combination with NLP so thanks for sharing!
I'd love to get one of these but you are right, the prices are sooooo high. You'd almost have to turn it into a business or be able to sell the machine when you were done with it.
The banding issue was only on the 4000/8000 series scanners. NIkon fixed the problem on the 5000/9000 scanners. So the 9000ED can scan three pixel rows at a time with no banding, which is obviously 3x faster. The VueScan _Fine Mode_ forces the Coolscan to read only a single pixel row before advancing the film. While _Fine Mode_ was a must-use feature on my old 8000, I've never used is on my 9000.
This got me to upgrade my scanner. Nothing near the price or quality. But went from a canon canoscan 8800f to a plustek 7200. Also got me to find negative lab pro. It seriously made all my work better along with the increase in speed and resolution of my new scanner.
The Nikon Scan software is actually pretty good if you can get it working. I find that it's very good at correcting colours in expired film. The digital ice works much better than in vuescan too.
I’ve heard good things about it. Originally I was going to try and find an older iMac to use it with, but I’m happy with this workflow and results for now.
Man, that´s so cool! That machine is pretty rare anyway, even more in unused condition. The best thing about that scanner is that I belive it´s the only one that can read the IX-Data from APS Film properly. Labs struggle a lot with that nowerdays because either their modern machines can´t handle the magnetic strip or the people at the lab can´t handle their equipment. Very annoying when you go into a lab and tell them you want the title of your APS film printed on the front, not on the back, and they look at you with that blank expression... then they say no text is printed onto the paper anyway... just annoying. Really glad you got hold of this awesome piece!
I just picked up a Coolscan 5000 for $300 CAD yesterday. Wicked deal in my opinion. I tried it with Vuescan and I was quickly reminded why I hate it. So I went the route of using a VM running Windows XP. As clunky as XP is the Nikon Scan software is a much more pleasant experience than Vuescan and the Nikon software does a lot of the heavy lifting. I did a test by simply clicking the scan button in Nikon Scan and compared it to a lab scan. I was hard pressed to find any major differences beyond sight hue differences between the two.
On my Win10 1909 system, the final version of Nikon Scan actually installed and ran properly with results very similar to Vuescan. Thanks for your initial look at this outstanding product.
Damn it... just when I thought I had quit film photography for good this time (it’s just getting too expensive), videos like this pull me back in. I gotta find a CoolScan...
I've had the 9000 for 5 years now and it's still serving me great! For medium format, this thing can't be beat. For 35mm, I find it a little too slow and tedious but the quality is still amazing. I definitely recommend the glass holder if you can find one for a decent price. I don't think it's a requirement, especially if you have good scanning technique, but having the glass holder just makes loading film faster and easier. It especially helps with curved or bent negatives.
@@KyleMcDougall In my case, using its little brother (Coolscan 8000), scanning a strip of 12 35mm negatives at 4000 dpi takes me almost 2 hours: a whole roll, 6 hours. The quality is absolutely good, but it takes time.
The Firewire cards are a common point of failure across the whole coolscan line. To be absolutely safe I would suggest picking up an old machine with a firewire connection rather than running through multiple adapters. Maybe it’s overkill but that what I do with my coolscan. Also make sure to join the facebook group Nikon Coolscan users, tons of good knowledge there.
Just scooped up one of these on ebay for $1400! Thank you for mentioning what cables you used. I can confirm Firewire to USB cable doesnt work lol. Fingers crossed!
Thanks for the vid! Looking forward to see real samples for the next time you do the review it’s a little hard to know the quality from the UA-cam screen but I can sense your excitement so it must be very good. Cheers
You may be one of the luckiest film users on the planet for finding that. All that would be better is a free Aztek with a repairman included. I found that Silverfast on a Mac works just fine with the Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter. BTW, the thing vibrates like crazy. I ended up mounting mine on sorbothane blocks to try to dissipate some of that, and even put sorbothane blocks on top.
I bought a Coolscan V for my 35mm and it just so much better than my v600 for color negatives. The Nikon sharpness and noise to signal ratio is so much better than the V600. I can only dream to get a Coolscan 9000 for 120 film, I think I would shoot a lot more color 120 film.
I bought a Coolscan 5000 new in 2004, and have always wished that I had shelled out for the 9000. I think my reasoning then was that if I bought a 9000 I would "have" to start shooting medium format and spending a lot more money.
Really great results! Seems like a very enjoyable process, wish I had that kind of money. I use epson v600 with silverfast, makes colorscanning a lot better, but still not as smooth as this process.
How viable is it for a one stop shop scanner at home paired with home development? For 135 and 120 film of course. Is scanning a whole roll any more cumbersome or time consuming than something like a v850? Any general thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for all you do for the film community.
I've never used a LS9000, but use the LS5000. IMO it's so much easier to get good results from a CoolScan compared to a Epson flatbed, even if a Epson flatbed also can get pretty good results. You can get Nikon Scan to run on Windows 10. Not sure about Mac. I use Nikon Scan with the LS5000 as it works with the slide feeder. Maybe not as important with a LS9000, but I've never been a fan of VueScan. Maybe I should try it again for the RAW option.
Do you have an links to the adapters you bought for this scanner? Recently picked one up and also using the latest macbooks :) thanks for the video it made me purchase one here in the UK 🖖
Happy for you. That is probably one of the best 120 film scanners ever made. You will get better results from this scanners CCD sensor than any CMOS camera. You might also want to checkout ColorPerfect. I tested out CP and NLP and I liked the color conversion from CP a lot more. CP was similar to the results you can get from Silverfast but since it works on RAW scans it is much better. There is a new player than I been meaning to rest out since it is free (Grain2Pixel). Great pickup, probably the best option other than a drum scanner (which which one of us would not love to have the space time and money for).
I've also been using ColorPerfect. I wish it had a less clunky UI, but its worked fairly well once I figured it out. (The main reason I'm not a NLP fan is that I'd prefer to invert my images before bringing them into Lightroom.)
@@derekkonigsberg2047 Something about German software, the UI is not the best but the math behind it is great. I believe the developers of CP are using whatever data sheets they can get on the film to get the best results when converting. I basically use it to invert RAW scans to flat images then adjust from there (works great for inverting black and white too).
Could you do a comparison to the Plustek OpticFilm 120 pro scanner? as that's the most modern ''equivalent scanner'' on the market currently aside from the Pacific Image PF120 Pro.
@@KyleMcDougall There is very little propaganda and/or content for that matter currently out on the product given your at the 50k mark I’d request for review unit but they are available for purchase in the US currently from what iv seen.
I own a Nikon cool scan 5000. From what I understand you can’t beat a drum scan for doing large prints from 35 mm. How does the Nikon cool scan 9000 compared to a drum scan or Professional high quality digital scanner?
Kyle McDougall : The Lab that I use uses a high-end Hasselblad scanner. I’m not sure how much they cost but I heard that could cost as much as $20,000. It be interesting to see a comparison between the drum scan, the Hasselblad scanner and the Nikon cool scan 5000 or 9000 and see what prints look like from 16 by 20 inch and larger prints. I don’t think anybody has done that so far. From what someone told me you used to use the Nikon cool scan 5000, he said he wouldn’t recommend going to 16 x 20“ prints with a Nikon cool scan 5000. He thought optimum quality would be just slightly over 11-14 inches. What are your views on this?
When it comes to the 5000 and max print size, a lot of that will be personal preference. I’m quite happy with the results that I can get from 35mm scanned on the 9000, and I’d be fine printing at 16x24, or even a bit larger.
As a long term Coolscan 9000 ED user - on a Mac - I can tell you it takes some learning to get the best out of it, but the best is amazing. The best scanner south of an Imacon or a drum scanner. Enjoy.
@@KyleMcDougall your biggest issue will be keeping film flat. I have a 3D printed "universal" film mount that I got from a guy in Germany - does all MF and even XPan formats and holds film completely flat. My 6x7's look amazing with that.
Been using my V800 for scanning images from my Mamiya 6 & RZ67 and ... whew the scans from the Cool Scan look amazing. Thanks for this video though I’m afraid watching it is going to cost me some money!
Since film is just a hobby for me I have always just scanned with my flatbed Canoscan 9000. There is a Nikon 8000 here though from the photographer I bought the building from. I remember him saying it stopped working. Now I want to explore it after seeing this. I wonder if anyone can fix them?
I have been looking at a better way to scan medium format and this caught my interest. Did you ever do a follow up on it? Is it still working well for you? They have gone up in price quite a bit and I am always concerned with older electronics and compatibility with new operating systems and software.
Really helpful video - thanks. Like you, I hope the resurgence in home scanning of medium format negatives gives rise to new, high-quality scanners. There’s a real gap in the market. Be great if Nikon re-engineered its 9000 with a modern USB-C interface...and better film holders. For now, I’ve just pressed ‘buy’ on an 8000 which will be with me in a few weeks’ time. Looking forward to seeing the results using your suggested workflow.
Hi Kyle. Great and informative video! Any chance you can leave a link to where one can get the FireWire to thunderbolt 2 cable you mentioned in the video? Many thanks 🙏
Hello, just a question : how do you like this scanner vs nowadays new scanners or film scanning with a high resolution digital camera ? I own an Epson pro 850 and struggle getting sharp images, even my older epson 4990 provided sharper images… thank you
Greetings from LS9000 user! In case you'd like to know some Nikon circles from the Europe, let me know about that. I am using Windows 10 Pro 64bit and Nikon is running perfectly in this setup, driver is from SilverFast and I'm using them scanning software(s) which I think are one of the best, if not the best in the marketplace. I also do have contact to special holder maker (3D printing) if you need unique holders, like I do have stereo slide (3D slide) holder and some special holders to keep 35mm and medium format films really flat without any curving or twisting. Congratulations and I am sure you'll like that machine, btw it is an investment.... !
@@KyleMcDougall Hi Kyle, contact Stephan coolscan@gmx.de, he can make special holders you by 3D scanning. Take a look this UA-cam channel, you can find same email address from each video intro. ua-cam.com/channels/8xfhR6kI9IzuyBN2GUW8Mg.html
Thanks for this informative video! What adapter are you using to connect your Coolscan 9000 to your Mac? I have one and am trying to find a way to connect to mine as well. Would you be able to provide a link by chance to a cable or adaptor for me please?
Hey Kyle! I just picked up a Coolscan 9000 myself and am having a bit of trouble getting started with it. I'm wondering....Could I ask you for a few pointers?
I wish products made in 2020 still had words likes "super cool 9000" in the name.
Ronin SC= Super Cool
I would be very happy if there were new 6x7 cameras... Or a digital 645 mirrorless... That would be super cool over 9000.
Maybe even OVER 9000
You could name your next project the "Willbeeck 5000"
Willem leaves his mark on the film community yet again... Thank you!
Amazing! So cool to see these getting used! 30 years ago yesterday, my dad (and his business partner) sold their invention, what would later be branded the cool scan, to Nikon in Tokyo. It was a pivotal moment for my dad and also for our family. Cheers!
No way, that's really cool!
Could you tell us a little bit more ? Sounds very interesting.
@@Julien.Lacombe what would you like to know? For several years back in 1990 or so my dad (an electrical engineer who worked in image processing and computer graphics for years) focused on building a scanner which could achieve high image quality with far fewer parts (and lights) internally than conventional designs had required. Once this technology was proven via iterations of various prototypes, they filed their patent and sold the rights to Nikon who then designed a product around it and branded it as the coolscan.
@@riccoferraro2995 thats incredible!!! Did you or your dad ever buy one?
It makes so much sense to scan at home. Having a lab do it for you all the time adds up quickly.
Man, those scans look so good. I’ve tried scanning on my school’s Epson V750 and could never get results I was happy with. Having that extra resolution would be so nice to work with. Congrats on the purchase!
Thanks man. Super happy with this setup!
I can see the excitement in your eyes, I used one of these in the mid 2000s at a studio I worked at; shopping out Newton rings used to be the worst. I'm now mirrorless scanning my film with a a7riv and a 2:1 macro and I can't be happier.
If you shoot 135 much, pick up also its little brother the CS5000. There's a simple mod you can make for the roll film feeder that removes the 6 exposure limit. It'll let it scan an entire 40 frame roll unattended. That's how I use mine.
I bought both the CS5000 and CS9000 new many years ago. Still have the pair. I've scanned thousands of frames with both.
Your reactions once you see the positive image is priceless, pure joy from your heart :)
Love how excited you get from the results you are getting haha.
Very interesting video, my lab owns 4 scanners and the Cool Scan 9000 is one of them.
I've never bothered to try since they have the Hasselblad Flextight X5 but I'll try it out just to see!
We had one of these beasts in our pc-lab in the university when I was a student. I absolutely have no clue why they even bought it. I was the only one using it and scanned my whole film archive. It was a dream for a poor student to have free acces all the time to such a beast of a machine.
I go to photography school and we actually have this scanner
i found one of these in storage at my job!! my boss said i could have it and i'm super excited to use it!
Amazing find!
Thats so unfair 😅
I was able to pick up a Coolscan V recently after I became sick of the Epson V600's soft results. The workflow with Negative Lab Pro is so pain-free, which is about the best thing you can say about any home scanning workflow really. And you really can't beat the feeling of getting such wonderful colours right out of the conversion. A serious game changer when it comes to home processing
I agree! This changes a lot for me as well.
this is such a great workflow, incredible tonality and sharpness
Yeah, AFAIK it's the GOAT of medium format scanners... Damn envious now, but good for Kyle!
So stoked on this find!
The quality of those scans is awesome! And I love the soft tones. Can't wait to see some images from when you've really got used to the workflow.
Really excited about this one!
Kyle McDougall You bringing it back to the UK? ... and then taking orders? hah.
I bought a Coolscan 4000 ED when they first came out, along with the automatic slide feeder. It has been leant out several times to friends who, like many, have thousands of slides. It still works perfectly after all these years. However, the file sizes on 35mm are already enormous, so a full MF raw scan must be simply enormous. It's not even like a Bayer array raw. With this beast you get full colour sampling at each pixel.
If it's just sitting there collecting dust... ::wink wink:: haha.
Love, love your excitement, as I would be too :). Great scans, and isn't NLP just the thing, love that plug-in, nothing like it. Thanks for a great video, those scans look amazing.
I have bought a Nikon Coolscan V ED a few years ago and has done around 3 000 slides and black and white strips, with good quality.
I bought one of these used about 10 years ago via a lucky eBay find (and it was quite pricey even then), due to my extreme disappointment with the quality of medium format lab scans at the time. I've been extremely happy with it overall, and still use it to this day.
I actually do also have the glass holder, and I honestly don't like it very much. The results aren't quite as sharp, and I constantly get Newton rings (despite it technically having ANR glass). I really only use it when trying to scan film that's too warped to get flat in the glassless medium format holder.
Interesting to hear about your experience with the glass holder. I really thought it was a must. But maybe I'll work on perfecting my use of the stock holders first.
There's also someone who makes/sells 3D printed holders that are supposedly really good.
ua-cam.com/channels/8xfhR6kI9IzuyBN2GUW8Mg.html
They're modular, so you can use them as a glassless or glass holder for any format. I haven't tried them yet with glass. With glassless, my main issue is that they can only mask a single frame at a time, so "scan the whole roll" would be way too tedious for me to even want to try.
I also have the glass holder, and I don’t use them because the newton rings and it’s a lot more work if you try to use film masks. I follow this workflow and works great themachineplanet.wordpress.com/2018/02/24/maximizing-your-nikon-fh-869s/
I also have the glass holder and agree with the newton rings, so i just use the FH-8695 as mentioned above
Congratulation - you're the lucky one to get this beast !!! Right in time for Canada Day... I enjoy my Coolscan V ED for 12 years now and I'm still happy with it for 35mm and slides, thanks to Nikon (then...)
This blew my mind! I didn't know you could scan film so well! I agree with you, I would love to see some new film scanning tech!
🙌
I had a 9000 for many years, right up until my house caught fire. Sadly, the scanner didn't survive. Thankfully, all my negs were fine.
Man, that's a GREAT find. The scans you will get out of that machine are bested only by an Imacon or a drum scanner.
We had those nikon-scanners in photography school between 00-03. Never thought they'd just stop making them. Sorely want one now.
@Pete Melon you are right! Think we got it just before grad in 03. Might have been an older model, although we had pretty dope equipment like a whole hall of g3s, which was pretty dope at the time for a school to possess, let just one program in one 😂 didn’t realise how spoiled we were until after.
Congrats on the scanner!
These scanners have a legendary status and when you learn the tricks for the negative holder you have a great friend there!
Keep up the good work!
Thank you. Excited to use it more!
That scanner rocks - the Coolscan 5000 with the auto slide feeder is magic.
Does it work with Silverfast ? I tried it quickly when I tested a flatbed and thought the software was pretty efficient.
It does, but the process is pretty annoying. First, you have to make sure none of the Nikon drivers are installed when installing SilverFast or it won't load its own drivers correctly. Second, every single time you want to eject/insert the film holder SilverFast needs to be restarted.
A full license of Silverfast for this scanner is over $400 (probably $300 if you upgrade). Silverfast is nice software but the license is too much. I have SF Ai for a PrimeFilm XA, and Epson 4490. I recently found a great deal on a v700. Had I cross graded to SF Ai (which you will need if you want RAW scans and other advanced features) it would have been a bit over $200. I opted for Vuescan Professional and ColorPerfect. VS is about $100 and CP about $70. SF licenses are specific to the type of scanner and VS works on every scanner you have. Both Silverfast and ColorPerfect render very similar colors. SF if you want to go straight from negative to a color corrected scan, VS+CP if you want to scan a HQ RAW file and convert in post. You can also scan RAW files with SF but VS has a few advantages (you can do multiple samples to improve you scan and you can also use infrared dust and scratch removal on your RAW files [so modified RAW] which SF8 removed as a feature). Since I do have SF for my 35mm scanner I will use it for making batch proofs of my film then I will make high resolution scans of select frames with VS. Scanning is a slow process.
It's fun to see how excited you are about this! Seems to work really great. Congrats on the purchase!
Thank you.
Love this scanner Kyle , great results and excellent overview !
Cheers!
I love the actual excitement here - I'm genuinely happy for you!
Thank you!
You look so happy opening the box
Nice. I have the same scanner I bought 2nd hand a few years ago. It was mint from a person who took care of it, but it still was substantially expensive. A bonus he had the glass holder so that was part of the package.
Two weeks ago I was extremely lucky to get my hands on a brand new Coolscan 8000, until then I was scanning with an Epson V850: the experience of opening one of these high-class scanners for the first time has been absolutely satisfying (you only have to look at the holders and you quickly realise that the quality of this line of scanners was far superior to current flatbeds) But if I took the step to update my Epson, it was because of the quality of the results: in medium format it's much better than the V850 (in my case 80% 6x6, 20% 6x7), in 35mm the comparison is absolutely unfavorable for the Epson.
Epic. Found one on ebay and googled it and saw you video. Does this give more quality than DSLR scanning? Flatbeds suck balzz. For now I have a lab do it. But the DPI is limited. And a friend of mine used his A7RV for it.
Remove the film tensioners on the standard holder, buy some ANR glass that's the same length as the film opening and as wide but a tad smaller, put neg in holder then lay the glass on top of the neg, makes a big improvement to edge sharpness.
That's the plan. Going to try that today. I have some ANR glass from an Epson Better Scanning holder. Width of it is perfect, but it's a little long, but looks like it'll fit if I remove the screw from one of the tensioners.
@@KyleMcDougall, Yea I used the same, width prefect a little long, so cut it too size, works a treat.
Wow, what a great find! You look super excited and I don't blame ya, i'd be too. Enjoy it! and looking forward to seeing some scans. I use a Dimage Scan Elite 5400 II and found that using it Vuescan software gave me better results than the stock software (20 years old?). I now use Vuescan to output RAW TIFF and convert using NLP for the best of both worlds: high resolution + accurate colors.
I’ve heard great things about the Minolta 5400!
I have Minolta DiMAGE Scan Dual II (which I believe is quite similar to the Elite) which I got for 120€ on eBay. It's really good and easy to use with Vuescan (have to factor the price of the software in of course). Highly recommended as an affordable alternative. It only scans 35mm though.
Sometimes with images I am really curious the aperture used as well as the focus point in the image itself. A lot of photographers don’t share this but I am so curious as to what the person’s eye is actually shooting for to get the desired image.
Secondly, LOVE the Neg Lab Pro plugin. I am glad to see others using it as well!
Something I'll keep in mind for a future video!
I have one of these scanners. It's been a workhorse for many years. The weak point in these is the obvious compatibility of the Nikon Scan 4 software and it's compatibility with current operating systems, and the holder motor gear teeth will eventually strip and make it so the scans are out of alignment with the lens.
Wow! Super cool find (no pun intended) I used to use one of those like 10 years ago when I worked at a photographic archive... I had forgotten how massive it was. I remember that it took a while to scan a film strip, but the colors were amazing, specially for slide film. I had been wondering what it could do in combination with NLP so thanks for sharing!
Nice , have been wanting one for years . Makes really deep scans for every purpose .
Very nice find 👏🏽 and impressive results!👌🏽
Thank you.
Haha, that smile, like a child in a candy store :D
Yeah, he was almost breathless in the beginning. Can’t say that I blame him.
😁
I'd love to get one of these but you are right, the prices are sooooo high. You'd almost have to turn it into a business or be able to sell the machine when you were done with it.
The banding issue was only on the 4000/8000 series scanners. NIkon fixed the problem on the 5000/9000 scanners. So the 9000ED can scan three pixel rows at a time with no banding, which is obviously 3x faster. The VueScan _Fine Mode_ forces the Coolscan to read only a single pixel row before advancing the film. While _Fine Mode_ was a must-use feature on my old 8000, I've never used is on my 9000.
You *look* excited, like a kid with a new bike.
Congratulations, you just got yourself a legend
This got me to upgrade my scanner. Nothing near the price or quality. But went from a canon canoscan 8800f to a plustek 7200. Also got me to find negative lab pro. It seriously made all my work better along with the increase in speed and resolution of my new scanner.
The Nikon Scan software is actually pretty good if you can get it working. I find that it's very good at correcting colours in expired film. The digital ice works much better than in vuescan too.
I’ve heard good things about it. Originally I was going to try and find an older iMac to use it with, but I’m happy with this workflow and results for now.
Man, that´s so cool! That machine is pretty rare anyway, even more in unused condition. The best thing about that scanner is that I belive it´s the only one that can read the IX-Data from APS Film properly. Labs struggle a lot with that nowerdays because either their modern machines can´t handle the magnetic strip or the people at the lab can´t handle their equipment. Very annoying when you go into a lab and tell them you want the title of your APS film printed on the front, not on the back, and they look at you with that blank expression... then they say no text is printed onto the paper anyway... just annoying.
Really glad you got hold of this awesome piece!
Thank you. It definitely hasn't disappointed!
@@KyleMcDougall Good to know :)
I just picked up a Coolscan 5000 for $300 CAD yesterday. Wicked deal in my opinion. I tried it with Vuescan and I was quickly reminded why I hate it. So I went the route of using a VM running Windows XP. As clunky as XP is the Nikon Scan software is a much more pleasant experience than Vuescan and the Nikon software does a lot of the heavy lifting.
I did a test by simply clicking the scan button in Nikon Scan and compared it to a lab scan. I was hard pressed to find any major differences beyond sight hue differences between the two.
On my Win10 1909 system, the final version of Nikon Scan actually installed and ran properly with results very similar to Vuescan. Thanks for your initial look at this outstanding product.
Thanks, Bill.
I felt NLP got SO much better with version 2. Very happy with it now.
Damn it... just when I thought I had quit film photography for good this time (it’s just getting too expensive), videos like this pull me back in. I gotta find a CoolScan...
😁
Luckyyyyy duckyyyyy. Great results, dude!
I've had the 9000 for 5 years now and it's still serving me great! For medium format, this thing can't be beat. For 35mm, I find it a little too slow and tedious but the quality is still amazing. I definitely recommend the glass holder if you can find one for a decent price. I don't think it's a requirement, especially if you have good scanning technique, but having the glass holder just makes loading film faster and easier. It especially helps with curved or bent negatives.
Yeah, it could definitely be a bit of a slow process so 36 frames. I’m willing wait though for the quality!
@@KyleMcDougall In my case, using its little brother (Coolscan 8000), scanning a strip of 12 35mm negatives at 4000 dpi takes me almost 2 hours: a whole roll, 6 hours. The quality is absolutely good, but it takes time.
My local used camera shop got a 9000 in recently in good condition. Over 4 grand CDN though!
Yeah, they're not cheap! Never have been.
The Firewire cards are a common point of failure across the whole coolscan line. To be absolutely safe I would suggest picking up an old machine with a firewire connection rather than running through multiple adapters. Maybe it’s overkill but that what I do with my coolscan. Also make sure to join the facebook group Nikon Coolscan users, tons of good knowledge there.
Thanks Alexander. Already a part of the group as well!
That last photo of the truck is one of my favorites! Looks muuch better to me than the epson
Just scooped up one of these on ebay for $1400! Thank you for mentioning what cables you used. I can confirm Firewire to USB cable doesnt work lol. Fingers crossed!
Nice deal! Enjoy!
@@KyleMcDougall Hey Kyle! What Macbook are ya using? I bought the same cables/adapters but Vuescan isn't seein it :-/ But I'm using the Macbook M1..
Thanks a lot for sharing, Kyle. This is really amazing.
Thank you, Julien!
OMG I'm drooling just after reading the title!
Thanks for the vid! Looking forward to see real samples for the next time you do the review it’s a little hard to know the quality from the UA-cam screen but I can sense your excitement so it must be very good. Cheers
Wow, one of the best investments for a film photographer, congrats!
Thank you.
This is great! Is is possible to list the article you referenced about things to know when using the default holders?
www.dantestella.com/technical/nikonholder.html
@@KyleMcDougall that is such a good website, ty
I heard "Cool Scan 9000" and thought immediately of Harry Potter's new broom.
Home scanning really is something else 🥵
16:50 Real to life or not, in my opinion this looks so much more compelling than the version you end up with after editing it.
I agree!
You may be one of the luckiest film users on the planet for finding that. All that would be better is a free Aztek with a repairman included. I found that Silverfast on a Mac works just fine with the Firewire to Thunderbolt adapter. BTW, the thing vibrates like crazy. I ended up mounting mine on sorbothane blocks to try to dissipate some of that, and even put sorbothane blocks on top.
So now, how big is the gap (in terms of sharpness/detail) between a Coolscan and a Hasselblad or Noritsu scanner?
Can’t comment unfortunately as I’ve never done a direct comparison. Sorry!
Try Nikon Scan 4, by setting up a virtual machine with Win XP. It is quite easy and colors are way better than with Vuescan!
You don't need WinXP. Nikon Scan runs just fine on the latest Windows 10, as long as you jump through a few hoops to get the drivers to load.
@@derekkonigsberg2047 fun fact: Installing the demo of Silverfast seems to work also. Nikon Scan recognizes my V ED since then perfectly.
I bought a Coolscan V for my 35mm and it just so much better than my v600 for color negatives. The Nikon sharpness and noise to signal ratio is so much better than the V600. I can only dream to get a Coolscan 9000 for 120 film, I think I would shoot a lot more color 120 film.
I use a coolscan iii. It's really good, I wish they still made these!
You FOUND it? Lucky boy!
I bought a Coolscan 5000 new in 2004, and have always wished that I had shelled out for the 9000. I think my reasoning then was that if I bought a 9000 I would "have" to start shooting medium format and spending a lot more money.
Really great results! Seems like a very enjoyable process, wish I had that kind of money. I use epson v600 with silverfast, makes colorscanning a lot better, but still not as smooth as this process.
How viable is it for a one stop shop scanner at home paired with home development? For 135 and 120 film of course. Is scanning a whole roll any more cumbersome or time consuming than something like a v850? Any general thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for all you do for the film community.
I've never used a LS9000, but use the LS5000. IMO it's so much easier to get good results from a CoolScan compared to a Epson flatbed, even if a Epson flatbed also can get pretty good results. You can get Nikon Scan to run on Windows 10. Not sure about Mac. I use Nikon Scan with the LS5000 as it works with the slide feeder. Maybe not as important with a LS9000, but I've never been a fan of VueScan. Maybe I should try it again for the RAW option.
Do you have an links to the adapters you bought for this scanner? Recently picked one up and also using the latest macbooks :) thanks for the video it made me purchase one here in the UK 🖖
Nice! I just bought the adapters off of apples website.
@@KyleMcDougall Struggling to find all the 3 you mentioned, can't seem to find the 400 to 800 adapter?
Happy for you. That is probably one of the best 120 film scanners ever made. You will get better results from this scanners CCD sensor than any CMOS camera. You might also want to checkout ColorPerfect. I tested out CP and NLP and I liked the color conversion from CP a lot more. CP was similar to the results you can get from Silverfast but since it works on RAW scans it is much better. There is a new player than I been meaning to rest out since it is free (Grain2Pixel). Great pickup, probably the best option other than a drum scanner (which which one of us would not love to have the space time and money for).
I've also been using ColorPerfect. I wish it had a less clunky UI, but its worked fairly well once I figured it out. (The main reason I'm not a NLP fan is that I'd prefer to invert my images before bringing them into Lightroom.)
Thanks, Jose. I’ll have to take a look at that software. I am really happy with NLP though.
@@derekkonigsberg2047 Something about German software, the UI is not the best but the math behind it is great. I believe the developers of CP are using whatever data sheets they can get on the film to get the best results when converting. I basically use it to invert RAW scans to flat images then adjust from there (works great for inverting black and white too).
Is it just me or does the grain2pixel website not exist anymore. I was intrigued with it being free but i cant find a way to download it.
Could you do a comparison to the Plustek OpticFilm 120 pro scanner? as that's the most modern ''equivalent scanner'' on the market currently aside from the Pacific Image PF120 Pro.
I'd love to, if I could get my hands on one.
@@KyleMcDougall There is very little propaganda and/or content for that matter currently out on the product given your at the 50k mark I’d request for review unit but they are available for purchase in the US currently from what iv seen.
I own a Nikon cool scan 5000. From what I understand you can’t beat a drum scan for doing large prints from 35 mm. How does the Nikon cool scan 9000 compared to a drum scan or Professional high quality digital scanner?
The 9000 and 5000 are very comparable from what I’ve heard, for 35mm film.
Kyle McDougall : The Lab that I use uses a high-end Hasselblad scanner. I’m not sure how much they cost but I heard that could cost as much as $20,000. It be interesting to see a comparison between the drum scan, the Hasselblad scanner and the Nikon cool scan 5000 or 9000 and see what prints look like from 16 by 20 inch and larger prints. I don’t think anybody has done that so far. From what someone told me you used to use the Nikon cool scan 5000, he said he wouldn’t recommend going to 16 x 20“ prints with a Nikon cool scan 5000. He thought optimum quality would be just slightly over 11-14 inches. What are your views on this?
When it comes to the 5000 and max print size, a lot of that will be personal preference. I’m quite happy with the results that I can get from 35mm scanned on the 9000, and I’d be fine printing at 16x24, or even a bit larger.
Kyle McDougall: Thanks for all the advice. Look forward to seeing more stuff on the coolscan. Now I have to learn how to use it.
As a long term Coolscan 9000 ED user - on a Mac - I can tell you it takes some learning to get the best out of it, but the best is amazing. The best scanner south of an Imacon or a drum scanner. Enjoy.
Thanks David! Loving it so far.
@@KyleMcDougall your biggest issue will be keeping film flat. I have a 3D printed "universal" film mount that I got from a guy in Germany - does all MF and even XPan formats and holds film completely flat. My 6x7's look amazing with that.
can see genuine joy here :) at least you didn't mention the price like couple of $. it would kill me with envy in a sec.
Been using my V800 for scanning images from my Mamiya 6 & RZ67 and ... whew the scans from the Cool Scan look amazing. Thanks for this video though I’m afraid watching it is going to cost me some money!
Super-Cool video man 👍
What did you use to shoot it? 🤔
Thank you. Pocket 4K.
Since film is just a hobby for me I have always just scanned with my flatbed Canoscan 9000. There is a Nikon 8000 here though from the photographer I bought the building from. I remember him saying it stopped working. Now I want to explore it after seeing this. I wonder if anyone can fix them?
Yep, there's a guy still servicing them, I believe his name is Frank. www.nikonscanners.com
@@KyleMcDougall Awesome - thanks! Watching how giddy you were was just too motivating!
I have been looking at a better way to scan medium format and this caught my interest. Did you ever do a follow up on it? Is it still working well for you? They have gone up in price quite a bit and I am always concerned with older electronics and compatibility with new operating systems and software.
Really helpful video - thanks. Like you, I hope the resurgence in home scanning of medium format negatives gives rise to new, high-quality scanners. There’s a real gap in the market. Be great if Nikon re-engineered its 9000 with a modern USB-C interface...and better film holders. For now, I’ve just pressed ‘buy’ on an 8000 which will be with me in a few weeks’ time. Looking forward to seeing the results using your suggested workflow.
I'm sure you'll love it, Andrew. And yes, I agree, hopefully we'll see something new in the future.
Kyle McDougall Have you seen these new 120 format negative holders? ua-cam.com/video/WgZZs-2qLTU/v-deo.html
I'm really enjoying this video Kyle! Could you do a video on how you improve scans further using photoshop?
Most of my editing is done in LR. I did a video a while back showing my process for editing film scans, if you're interested.
Wow wow what a find!
Hi Kyle. Great and informative video! Any chance you can leave a link to where one can get the FireWire to thunderbolt 2 cable you mentioned in the video? Many thanks 🙏
www.apple.com/ca/shop/product/MD464LL/A/apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapter
Curious, what kind of monitor do you use? Looks great!
In this video it was a BenQ 3200Q, but I'm now using an LG Ultrafine 5K.
Hello, just a question : how do you like this scanner vs nowadays new scanners or film scanning with a high resolution digital camera ? I own an Epson pro 850 and struggle getting sharp images, even my older epson 4990 provided sharper images… thank you
Do you have a link to the article you mentioned regarding how to load film into the film holder?
Great find, there is a couple for sale on Ebay UK for around £2,500. I would love to see a comparison video against the plustek 120.
Can you link to the article about the trays? Love your work.
Greetings from LS9000 user! In case you'd like to know some Nikon circles from the Europe, let me know about that. I am using Windows 10 Pro 64bit and Nikon is running perfectly in this setup, driver is from SilverFast and I'm using them scanning software(s) which I think are one of the best, if not the best in the marketplace. I also do have contact to special holder maker (3D printing) if you need unique holders, like I do have stereo slide (3D slide) holder and some special holders to keep 35mm and medium format films really flat without any curving or twisting. Congratulations and I am sure you'll like that machine, btw it is an investment.... !
Thank you. And yes, definitely an investment, but worth it IMO. Currently looking into a new medium format holder.
@@KyleMcDougall Hi Kyle, contact Stephan coolscan@gmx.de, he can make special holders you by 3D scanning. Take a look this UA-cam channel, you can find same email address from each video intro. ua-cam.com/channels/8xfhR6kI9IzuyBN2GUW8Mg.html
Thanks for this informative video! What adapter are you using to connect your Coolscan 9000 to your Mac? I have one and am trying to find a way to connect to mine as well. Would you be able to provide a link by chance to a cable or adaptor for me please?
Hey Kyle! I just picked up a Coolscan 9000 myself and am having a bit of trouble getting started with it. I'm wondering....Could I ask you for a few pointers?
Yep. Shoot me an email. Info@kylemcdougallphoto.com
Great! Can you do a side-by-side comparison between the Epson v800 and the Nikon?
I don’t own a V800. But I can do one with the 4990.
you have no idea how lucky you were to find this, i know plustek make a 120 dedicated scanner which is the only modern option i can think of
I feel lucky!
Can you recommend something not as expensive for getting digital copies of those fuji disposable cameras that Walmart used to sell
I’m so jealous Kyle. BTW, you do know that on returning to the UK the scanner will need to be quarantined for 6 months, in my house 😀
😂I'll never let this go!
Well said Steve!