«

I am in the market for a good quality film scanner at a reasonable price. My
intended use is to scan 35mm negatives for the web and to work on my
Photoshop skills. I may also make some prints up to 8x10. In researching, I
found that the Coolscan III can be purchased for $200 - $300 used. I know
this is an older machine but if I found one that was in good shape, would
this be a good choice? My other option seems to be a new (or used) Minolta
Dimage Scan Dual III. Of the two, which would you choose? Also, please
offer any other options that would seem to fit. I would like to keep my
investment at $300 or less.

Thanks!

The CoolScan III would be a better choice solely because it has ICE
built-in. The SD3 is bad about making small specs of dust into huge glowing
globs in your scanned image.

Check the interface on the CoolScan 3 - some of the older scanners used SCSI
but I'm not sure about that one off the top of my head. Even that scanner
with a cheap SCSI card is a great deal.

The Coolscan III does use a SCSI interface. Is this a whole lot slower than
USB? If I am not going to be scanning bulk, will this be an issue?

Thanks.

"Ed E." <> wrote in message
news:...
> The CoolScan III would be a better choice solely because it has ICE
> built-in. The SD3 is bad about making small specs of dust into huge
glowing
> globs in your scanned image.
>
> Check the interface on the CoolScan 3 - some of the older scanners used
SCSI
> but I'm not sure about that one off the top of my head. Even that scanner
> with a cheap SCSI card is a great deal.
>
>

In article <>,
Ed E. <> wrote:
>The CoolScan III would be a better choice solely because it has ICE
>built-in. The SD3 is bad about making small specs of dust into huge glowing
>globs in your scanned image.
>
>Check the interface on the CoolScan 3 - some of the older scanners used SCSI
>but I'm not sure about that one off the top of my head. Even that scanner
>with a cheap SCSI card is a great deal.
>
>


I bought a Minolta Dimage Elite F-2900 on Ebay a year ago for about
$200 and it scans up to 4032x2688 pixels. It's scsi, which was not a
problem for me. The newer Minolta, in the store, was USB and I almost
bought it but I realized that the 2900 had Digital Ice and the current
model, at a similar price, didn't. I'm scanning lots of very old
slides and it's doing a great job.







--
Al Dykes
-----------

"Patrick B Cox" <> wrote in
newsQL_b.5218$AL.131930@attbi_s03:

> The Coolscan III does use a SCSI interface. Is this a whole lot
> slower than USB? If I am not going to be scanning bulk, will this be
> an issue?

DUH! You are insulting SCSI. SCSI will kick USB 1's posterior, any day
(SCSI-II is seven times faster than USB 1). Transfer speed is not much of
an issue with scanners anyway, the bottleneck is in getting the data off
the film.

SCSI is a PITA
THe price you would pay for the Nikon is about as much as Nikon will charge
to repair it, and they may fail to repair it, so make certain it works
properly or send it back. When it fails - and it WILL fail, toss it out.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist's Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from my novel "Haight-Ashbury" is at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html
"Patrick B Cox" <> wrote in message
news:KqH_b.50346$4o.71011@attbi_s52...
> I am in the market for a good quality film scanner at a reasonable price.
My
> intended use is to scan 35mm negatives for the web and to work on my
> Photoshop skills. I may also make some prints up to 8x10. In researching,
I
> found that the Coolscan III can be purchased for $200 - $300 used. I know
> this is an older machine but if I found one that was in good shape, would
> this be a good choice? My other option seems to be a new (or used) Minolta
> Dimage Scan Dual III. Of the two, which would you choose? Also, please
> offer any other options that would seem to fit. I would like to keep my
> investment at $300 or less.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
>

> The Coolscan III does use a SCSI interface. Is this a whole lot slower
than
> USB? If I am not going to be scanning bulk, will this be an issue?

As Magnus noted, SCSI is faster. The down side is the price of the card and
cable between the card and the scanner. But do yourself a favor and get a
scanner with ICE built into it, not that software-only stuff like the Scan
Dual III uses. It honestly makes a huge difference.

www.imaging-resource.com for scanner reviews of them all.

Here, I'd go with the Minolta Scan Dual IV for $350 from
www.bhphotovideo.com today new instead of the III. Higher resolution,
faster.

---

Otherwise, the $800 Minolta Scan 5400. No point going for something
with lower resolution at this price - totally packed with everything
you'll ever need.

---

That said, you can get away with 1) $59 Epson 1660 Photo flatbed scanner
with 35mm adapter at Fry's Electronics refub'd and elsewhere. Why pay
more when you're doing web work? You're definitely not going to be
uploading 3000x3000+ images, right? 2) digital camera with slide
adapter lens attachment (eg. Nikon 99x/95x series with such). Very fast
way to take 'scans' of film. Just press the shutter button. 3) Find a
local lab with a digital film processor. eg. Flashback photo in
Westminster, CA has a Noritsu QSS-3011 and can scan ~1500x1000 images
from film to CD-R discs. ~$1/frame, but far, far faster than you'd ever
get done at home for a few rolls of film, built-in scratch & dust
removal through ICE in the Noritsu, and the operator can do a fast color
correction faster than you can.

Sometimes, honestly, it's not necessary to spend $$$ on 'scanning' just
for fun & web. A basic scanner can do it all.

But, if you're looking to archive negatives in the future, at least the
Minolta Scan Dual IV.

Excellent advise Tony,
I don't think I've come across a CSIII owner who has had any reliability out
of their scanner. One poor sole paid $350 to have his repaired and it worked
for 2 days. The Nikon agent said "Due to the complexity of the item and the
fact it relies on other devices outside our control, we do not offer any
guarantees on repairs to these scanners."

Douglas
---------------------
"Tony Spadaro" <> wrote in message
news:%VM_b.40464$. com...
> SCSI is a PITA
> THe price you would pay for the Nikon is about as much as Nikon will
charge
> to repair it, and they may fail to repair it, so make certain it works
> properly or send it back. When it fails - and it WILL fail, toss it out.
>
> --

"David Chien" <> wrote in message
news:c1gcus$e0b$...
> www.imaging-resource.com for scanner reviews of them all.
>
> Here, I'd go with the Minolta Scan Dual IV for $350 from
> www.bhphotovideo.com today new instead of the III. Higher resolution,
> faster.

I see that scanner is now 299 bux....how are they? I have 200-300 50 year
old slides of the Korean War taken on Kodachrome that I need to scan. Also,
I want to scan negative film for print archives taken with a 'vintage' AE-1
that I own.

Would this be a good choice for me? I've been scanning the negatives with a
flatbed, and the results are not great to mediocre.

thanks


>
> ---
>
> Otherwise, the $800 Minolta Scan 5400. No point going for something
> with lower resolution at this price - totally packed with everything
> you'll ever need.
>
> ---
>
> That said, you can get away with 1) $59 Epson 1660 Photo flatbed scanner
> with 35mm adapter at Fry's Electronics refub'd and elsewhere. Why pay
> more when you're doing web work? You're definitely not going to be
> uploading 3000x3000+ images, right? 2) digital camera with slide
> adapter lens attachment (eg. Nikon 99x/95x series with such). Very fast
> way to take 'scans' of film. Just press the shutter button. 3) Find a
> local lab with a digital film processor. eg. Flashback photo in
> Westminster, CA has a Noritsu QSS-3011 and can scan ~1500x1000 images
> from film to CD-R discs. ~$1/frame, but far, far faster than you'd ever
> get done at home for a few rolls of film, built-in scratch & dust
> removal through ICE in the Noritsu, and the operator can do a fast color
> correction faster than you can.
>
> Sometimes, honestly, it's not necessary to spend $$$ on 'scanning' just
> for fun & web. A basic scanner can do it all.
>
> But, if you're looking to archive negatives in the future, at least the
> Minolta Scan Dual IV.