Review 1 of 17
Price Paid:
$180.00
from used Summary: I got an original Coolscan (LS10) used just this past week. It is no longer supported by Nikon, but there are some rudimentary drivers on their webpage at www.nikon-image.com. I have been eyeing digital cameras for years, but they do not have the ability to get an A4 300dpi printout quality. I have even tried scanning 4x6 prints and thought that was okay, but the moment I scanned my negatives and slides at 2700dpi on the Coolscan, I knew that this was the ONLY way to go fully digital.
Digital cameras are not yet at the point where they can match the resolution of scanned film. Although lens technology has been improving steadily at a frequent pace, the quality that 35mm SLR lenses put onto film are probably within the 5-8MP range. Also, you don''t get the chromatic abberations of the lenses on digital cameras and their sensors- for some reason, a film scanner seems to be much better at this.
The output of the LS10 looks great, but I still have to do lots of touch up with all the dust and scratches on my film. It is well worth it since I do touch up on anything that I print at A4. The US driver (4.14?) is not as stable as the UK (1.21) driver (all on the nikon-image site). For the amount I paid, I feel that this is the only way to get a decent high resolution image from a camera. Oh, also, the scanning times are pretty slow- about 7 minutes for a 2700dpi scan, but I don''t scan everything, just what I want to print. I used to scan my 4x6 prints, but have found that my 35mm film holds much, much more image information.
I''m guessing that 4x6 prints (since I used to scan them at 200,300,600dpi) will hold no more info than a 1-2.2MP camera and depending on the way it was printed, it may have lost most of the detail in the shadows and highlights. The most remarkable thing is that (since I am looking directly off the negative), I see how good my lenses are despite how they look in prints (screw all those lens reviews you thought you could trust). 35mm cameras and lenses are pretty good from what I have seen- and for sure much better than the current crop of digitial cameras Strengths: sharp, high resolution, better than a 5MP digital camera Weaknesses: old, slow, old software, no TWAIN, No Digital ICE, manual touchup focussing Similar Products Used: None
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