Nikon CoolScan V ED Film Scanner (35 mm)

Pros: Excellent image quality, reliable mechanical build, intuitive design, good software, reasonably priced.
Cons: Nothing worth mentioning so far.

Introduction I teach digital photography and I own a compact digital camera. I enjoy both of them thoroughly. The convenience of digital photography is unquestionable, but the image quality has been more than questionable for many years. As ...

Pros: Excellent images and software
Cons: Slow and noisy, will scan one slide at a time, only

My dad purchased a Nikon Coolscan V scanner recently, and I took over the job of scanning over 30 years of memories, long forgotten in shoeboxes and shelves high up and out of sight. The scanner works very well in obtaining high-resolution digital images ...

Pros: Reasonably good scans
Cons: Buggy, clumsy Macintosh software

I've been using the CoolScan V ED for about a month. Since I've switched to a digital camera and I'm now making my own prints, I want to digitize all my negatives so I can archive them to DVD and throw away the bulky film. I've been taking 35mm pictures ...

Pros: Slides come out beautiful, many options for adjustment
Cons: Only 1 slide per scan, can be complicated to set up

I have scanned in a total of maybe 1,000 slides. The scanner is great in handling a variety of slides in different conditions. It handled everything except the very worst ones that were completely washed out. The slides came out excellent, with ...

Pros: Speed, scan quality
Cons: Price

I didn't know anything about scanners but I needed one as I love shooting with film, but I like post-processing my pictures.
So I followed the recommendations of the main reviews and forums I could see and went for this Coolscan. Minolta's scan dual IV was cheaper and maybe very good too, but everyone says Nikons are better...
So this scanner is really impressive. It is fast (less than 3 minutes with ALL enhancements activated), and the result are always excellent.
It is also very easy to install and operate, so I really have no complaint about this scanner.
Finally, it looks small on the pictures but it is very deep so be careful if you don't have so much space.

Pros: Competent while working.
Cons: Shoddy construction. Poor service

I put my new Nikon Coolscan V Ed into service and found that it worked for about six hours. Then it broke down and ceased to function. I sent it overnight to the company for service under their one year warranty. They have supposedly been working on it for the last three weeks, and can give me no idea of when I can expect to have it repaired and returned to me. Not my best purchase.

Pros: Good quality
Cons: No drivers from Nikon to support Vista 64.

While I am pleased with the scanner itself, I am very disappointed with Nikon's lack of driver support.  I recently updated to a computer running Vista 64 and discovered that this expensive scanner is not is not supported with an appropriate driver from Nikon.  I went on line and read numerous accounts of this problem by other users.  Based on these accounts and recommendations, I was able to purchase a driver by a third party, VueScan ($79.95 - Professional Single User Edition), which seems to work fine with Vista 64...But shame on Nikon and their customer/equipment support, or lack there of.

Pros: Easy to use, easy to set up, and produces excellent-quality images.
Cons: Software could be improved from a stability standpoint

I have scanned about 20 images now and I have to say that I'm thoroughly impressed. The overall resolution, detail and contrast is outstanding, not to mention the Digital ICE touch-ups. I also don't experience the slowness that others have reported. I would estimate it takes only 2-3 minutes for a full-res scan in 14-bit mode.

My minor gripes are these:
The software is a little unstable, but if you import using Photoshop it seems to take care of the problem. Also, it would be nice to have a slightly higher-res preview scan. It's really hard to see adjustments with a tiny preview window.

Overall I highly recommend this product over any class-competitors.

Pros: Excellent quality of image, Reasonable price.
Cons: Lacks a detailed usage manual. Defaults are set for slides in good condition.

Excellent scanner. almost too easy to get started. Takes a little while of playing to change the defaults to what you want. Was able to restore everything but the poorest. Still lost some from fungus, but so fat have scanned 400 of an eventual 2000 or so that I will scan. Once you set it up to filter and correct all the colors and scratches, it takes 8 to 10 minutes per slide with final adjustments to colors on a Pentium 4 with 2.0 GB with 1 GB of ram. On a Pentium M 1.8 GB with similar ram I was able to cut almost 2 minutes off the time. It takes 100% of the processor while it is scanning, so don't think of using other apps.