Film/slide scanner for Mac

colyn

colyn

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Any recommendations for a decent film/slide scanner for Mac under $500. Prefer firewire or USB 2.0

I'm not interested in flatbed scanners.
 
not sure if the minolta dimage IVs work with Macs but they're good scanners.. if you can still find them. Sold mine for 300$ 1 yr back. =)
 
I've been using a Nikon Coolscan V for about a year now on my Powerbook with excellent results.. it's not firewire, unfortunately, but the scan times are pretty decent
 
The Minolta Dimage III works fine on old my dual G4 PowerMac, albeit slow with the USB 1 interface on the PowerMac. The Dimage series will run USB 2 for faster scans on current machines.
 
trev2401 said:
not sure if the minolta dimage IVs work with Macs but they're good scanners.. if you can still find them. Sold mine for 300$ 1 yr back. =)
Click to expand...

I checked the website and they are compatible with Mac.
Thanks
 
Yes, I use a Dimage IV with an iMac, got it here on RFF for under $200. Works great, I use Vuescan with it.
 
dpetrzelka said:
The Minolta Dimage III works fine on old my dual G4 PowerMac, albeit slow with the USB 1 interface on the PowerMac. The Dimage series will run USB 2 for faster scans on current machines.
Click to expand...

Checking the specs it does not appear to support the Intel Mac. It only lists the Power PC and Windows.
 
digitalintrigue said:
Yes, I use a Dimage IV with an iMac, got it here on RFF for under $200. Works great, I use Vuescan with it.
Click to expand...

This is the one I've been looking at but was wondering if it has firewire support or just USB?
 
Save up the lunchmoney and spend the extra $50 for the Coolscan V. The considerably higher DMax will be well worth it.
 
I have the coolscan v too and love it. In leopard I think the coolscan standalone scanning app stopped working but it doesnt really matter because I always do the file>import in photoshop and it brings up the same dialogue and options.

I can upload some full uncompressed scans to rapidshare or some other uploading site if you want to see samples of what the images are like. Anything too: B&W, color, digital ice, no digital ice, whatever...
 
have a look at the epson 700 or 750 - works great under OSX. you can see the samples in my flickr stream. works well for both 35 and medium format. if you do lots of medium format, there are even third party film holders for it.
 
Is the dmage usb 2.0? The Nkon V definitely is. I'd recommend the IV as a good alternative, but it's 1.1. And it's"only" 2900 dpi.

allan
 
I've owned a Nikon V Coolscan for several years now. It worked fine on my old PPC iMac and works as well, and is faster, on my new Intel Mac Mini. My only gripe that Nikon has not updated the software (or drivers?) to mesh with the newer Intel Macs, meaning you're running through Rosetta. This works fine, but I do wish Nikon would spend the $$$ to bring their software into the modern Mac world.

Jim B.
 
I have a Nikon Coolscan IV attached to my Mac Mini. The Nikon software hasn't been updated since the summer of 2004! It is slow and sometimes just fails to launch on my Mac. It's junk. Run one of the third party programs like VueScan or Silverfast if you purchase a Nikon scanner. BTW, the Coolscan IV works great. The extra resolution of the model V would be nice, though.
 
You said you were not interested in flatbeds, but I would second 0bli0's suggestion for the epson 700/750. I was the lab manager at my alma mater for two years, the last year I was there we upgraded to 24" iMacs, with an Epson R2400, and a 750 for each one. We also kept the Nikon Coolscan 5000, and 9000.

The 750 is dual interface (USB2 and firewire), has no problems with Macs, and can scan film up to 8x10. The highest resolution I ever used was 3200ppi, which wasn't quite as sharp as the 5000/9000's 4000ppi, but only when you printed VERY large. The only time I didn't use the 750 was for a series of prints that were 16x23.

It does have a few slight drawbacks, like the maximum resolution, and some people have reported problems with the scanner focus. But the pros far outweigh the cons for me. It (or its replacement) will have a place in my home darkroom when I get around to setting up the digital end.
 
I'm using Minolta Dimage Dual IV on my Intel macbook. Works great. I downloaded the software from the konica minolta site.
 
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