Coolscan 9000 vs Minolta Multiscan Pro ED-5000 (mainly for Xpan)

kiss-o-matic · Oct 7, 2022

Been doing a ton of reading around. Getting good scans with Xpan shots definitely seems to be a pain point these days. Would love a TLDR on the comparison points of these two. Taking into account Xpan only: it seems that the Minolta is easier. The main downside it seems to me is the FireWire connection... but wouldn't a simple converter to USB work making it entirely usable on a laptop? I realize both are going to be ticking time bombs until they succumb to age... just like the Xpan itself. Why is this hobby so risky?

brbo · Oct 7, 2022

I don't have either scanner so I can't make extensive or short version of differences using those scanners for scanning panoramic 135 frames.

I did have CS 8000 and I don't think it was able to scan panoramic frames in the 135 holder. Looking at Minolta Multi Pro 135 holder it most probably won't be possible, either. So, you'll be scanning Xpan frames in glass MF holder. I don't expect there will be much difference. It will be slow.

One MF scanner that has somewhat better support for panoramic frames is Microtek 120tf if you are using their Scanwizard Pro software. You could scan two panoramic frames in 135 holder. I say could, because at least for me this mode is incredibly buggy.

Minilab scanners like Pakon and Noritsu will scan the entire roll of panoramic frames in one go and be VERY fast. Noritsu has 4000dpi resolution, Pakon 2000dpi. Imacon Flextights will be slower, but with even higher quality.

Unless you have a lot of money, I'd get a cheap flatbed to scan the entire roll in one go to make an "index print" and then scan selected individual frames on a 35mm scanner (scanning left and right side of frame separately and then stitch them in PS). I doubt this will be much slower than using MF scanner.

kiss-o-matic · Oct 7, 2022

I probably should have extrapolated a bit.

Disclaimers:
1: I have the EpsonScan v600 - forgot the US model name but it's a fine scanner for internet and sharing
1b: I wouldn't mind printing a few of these every now again
2: I'm not too bothered about speed. Obviously faster is better, but let's assume time isn't too much of an issue. I don't shoot tons these days and work at home so can easily queue something up, hit the button, and leave it for a while.

It is definitely only possible to scan X-Pan shots through the 120 holder w/ the Multi Scan Pro. I've read around a bit and other than time, it doesn't seem too horrible. The CoolScan 9000 is apparently better than the 8000 for Xpan stuff. Forgot why. But, apparently there is a holder than will print the whole 35mm roll which is probably worth it in the long run.

The other thing I'd mainly be concerned with is the FireWire connection. Egads. VueScan works on 64-bit Linux which is my OS of choice. (For the record I have to reboot into Windows b/c the XANE driver for Linux does not light the back light for the scanner, which is a huge turn off).

The other issue w/ my Epson is I think it's got dust under the glass which is getting old. I had a Plustek for a while, and while also a bit of a PITA, it had less dust despite being stored in he same room.

brbo · Oct 8, 2022

kiss-o-matic said:
2: I'm not too bothered about speed. Obviously faster is better, but let's assume time isn't too much of an issue. I don't shoot tons these days and work at home so can easily queue something up, hit the button, and leave it for a while.

I'm afraid that willing to settle for slow will not give you much more choice. As I already said there are only a few solutions that will scan panoramic frames unattended ("hit the button and leave").

kiss-o-matic said:
It is definitely only possible to scan X-Pan shots through the 120 holder w/ the Multi Scan Pro. I've read around a bit and other than time, it doesn't seem too horrible. The CoolScan 9000 is apparently better than the 8000 for Xpan stuff. Forgot why. But, apparently there is a holder than will print the whole 35mm roll which is probably worth it in the long run.

I've never heard of a holder that would enable CS 9000 scan the entire uncut roll of 135 film. There is an expensive adapter for small format Coolscans (and a less expensive one that can be modified to enable scanning of uncut rolls), thought. But even with that adapters you'll need to scan film twice (with different offsets in Vuescan) and then stitch.

kiss-o-matic said:
The other thing I'd mainly be concerned with is the FireWire connection. Egads. VueScan works on 64-bit Linux which is my OS of choice. (For the record I have to reboot into Windows b/c the XANE driver for Linux does not light the back light for the scanner, which is a huge turn off).

We've had a thread here on Photrio where one user confirmed FW still working perfectly in linux. Btw, there is no such thing as a simple FW to USB adapter. Those that do actually work are pretty expensive and won't work in linux anyway because they need proprietary drivers to work.

kiss-o-matic said:
The other issue w/ my Epson is I think it's got dust under the glass which is getting old. I had a Plustek for a while, and while also a bit of a PITA, it had less dust despite being stored in he same room.

Need to remove the glass plate for cleaning is not uncommon on Epson desktop scanners.

ant! · Oct 8, 2022

Linux & Firewire: This was me, here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/usb-1-1-vs-firewire-400-vs-usb-2.193615/page-2#post-2588976

I am on Kubuntu 22-04, so every Ubuntu (and probably Debian and many other) flavours and distros should work as well. Luckily, my old Thinkpad T540p has an ExpressCard slot, and I found a cheap and used Firewire400 card for it. Worked out of the box and much faster then USB on my scanner.

Newer and/or smaller laptops have likely no such slots, which would give you then these options:
- desktop PC with Firewire PCI card
- adapter chain: Firewire400 -> Firewire800 -> Thunderbolt 2 -> Thunderbolt 3 (this one looks like USB-C, but check that your laptop actually supports Thunderbolt. Some do, some don't.). I have not tried it, but should work. Not sure how Linux support is. See https://emulsive.org/featured/how-t...ers#firewire-400-device-to-thunderbolt-3-port

USB and Firewire are not (beside the above adapter chain) compatible. I see some cheap direct adapters sold, but found many saying these just don't work.

And regarding the scanner: Did not one of the 35mm Coolscans (5000?) had a continuous roll adapter? Just checking the filmscanner.info-article: I had the SA-21 in mind, but maybe this takes automatically 35mm frames, and not self-cropping to any size? Maybe SA-30 for complete rolls, from the description it sounds as if it can do non-standard sizes? Have a look: https://www.filmscanner.info/en/NikonSuperCoolscan5000ED.html (might be similar with the 4000 as well?). Just an idea, in case you don't need it for actual 120 film...

brbo · Oct 8, 2022

You can't scan panoramic frames with SA-30 or modified SA-21. Not with Nikon Scan and not with Vuescan. You'd need to scan the roll twice (with different offsets) and then stitch two appropriate frames together in software.

kiss-o-matic · Oct 8, 2022

brbo said:
I'm afraid that willing to settle for slow will not give you much more choice. As I already said there are only a few solutions that will scan panoramic frames unattended ("hit the button and leave").

I meant 1 frame at a time, actually. I'm pretty aware that a high quality solution within my budget is going to take some of my time.

brbo said:
I've never heard of a holder that would enable CS 9000 scan the entire uncut roll of 135 film. There is an expensive adapter for small format Coolscans (and a less expensive one that can be modified to enable scanning of uncut rolls), thought. But even with that adapters you'll need to scan film twice (with different offsets in Vuescan) and then stitch.

Right, that's what I was referring to. I actually own a license to some stitching software (which I used for something totally different than photos about 15 years ago) which is excellent. So, I'm not too bothered to actually do that. But I don't think such an item is a necessity.

brbo said:
Need to remove the glass plate for cleaning is not uncommon on Epson desktop scanners.

Right, I'd assume so. Not exactly thrilled with doing that. Feels like I'd break it for sure (or maybe even add more dust).

ant! said:
I am on Kubuntu 22-04, so every Ubuntu (and probably Debian and many other) flavours and distros should work as well. Luckily, my old Thinkpad T540p has an ExpressCard slot, and I found a cheap and used Firewire400 card for it. Worked out of the box and much faster then USB on my scanner.

I have a Laptop now (Linux Mint) and to be fair, I've needed to replace it for a few years now. I will probably go w/ the old Macbook Pro route and just make it a scanning machine. Looks like I can get something w/ Firewire on board used for $150 or even less. As it is now I'm rebooting in Windows to scan w/ Epson.... and do nothing else. It takes the whole computer for scan time, then I boot back into Linux. As per before, I'm not looking to do a huge amount of volume so having a dedicated crappy notebook off to the side seems like the best option for me.

jbrubaker · Oct 8, 2022

I've owned both of those scanners in the past but I have a better solution now. I'm digitizing my film using a Nikon Z7 with 50mm macro lens. the camera has a 45 megapixel full frame sensor. It is mounted on a small copy stand with a good quality light panel below. There are various solutions available to hold the film, but it can be as simple as laying it on the light panel. The resulting files are as good or better than either of the scanners you mention. I also used an Imacon scanner extensively back when I ran a photo lab. I'm not sure even that would do any better. Certainly, scanning with this camera is much faster, more convenient and has the advantage of being a great general purpose digital camera when it's off the copy stand. ---john.

Les Sarile · Oct 8, 2022

I have a Coolscan 9000 and since it can scan 6X9 film (56mm × 84mm) then it can also scan XPAN at 24mm x 65mm or anything else that would fit in those dimensions. For instance I've used the Nikon glass holder Nikon FH-869G and scanned multiple strips of 110 film at a time.
I also continue to use Windows Vista PC desktops running Nikonscan just for scanning still.

kiss-o-matic · Oct 8, 2022

Out of curiousity, at 4000 DPI (or whatever max is for 6x9) about how long does it take for a frame?

Kodachromeguy · Oct 8, 2022

I do not get it. Buy an old used Windows computer with FireWire to run the Minolta scanner. Use it standalone, no internet connection or risk. I use a WIN 7 Dell with a SCSI card to connect to the Minolta.

Here are some scanning options for Xpan negatives:

Hasselblad XPan Panoramic Camera: How to Handle the Film? (XPan 03)

worldofdecay.blogspot.com

Les Sarile · Oct 8, 2022

kiss-o-matic said:
Out of curiousity, at 4000 DPI (or whatever max is for 6x9) about how long does it take for a frame?

I've only scanned 6X7 which takes about 5 - 7 minutes with autoexpose, autofocus and ICE on. I would guess 7 - 9 minutes? Amount of RAM in the PC greatly influences this time.

kiss-o-matic · Oct 9, 2022

="Kodachromeguy"I do not get it. Buy an old used Windows computer with FireWire to run the Minolta scanner. Use it standalone, no internet connection or risk. I use a WIN 7 Dell with a SCSI card to connect to the Minolta.

Here are some scanning options for Xpan negatives:

Yes, I mentioned I'd do this above (w/ a Macbook). Not the best but very livable. Cheers for the link.

I've only scanned 6X7 which takes about 5 - 7 minutes with autoexpose, autofocus and ICE on. I would guess 7 - 9 minutes? Amount of RAM in the PC greatly influences this time.

Cheers - very livable.

Les Sarile · Oct 10, 2022

kiss-o-matic said:
Yes, I mentioned I'd do this above (w/ a Macbook). Not the best but very livable. Cheers for the link.

Cheers - very livable.

Since two frames can fit in the window instead of 6X9, I suppose you can scan two at a time. So essentially cutting the scan time in half.

brbo · Oct 17, 2022

brbo said:
One MF scanner that has somewhat better support for panoramic frames is Microtek 120tf if you are using their Scanwizard Pro software. You could scan two panoramic frames in 135 holder. I say could, because at least for me this mode is incredibly buggy.

Just a small addition to my previous comment... I've checked and Silverfast does work as advertised for scanning panoramic frames with the 35mm film strip holder on Microtek 120tf. You can scan two panoramic frames at a time*.

* Considering that there are more panoramic sizes on 135 film, two frames are all you can realistically ask for, otherwise you'd have to file down all but one of the vertical bars in the 35mm film strip holder which could then considerably hamper the ability of the holder to keep the film flat.

pwadoc · Nov 21, 2022

I currently own both. They both work fine on modern Macs, just do the standard firewire->thunderbolt adapter chain and use Vuescan. The Minolta achieves a higher resolution (> 4000DPI) for 35mm, but reduces to 3600DPI for medium format. There is a rumored full-resolution mode that makes two passes at full res on the Minolta with the original scanning software, but I have not had a chance to test it. The Coolscan manages ~4000DPI for both 35mm and 120, which is really impressive. The Coolscan is about 3x the size of the Minolta however, and in my option the Minolta negative carriers are much better.

I'd also note that I don't actually use either of them anymore, and just scan everything with my A7r IV because it's much much faster, I actually get higher resolution single-shot scans at 35mm, and if I need to I can get the same or better resolution in medium format with stitching.

Jeremy Mudd · Jan 20, 2023

As an alternative, I figured out a method to scan 35mm panoramic images with the Nikon CoolScan V using Vuescan, Negative Lab Pro, and the LH-3 insert.

Panoramic Scans with the Nikon CoolScan V — Jeremy Mudd Photography

In my last post I talked about incorporating a CoolScan V (“CSV”) into my workflow for 35mm, and hinted that I had an idea about how to “hack” it to scan 35mm panoramas. Natively the CSV isn’t set up to do this task, and its been the common opinion that to scan them at home you needed to move up to

www.jeremymuddphoto.com

Jeremy

Coolscan 9000 vs Minolta Multiscan Pro ED-5000 (mainly for Xpan)

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