Designed for use by imaging professionals, the SUPER COOLSCAN 5000 ED offers 135/IX240 film scanning at an amazing 20 seconds per image (including image transfer to display) - at 4, 000 dpi true optical resolution. Highly accurate color reproduction and representation of detail are made possible by the 16-bit A/D converter and 16-bit output channel.The SUPER COOLSCAN 5000 ED targets primarily business users such as professional photographers and photo finishers, who require superb image quality and high-speed scanning capability. Private users of 135/IX240 format cameras - advanced amateur SLR photographers, for example - will welcome the scanner's speed and image quality. Users who deal with numerous slide mounts and uncut film rolls will appreciate the increased ease of use and productivity afforded by optional accessories like the SLIDE FEEDER SF-210 and ROLL FILM ADAPTER SA-30. The SUPER COOLSCAN 5000 ED offers the performance and efficiency to make it the ideal digital archiving solution.With fast, easy image transfer thanks to the USB 2.0 interface, the SUPER COOLSCAN 5000 ED is an extremely powerful, extremely fast, extremely efficient desktop film scanner that will augment your productivity and give you scanned images that will take your breath away.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Mac users beware...
Comment: I've owned this scanner for several years. I did quite a bit of research when I purchased it and felt that it was the best value for the money at the time. I'm not aware of any new negative scanners coming onto the market in the past few years that would change that assessment.
I also have an Epson Perfection V500 Photo Scanner which I use for large format negatives. I've tried it for 35mm and I can tell you that the Nikon delivers superior results - no question.
I scan color slides as well as color & b+w negatives. The results are good with all of them. The scans are not as good as professional drum scans, but from a cost-per-scan standpoint this is the way to go. The main difference is edge focus which isn't perfect with the Nikon.
For my old 35mm color negs (which are generally from an old point and shoot) this scanner (along with the NikonScan software) does a great job. The software dust removal does a great job as well.
For my fine art 35mm b+w negatives it delivers good quality, high resolution scans. The dust removal software doesn't work on B+w however, so there's always some post clean-up involved.
I'm a Mac user and I have to warn you all that Nikon's included software just doesn't work on an Intel Mac. They seem completely uninterested in helping their Mac users and I have found the whole situation quite frustrating. However, I have had good, consistent success running NikonScan on Windows via Parallels. It seems crazy but it works pretty well. Sure it's inconvenient but after all the crashing in OSX I just gave up.
Nikon's support sucks so pray that you don't have a problem. I did and it took forever to get it handled. Still, since then my scanner has worked like a trooper.
I've demo'd other plugins like Silverfast but I don't like them very much so I use NikonScan in Windows.
I've often considered selling this scanner and getting something else, but I haven't found a better tool in this price range.
Customer Rating: Summary: Much better than expected!! Works great with OS X 10.5 on the Mac
Comment: I have used the coolscan 4000 for a while with mixed results and recently had a horrible time with it on a friends mac running OsX 10.5 with the newest cool scan 4.02 software.
Well I'm very happy to report that I picked up the 5000 over the weekend along with the 210 auto feeder and have been extremely impressed with the results.
Running the coolscan 4000 and 4.02 nikon scan software, I experienced crashes every 7 slides or so. Not so with the Coolscan 5000, nikon scan 4.02 running on an iMac with 2 gigs ram and sys 10.5.
I've easily bulk scanned 50 slides in a sitting without jam or crash. Now that I've tweaked my settings, the result have been excellent.
Right now I'm scanning kodachromes mostly. I would recommend
Digital Ice on (magically removes all scratches)
Enable Digital DEE shadow adj 40 highlight 10 threshold 100 (lightens dark shadows, drops highlights)
I am not using post processing ROC or GEM
Also in preferences make sure you set advance colr settings to a sample point size of 5x5 and drop contrast calculations to 0 for both black and white. This will prevent the auto contrast function from blowing out your highlights.
I also have auto focus and exposure on in my batch settings.
You will need to tweak the settings obviously depending on what you're scanning, but the above seem to work well for most of my batched images.
Good luck.
For those that have had problems with the 210 feeder jamming, I had a few hiccups at the outset but these calmed down after an hour or so. I think the spring loaded plate can put too much pressure on the right side of the slides causing the uppermost slide to catch on the one below. I put a small felt floor protector on the left side to minimize pressure on the right and enhance on the left and the problem disappeared. Since then, I've removed the pad and have not experienced a single jam scanning hundreds.
Customer Rating: Summary: Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED Film Scanner
Comment: The scanner produces excellent quality images. The process is fast and easy. I have successfully scanned color and black and White negatives as well as slides. All with good results. The software is adequate but somewhat prone to crashing (Windows XP Machine). The auto slide feeder, if used, is problematic unless modified to reduce jamming.
Customer Rating: Summary: Wonderful tool
Comment: I'm a fairly accomplished amateur photographer. I've got film from Africa, National Parks and other places, and have now put around 500 slides and negatives through this scanner.
It's *great*.
The dynamic range is fantastic. 'Dark' images come through wonderfully. If it was unintentionally underexposed, the 16-bit color depth gives lots of room for adjustment. I was able to rescue many previously useless images and get decent digital files.
Speaking of rescues, many old family photos have rolled through my scanner, and the pleasure of saving and restoring old memories has been of great worth.
The negative strip feeder struggles with strips less than two frames long; some of my old negatives were strangely cut, and I ended up enclosing them in plastic slide frames.
At full resolution and color depth, you can generate 120MB TIFF image files from a scan. You will want lots of storage.
The only weak point of this scanner is the software. It works, but it is unintuitive and quirky. Occasionally it crashes. Nikon creates great hardware, but the team that made the software should be bludgeoned for besmirching an otherwise great product. Plus- upgrades and bug fixes, Nikon? Where are those?
For those willing to pay a little more, Silverfast can step in with something more reliable and with a few useful bells and whistles, like automatic HDR.
If you need an excellent tool for pulling 35mm film into the 21st century, this is it. It's relatively fast, is accurate on the color, the scratch/dust reduction is awesome, and it's *only* a thousand bucks. Once you're dialed in on the software, you can do wonders with those old photos.
Customer Rating: Summary: Slow and tedious
Comment: Nikon makes great cameras but awful software and this unit relies heavily on software. The scanner is slow as can be and making pre-scan adjustments with the software tedious and time consuming. Much faster with Photoshop! Bulk scanning in not a viable option due to the time it takes per image. I had the APS attachment and it failed continuously to take the film in. I sent it back to Nikon for repairs with detailed description of what was wrong and it came back with the same problems unfixed. Tried it with different brand films and still wouldn't accept rolls. For such an expensive machine it is barely worth it. Certainly not if you don't have much time to fiddle. This is all sad as the quality of scan is clearly there, just the ergonomics of using this unit and the ridiculously produced software are a typical Japanese pain in the neck. If this cost 400$ which it should, my attitude would be different but for 1000$ this is a barely 2 star machine and a hassle at that.
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