I've decided that the time really has come to get a scanner for my accumulated 35mm negs and slides. The trouble is that there simply isn't much choice. Locally it boils down to the Nikon Coolscan 50 or Nikon Coolscan 5000. The local pricing works out at roughly US$800 or US$1600.
There is nothing much on eBay Australia second hand - no Canoscan 4000 or Minolta 5400 - and I definitely want at least 4000DPI. I had a look at US eBay and the Canons and Minoltas were still scarce and the Nikons all seemed to be new. They were cheaper than I could buy them here (including postage) but not cheap enough to make me ignore the local warranty. What I did see were a number of the Nikon LS8000 medium format scanners and it looks like I might be able to pick one of those up for under $1000 assuming they'll post to Australia. A bit of poking around on the B&H and Calumet sites turned up the Microtek Artixscan MF scanner for US$1500 new. So now my choices are: New Coolscan 50 (bought locally) vs. 2nd hand Nikon LS8000 bought in the US New Coolscan 5000 (bought locally) vs. Microtek Artixscan 120tf bought new in the US. Does anybody have any direct experience with any of these units? Or have a Minolta 5400 to sell? Thanks, Paul Ewins Melbourne, Australia -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
