Question regarding Nikon LS-8000 on OSX

[BB]

Is there anyone working successfully with SilverFast for the Nikon LS-8000 in Mac OS X 10.4?
I downloaded the trial version of SF 6.5.1r2, but honestly I am rather disappointed. Things working fluently with my LS-4000 seem to be rather half-baked with the LS-8000 (i.e. slow adjustments, inconsistent color, etc.). I don't know if this is a matter of my setup (SF installed for 2 scanners), insufficient computing power for the medium format files (which I doubt on a 2.66GHz Mac Pro), or just incomplete support of a 4 year old scanner.

Since Nikon Scan is rather a pain, and v**s**n is, ehm, a little special regarding its user interface (although very stable and with a lot of features (at least in theory)), I'd like to use SilverFast, but (for the price) I'd like it to be working as I am used to.

So, before I come to a decision I'd be grateful for any reports?

Bernhard

[RAG]

I wonder if you are up against the same thing Mallen is with the LS-4000. Check with Nikon as he did to see what they tell you.

I received the following response from Nikon technical support today:

"Unfortunately the LS-4000 is not fully compatible with Intel Macs. It cannot used powered adapters such as the SA-21, SF-210 or SA-30. You can use the FH-3 and the MH-21 but you cannot use the strip film adapter. Some users reported success using v**s**n. Unfortunately we do not have any information if or when their will be an update to correct this. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks for using Nikon products!"

The problem I reported in my post above was the scanner freezing when I eject the film. I am using the SA-21 strip film feeder, which is one of the powered accessories listed in Nikon's response.

So, unless and until Nikon fixes this incompatibility with a firmware update (if it can be corrected via firmware), I'll have to keep my scanner attached to another computer (a PC or a non-Intel Mac).

Thanks to those who responded to my cry for help.

[BB]

Hi,

yes, I've read that post. I have a similar problem with my LS-4000, but on the 8000 it is different; there are no freezes, all hardware works basically, but the way SF works is just weird (slow, inconsistent, ICC problems?).
Hard to put into clear words :-), but I'll try as soon as I get to my next scanning session.
For now I'd be content with user reports saying "yes, on my Mac this combination works great" or "no, I haven't got the LS-8000 to work on my Mac since years", before I go through a uninstall-/reinstall-procedure and a deeper analysis etc. (though that's probably hard to come by, the LS-8000 is not the freshest machine, and people with scanners are naturally becoming scarce these days ;-) )

BB

[RAG]

BB,

The thing that made me think about that other posting is the fact that your scanner seems to work for you with v**s**n and not with Nikon Scan or SilverFast as is the case with Mallen.