Silverfast "Cannot Focus" Issue with Nikon 4000 ED

[dnewsom]

For some reason, Silverfast either crashes or gives me the above mentioned, "Cannot Focus" notice when I attempt to scan negative film (Kodak Portra 400UC).

I am running Mac OS 10.4 with Silverfast 6.5.Or3

Thanks,

David Newsom

[LSI_Heidorn]

Dear Mr. Newsome,

did you try to set a valid vocus point manually and to try the very same scan ?!

SOmetimes the scanner itself ( or the MAID library ) can crash or stall when trying to focus on an area that is not good for focussing.

Please try to find a valid focus positon ( edge / high contrast in the image ) and give feedback !

Greetings,

Nils Heidorn

[dnewsom]

Nils-

Since it crashes on negative film strips, I haven't been able to attempt a manual focus on a single image. The moment I load the film strip into feeder, it crashes Silverfast. I've tried turning the focus to "Manual" but it still crashes or gives the "Cannot Focus" error warning.

I think it's a conflict between my OS and the version I'm running (SilverFast v 6.5.0r3), but I'm now having trouble with the upgrade. I'll post a note as soon as I upgrade.

Thanks,

David

[LSI_Heidorn]

Dear David,
okay, i'll be waiting for update on your upgrade then !

Greetings,

Nils Heidorn

[dnewsom]

Hello Nils-

Sadly, my upgrade to 6.5.5r4 did not correct the issue.

Whenever I attempt to scan a negative film strip, the SF drives gives me a "Cannot Focus" error. If I try again, the driver simply crashes.

Again, I'm running Mac OS 10.4.11
Nikon 4000 Supercoolscan
Scanning Kodak Portra 400 U

If you have any ideas, I'm all ears.

Thanks,

David

[LSI_Heidorn]

Dear David,
reading your postings again, i ask myself:

-Did SF crash on you ( regardless of the used version ) as soon as you load the film (like in your second posting ) ?

-If this is *not* always the case, does it then crash when doing the overview (thumbnail) scan or when doing the prescan of a single image or when doing the endscan ?!

Thanks for clarifying this !

Greetings,

Nils Heidorn

[dnewsom]

Nils-

Sometimes I get "cannot focus" error when trying to "prescan" the filmstrip, and sometimes SF crashes altogether. It's not consistent.

Interestingly, I also get this magenta shift when I scan slides. I thought this might be the Nikon Scanner fault, but when I scanned with v**s**n Demo, it did not occur.

[LSI_Heidorn]

Dear David,

when you say "prescan the filmstrip", are you talking of doing the thumbnail overview of the whole filmstrip or are you talking about pressing the prescan button to generate a preview of one image in the strip ?!

This is something out of the ordinary, i probably will pass this to testing, did you contact our support before and ( possibly ) have gitten a ticket number already ?!

Greetings,

Nils Heidorn

[dnewsom]

Nils-

No matter which way I attempt to scan negatives, it does not work. Period. I cannot scan negatives. If I attempt to preview the entire strip, I get "Cannot Focus".

Also, as you see in the screenshot, I also cannot scan slide film. I get the terrible magenta image you see in the shot. Notice the nearly non-existent Green Channel.

And, yes, I have been trying to solve this issue with support, but they have not responded. To be honest, after $500 in upgrades and persistent problems, I'm really disappointed in Silverfast. This has been a total pain.

Having said that, I really appreciate your help.

David

[LSI_Heidorn]

Dear David,
whatever is going on on your machine, it certainly is no standard issue...

I 'll forward your case to our testing to make sure that they try to verify your problems.

This either results in them beeing able to reproduce the Problem, then we can do a bugfix ( if it is in our power and not another flaw in the Nikon MAID Intercae ) or it results in contacting you directly to find out whats so special about your situation.

Greetings,

Nils Heidorn

[dnewsom]

Thanks, Nils. Silverfast Online support decided that they could not fix the matter.

Not sure where to go from here, but I'll start by taking the scanner to Nikon. Perhaps the green channel is not working properly.

I'll let you know what happens.

David

[LSI_Heidorn]

Dear David,

well i tossed it to them again, lets see if they got another idea, but certainly i am also drawn to the conclusion that it might be your scanner....

Greetings,

nils heidorn

[Mallen]

David -- I, too, have been unable to use my Nikon 4000ED with Silverfast. The problem I encountered seems to be that the strip film feeder on the scanner is not compatible with the Intel Mac chip. In other words it is a Nikon firmware issue. There is a thread on this on this forum, which you may find of interest: nikon-scanner-freezes-when-ejecting-film-t4947.html. There are also threads on digital darkroom forum on photo.net. I saw a post, perhaps on this forum, reporting that Silverfast might try to develop a workaround of its own to fix this but I have not seen anything more recent saying where this stands now. Also, there was a post recently on photo.net about some sort of Nikon software update but I don't know if it pertains to the problem you have.

Martin

[methc]

I have the Nikon 4000 ED scanner and two ~Macs. A Powermac G4 OS 10.4.11 and an Intel imac running 10.4.11.also.
The Intel will not see the filmstrip unit but the G4 will. The Intel does see the slide carrier as does the G4. But only when both computers are using Nikon Scan 4

My problem is that my version of Silverfast SDK-SE 6.6.Or1 does not find the Nikon on either of my Macs. The CD came bundled with a Microtek i800 scanner.Why?

[LSI_Heidorn]

Dear methc,
as i posted in the other thread you opened -> you cannot use the Microtek version, please download a demo for your scanner.

To all others: please give the new NikonSF Version for Leo & intel ( as well as for tiger & ppc ) a try.
Just download a demo, you can serielize it with your normal 6.5 NikonMaid number of course !
That version uses a new native interface that does not suffer from Nikon's lack of support for intel & leo.

Obviously its an early version but it feels stable already :-)

Greetings,

Nils Heidorn