LaserSoft Imaging

The recent discontinuation of the Nikon Coolscan 5000 appears to leave only the Coolscan 9000 as a "quality" film scanner on the market, and an expensive one at that. My Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro is still working ok - although it seems to showing a tendency to colour shift towards blue, whatever I do with calibration - but it won't work forever, and the drivers can't be expected to remain compatible with many future generations of OS releases (in my case OS X).

As far as I can see, the only remaining players are at the ultra-high, forget about it end (Hasselblad / Imacon) or the entry level (Plustek) which I cannot imagine offers much quailty, and in any case is 35mm only (I mainly scan XPan transparencies).

I'm not convinced that flat bed scanners like the Epson V750 offer the same level of dynamic range as the Minolta or Nikon scanners (although I'd be happy to be convinced otherwise) ...

So, as a general question, is there any future for film scanning as we know it ? Is there not an opportunity here for a well known specialist in the field to produce their own brand film scanners (I know Lasersoft is a software not hardware company, but anyway...) ... or do we try to grab one of the last Coolscan 9000s (accepting they're actually not all that good) and put in the freezer until we need it ?

Or is it Game Over ?

Dear drm,

It is a very interesting quesiton you're posting here.

Nikon discontinued the production of the CoolScan 5000 but still there are some scanners in the market to be bought, I am not sure about any official statement about the CoolScan 9000 as beeing the one remaining or if they are going to discontinue its production as well. In my opinion, Nikon's announcement along with the fact that less and less film is produced every day points only in one direction "DIGITAL"

However as you point out this also leaves an oportunity for specialists to produce their own brand film scanners, LaserSoft Imaging does not have any current plans to develop or produce any scanner (we are a software company), however we know of other companies like Plustek which are taking advantage of the fact that other manufacturers are stopping production to develop new products. At the present they have plans to release a next model for their OpticFilm 7500i and 7300 which might have some important enhancements but that is only an speculation, time and users have the last word in this case.

If you are a film user and have lots of it and plans to keep shooting film, then you might want to go for one of the Nikon scanners and as you put it "leave it in the fridge for a while until you need it", unless other users have more suggestions.

Cheers

Unfortunately, the light source ages even when not in use as the aging is usually due to oxygen intrusion on the soft vacuum within the bulb. As oxygen intrudes it reacts with the elements within the bulb causing color shifts and eventually failure. This is equally applicable to florescent and LED lighting as to incandescent bulbs. So, the equipment will age regardless of use. Most importantly the light source will age. Which all speaks against buying one and storing it in the freezer.