First rate performance at a competitive price
Written: Sep 05 '03 (Updated Sep 06 '03)
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Pros: Sharp, excellent dynamic range, ICE works, good price, fast, good looking unit.
Cons: There is a trace of noise and flare/bleed but nothing to worry about.
The Bottom Line: Superb results and fantastic value when compared with the competition.
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| userleif's Full Review: Konica Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400 Film Scanner... |
Overview
The Minolta Dimage 5400 scanner is a 35mm film scanner that can convert slide film, black and white film and colour negatives into digital image files. It has 5400 DPI resolution, excellent dynamic range, and a hardware implemented dust and scratch removal facility.
Hardware
The rather stylish unit is surprisingly narrow and long. The front silver panel has buttons to power up the device, to initiate a scan, and to eject the slides, and a slot with a door through which the slide/film tray is inserted.
The unit has either a Firewire or a USB 2 connection. I used the USB connection and it worked well with the USB 1 ports on my PC.
The unit is supplied with 2 trays: one for slides and one for a film strip. The slide tray holds 4 slides. It also has a neat trick whereby once the tray is inserted, the user can remove the last slide without ejecting the tray, and replace it with a new slide. The film strip holder takes a strip of up to 6 frames.
Software
The unit is supplied with Minolta's own scanner software. I found installation was a breeze and within minutes I was starting my first scan. The software is intuitive and allows the user to do everything (s)he would expect. The scan preview window is excellent, with the preview providing an accurate reflection of the resulting scan. The user can perform individual scans, or alternatively scan in batches of 1 to 4 slides or 1 to 6 negatives. A frame can be scanned with or without ICE. (ICE is a hardware and software implemented technique for removing dust and scratches from a scan.) The unit also has a hardware implemented grain reducer that must be activated whenever ICE is activated. (The user has no choice.)
The user has a choice of using a novice utility about which I have heard favourable remarks, or a more advanced scan utility. I like to have full control over the scans and so use the scan utility.
The one criticism I have of the software is the lack of an IT8 calibration facility. (This is a method of calibrating the scanner to a given slide film to ensure that the scan matches the original.) However I purchased from www.coloraid.com in Germany a Fuji Provia IT8 calibration slide, and using third party software, I was able to create a profile for Fuji Provia. Thus when I scan a slide, I open the image file in Photoshop, and apply the profile to ensure an accurate match to the original slide.
Performance
I was rather pleasantly surprised at the high quality of the scans. A basic high resolution scan without ICE takes about 1 minute and scrapes most of the detail from a 100 ASA slide. The unit seems to get most of the detail from highlights and shadows without either burning out or blocking up. Certainly the results were significantly better than I could achieve with my other scanner, a now somewhat elderly Microtek Artixscan 4000T (please note: not the later 4000TF). Kodachrome 64 slides that were a challenge for the Artixscan, became a pushover with the Minolta, with less tendency to posterise. This is consistent with a much higher dynamic range. I was also very surprised with ICE. Turn on ICE and a single scan can take almost 10 minutes in some cases. However the results are phenomenal and seem to show no reduction in image quality. (Many people report that ICE used with Nikon scanners slightly softens the image.) I tried ICE with Fuji Sensia, Fuji Provia and Kodachrome 64. (The manual states that ICE does not work with Kodachrome. The originator of ICE suggests that it might not work on some Kodachrome frames, though in my tests it produced astounding results.) The alternative to ICE is to spend 20 minutes or more laborously touching up each image to remove dust specks and scratch marks.
The unit is not all roses. On one or two scans I noticed some noise. (This showed as a green speckling in dark areas.) Usually noise is not evident, but on some scans where I moved the gamma point far to the left, the noise showed itself. I also noticed on one or two scans some flare/bleed. This is a faint halo around bright objects on a dark background and is seen in most if not all desktop CCD scanners. However, the noise is noticeably less than I have seen with the Artixscan 4000T and I suspect it is no worse than that seen with other units such as the Nikon 4000 ED. I tried the multi-pass scanning to see if that would remove the noise. It did remove the speckle, but revealed tram lines in its place! AS I have said, this noise is not usually visible unless you do severe adjustments to the image.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 750
Interface: USB
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Epinions.com ID:
userleif
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Reviews written: 34
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