Can someone share scanner samples of the Konica Minolta DiMage Elite 5400?

fabulousrice · Feb 19, 2021

I'm thinking of getting a better scanner... Of all the ones I've seen, the Elite 5400 seems pretty decent, but I'd love to see some samples if anyone has one they can share.
My only problem is that I shoot 110, 16mm and 120 as well as 35mm. Maybe that's not the best one for me but I shoot mostly 35mm... and maybe there are holders for 110 and 16mm? I would make sense to scan them with this kind of gear.

Les Sarile · Feb 19, 2021

The original 5400 does in fact outresolve the Coolscan V & 5000 but not in the way they all outresolve the desktop flatbeds. The most significant difference between the 5400 to the Coolscans is scanning speed. At max res with ICE each frame scan on the 5400 can take several minutes compared to the Coolscan V at a 1.5 minutes and the 5000 at about 50 seconds. The 5400 II was significantly upgraded the speed using LED as a lightsource but still about the speed of the V rather then the 5000. If you haven't already, you can see the review of the 5400 II at https://www.filmscanner.info/en/MinoltaDimageScanElite5400II.html

brbo · Feb 20, 2021

I've got a few Minolta 5400 (V1) scans on flickr...

macfred · Feb 20, 2021

Old Gregg said:
@brbo you've got some great photos there!

I totally agree!

brbo · Feb 20, 2021

Minolta 5400 is a very nice scanner. It's not the fastest, but if your negative is flat there are very few scanners that will have better resolution or better DRange. I briefly owned the Minolta 5400 II and in my opinion it isn't an improvement to the original if you value image quality over speed. Mine also had a film transport problem so I returned.

The 5400dpi is real (not just marketing), but as it was said before it might not be a big deal over the 4000dpi scanners. It's 35mm only and if you shoot other formats you might consider 120 format scanner with glass holder. There are not that many of them, but if you can handle the firewire connection (or even SCSI), don't need ICE and you can find one near you so you can test it I'd pick Microtek 120tf over MF Coolscans.

Les Sarile · Feb 21, 2021

With the Coolscan 5000, I was able to scan my collection 110 film by pinching it in the manual film holder as shown below which I suppose you can also do with the Minolta's film holder.

It's very tedious but fortunately it only takes a few seconds to scan each frame and I didn't shoot too many. I can see on ebay today that there are 110 film holders for the Coolscan which sure would have made it less tedious to do! I suppose those were 3D printed?

Xiaole · Feb 22, 2021

I bought the scanner couple weeks ago, and can show you the first hand comparisons, before that, I have been using Epson V600, the flatbed scanner is really struggling with 35mm, even when I scan it at 3200dpi, details are really poor. The lack of auto-focus would often result soft and blurry images.
The Minolta 5400 has put my interest back to the 35mm format, like most of people say here, the speed is slow, and if you turn on the ICE, feel free to go for a walk, cook a meal and having a bath before checking the results. Having said that, if you take care of your negatives carefully, so that it will not result much dust, it is a fantastic machine. I usually just scan it with the lowest solution 1350dpi (I believe), and use the windows XP via virtual box, the batch utility tool would just scan a row of 6 images without the need to tweak each image.

You can view my scan from below;
https://www.flickr.com/photos/181736594@N06/albums/72157718391446493

Photos taken using Leica IIIF + Elmar 50 f3.5 + Fuji C200, processed at home using nearly expired Cinestill C41 kit.

fabulousrice · Feb 22, 2021

Xiaole said:
I bought the scanner couple weeks ago, and can show you the first hand comparisons, before that, I have been using Epson V600, the flatbed scanner is really struggling with 35mm, even when I scan it at 3200dpi, details are really poor. The lack of auto-focus would often result soft and blurry images.
The Minolta 5400 has put my interest back to the 35mm format, like most of people say here, the speed is slow, and if you turn on the ICE, feel free to go for a walk, cook a meal and having a bath before checking the results. Having said that, if you take care of your negatives carefully, so that it will not result much dust, it is a fantastic machine. I usually just scan it with the lowest solution 1350dpi (I believe), and use the windows XP via virtual box, the batch utility tool would just scan a row of 6 images without the need to tweak each image.

You can view my scan from below;
https://www.flickr.com/photos/181736594@N06/albums/72157718391446493

Photos taken using Leica IIIF + Elmar 50 f3.5 + Fuji C200, processed at home using nearly expired Cinestill C41 kit.

Thanks for sharing the feedback! Great pics!

Les Sarile · Feb 22, 2021

fabulousrice said:
I'm thinking of getting a better scanner... Of all the ones I've seen, the Elite 5400 seems pretty decent, but I'd love to see some samples if anyone has one they can share.
My only problem is that I shoot 110, 16mm and 120 as well as 35mm. Maybe that's not the best one for me but I shoot mostly 35mm... and maybe there are holders for 110 and 16mm? I would make sense to scan them with this kind of gear.

If you haven't already gotten a scanner, then I encourage you to consider the Nikon Coolscan V. It doesn't have the accessories of the 5000 and not as fast - but still faster then all others, but provides the same results.

fabulousrice · Feb 22, 2021

Les Sarile said:
If you haven't already gotten a scanner

Yes, I have an Epson v500 and a v350 I never use (too sluggish). But the Coolscan V costs a few Ks, mamma mia!

Les Sarile · Feb 23, 2021

fabulousrice said:
Yes, I have an Epson v500 and a v350 I never use (too sluggish). But the Coolscan V costs a few Ks, mamma mia!

In order of cost is the V, 5000 and 9000. A working V can generally be found for less then $500 even on auction. Make sure it comes with the SA-21. The 5000 about $1K and the 9000 over $2K generally and depending on accessories.I found a local CL listing for the V with SA-21 for real cheap. I do run these Coolscans using Nikonscan on a Windows Vista machine as I prefer that software but you can run them on newer machines with Vuescan.

fabulousrice · Feb 23, 2021

Old Gregg said:
One wise man once said to me:

"Old Gregg, if you are into archeology, coolscan yourself in the foot.
But if you're into film photography, build a camera-scanning rig."

I listened to him.
And look at me now - I'm on YouTube! I'm famous! I'm Old Gregg!

I've never seen much of a difference between a camera scanning rig and a scanner as far as results go, but once more, it's kind of hard to know where to find comparisons of such things.
It just sounds like I'd have to buy a digital camera and like I'd go mad trying to focus on something paper-thin, and like the rig would take up a lot more space than a scanner where I can pile up books when I'm not scanning, what does yours look like?

Alan Edward Klein · Feb 23, 2021

Here's medium format on a V850.

Yellow Daffodil Field by Alan Klein, on Flickr

Les Sarile · Feb 23, 2021

I have the full Nikon autobellows and slide film copier setup and can make copies as fast as I can spool it up with the fullframe D800 - a few seconds per frame. Depending on what film type, post work can be very time consuming. True B&W takes the least amount of post work particularly since ICE doesn't work this type of film. Color slides is the next easiest to DSLR scan but now ICE can be a great tool. When it comes to color negatives, DSLR scans maybe very fast but post work can take far longer then scanning. Add to that, if you have dust or scratches then there is no DSLR scanning method that even comes close to the Coolscan and IMO, the Coolscan+Nikonscan does a far more accurate job in terms of color and contrast.

Below is a perfect example of a very badly scratched up Kodak 160VC color negative that I scanned with the Coolscan as well as DSLR. I put in a lot of post work getting the colors right from the DSLR scan but didn't even attempt to clean up the scratches which the Coolscan's ICE does a perfect job on,

Full res version -> http://www.fototime.com/496ADC2265357CA/orig.jpg

Here is how a Coolscan's 4000dpi compares to my Pentax 14MP K20D as well as Nikon 36MP D800 when it comes to scanning 35mm Kodak Techpan film.

You can see that even though the D800 (7360 x 4912) applies more pixels then the Coolscan (5600 X 3600), they are almost equal in actual detail resolved with a slight edge to the Coolscan.

Full res -> http://www.fototime.com/8372250EA44CB06/orig.jpg

But of course none of these methods of scanning can fully resolve this particular film as you can see from the optically magnified crop on the right all the detail that was not resolved.

Can someone share scanner samples of the Konica Minolta DiMage Elite 5400?

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